The End of School

Boy has time flown by! We've been busy, and I haven't blogged everything that we've been up to, so here are a few highlights of the last couple of months:

Dallin competed in his 3rd Pine Wood Derby. He took 1st in Style, and 2nd to last in speed, but it's all about how cool the car looks, right?
His car was a skate board, which last minute, at the church, the found a toy elephant from the nursery and decided to glue it on the top to add a little weight. Apparently it was a little too much. I don't know why they couldn't have found a lighter animal, like a mouse.



Ashlynn's class went to the Denver zoo on a field trip. There were so many parent volunteers that day, that our group that I chaperoned, included Ashlynn and I. Her favorite part of the zoo was a mock covered wagon pulled by plastic oxen. She played another season of soccer. She got to eat lunch with the principle because she eared an award for being "Honest", and at her end of the year celebration, Mrs. Kempf gave her the "big helper" award. She said that Ashlynn is always asking Mrs. Kempf how she can help her, helping those around her, and she said that she thought that Ashlynn could practically run the class herself.





Talie finished the 6th grade and will be going into Middle School next year - CRAZY! She also was selected to eat lunch with the principle because she was honored the award Excellence, because of her hard work.

Benson takes the kids on rides around the cul-de-sac. I guess it's like they say, "You can take the boy out of the country, but not the country out of the boy.

I completed my first triathlon! Before this year, I could only swim to save my life. Call me crazy, but I like to breathe when I exercise, so when I have my face under water, and I'm trying to swim, I panic. But, thankfully my good, patient friend, taught me how to swim-thanks Dina! And that was my goal, to be able to swim so that I could complete the triathlon. It was so much, and there were 8 women from our ward who raced, so at the end we had a huge cheering section.

Sorry, I don't have any race pictures, I'll have to find one and post it later.

We said goodbye to our good friends and NC next door neighbors, who moved back to Apex after a 1 year stop in Colorado (ok., yes, we are a little jealous).














We saved three baby bunnies. They fall into our window wells, and then can't get out. So we open our basement windows, catch them, let the kids pretend they're their pets for a few minutes and then let them go.

Aaahh, Mother's Day. I've decided that this is one of my all time favorite holidays. The day starts out with me sleeping in and staying in bed absolutely guilt free, because I know that I must stay in bed as I wait for my children to bring me breakfast in bed. This year they brought me a huge platter full of breakfast. (This effort is always headed up by Talie - Thanks Talie!) It contained chocolate milk, cereal, orange slices, and a bagel with strawberry jam. Mmmm good. Then is my favorite part, when the kids clamor up onto the bed and bring me the gifts that they made me at school. I will be so sad when the day comes that they want to buy me a gift instead of make me one.
One of my all time favorite gifts was a poem that Dallin wrote me in kindergarten. It was a fill-in-the-blank poem where he had to finish the sentence with his own choice of word. My favorite sentence was, "My Mom is as pretty as __________ . Most of the other kindergartners put words like: flower, rainbow, or rose, but not Dallin, he wrote, My Mom is as pretty as . . . my Dad.
After we finished with the gifts, Peyton came up from the basement carrying tissue paper, saying, "Happy Muddah's Day!" And in the tissue paper was his favorite dinosaur and 5 packages of fruit snacks. Truly a gift from the heart. All day, he kept going down to the basement and filling gift bags with his favorite toys and coming upstairs with a big grin, and a "Happy Muddah's Day, Mom!"
Then at church we got a See's chocolate bar to get us through the last two hours - you can't beat chocolate - and the rest of the day, you can just get away with not doing too much, and not feeling guilty about it. Over all, it just reminds me how grateful I am for my kiddos, to be able to stay at home with my children, and for a Mom who I always knew loved being a Mom. Happy Mother's Day to All!
I should have taken a picture of my beautifully arranged platter, but my kiddo's are funner to look at.