Quick visit from Callie

Callie came home for basically 24 hours to see Marci's missionary homecoming talk. We didn't get to see her a ton but we enjoyed every minute we did. She's doing great at school this summer and living it up as a college student. Doesn't she look beautiful? Leah wouldn't let her go. 

Father/Son's campout means girls weekend at home

Side note picture of my garden because it's grown so much in a short time and I'm super excited about it. Even my little carrot heads have sprouted. And I planted a garlic so I'm hoping that sprouts soon too.

Worms for the campout. Paul doesn't really like fishing so I sent him a picture of the worms for his hook to get him all "excited".  I'm nice huh!

All ready to go. He didn't send me any pictures of the campout. Just of the boys fishing the next day. But at least I got that. He's not much a picture taker. 

So while the boys roasted hot dogs and slept in a cold windy tent, us girls partied it up at The Cheescake Factory. Fried Mac and cheese, hamburgers, chicken parm and pizza. Yum… Leah was dying over the bread. She ate too much and then was too full for her dinner. We took our cheesecake home, got all snuggly on the couch and vegged out with our dessert and watched "Newsies". 

Ashlyn bunked with me in my bed but Leah decided she wanted to sleep in her own bed, so she ditched us. 

The next morning we ran a few errands. Got Leah a new lamp (since hers "mysteriously" broke) and then got home just after the boys had showered and cleaned up. Good timing for sure!

One last preschool field trip

A bunch of lasts going on around here. Sniff sniff. Today was Carter's last field trip at Youngstars Preschool. And it was a great one too, so I'm glad I canceled on volunteering at the other kids classrooms and went on it with him. They went to a cake and candy shop with the funnest grandma of a teacher who taught them to make marshmallow pops, chocolate covered animal crackers and "gourmet" chocolate covered pretzels. Then they got a tour of the candy shop and headed back to preschool with their baggy of goodies they made. 

Carter was too funny. The lady kept calling the marshmallows on a stick "pops" so Carter kept watching it after he made it and then finally turned to me and said "when is it going to POP?" Haha.. cute boy!

And cute Baylee who I have trained to call me "Auntie Amber". Hehe..I'm sneaky like that.

Carter and his weird food issues made him very leary of this marshmallow pop. But he wanted that marshmallow pretty darn bad, so he was willing to bite into the sprinkles (which he doesn't like) to get to the yummy center.

But as you can see from the look on his face, he wasn't sure it was worth it. We had to go to the bathroom to wash his mouth out from the "yucky stickiness". 

This poor boy. I sure hope he learns to handle more textures in his mouth or he will forever be doomed to eating his cookies letters morning, noon and night.

And here's a couple of other cute preschool friends. None of which will be joining him at Valley View in the Fall. :-(

Caden Spencer

Lucy Lamas

The zoo and lunch with Daddy

Trying to savor the last few weeks I have at home with just this little guy. I'm gonna miss him when he is in school next year. Luckily he's just gonna be in TK and it's not as rigorous as real school and I can pull him out early (or have him skip a day) if I want to.

The weather has been super cool lately, which I'm really not minding. Especially since we have gotten some very much needed rain. I hope it keeps coming. But Wednesday was really nice and even though it was a bit chilly and I should have brought a jacket to the zoo, it was nice to hang out with friends for a couple of hours and see the animals too. So a big thanks to my friend Beth for getting me in on her passes because I never renewed mine after they expired last year. I guess 10 years of having a zoo membership did me in. But I am grateful to still get to go from time to time. And Carter always has a great time too. Unless he knows he's going to see Daddy for lunch afterward. In which case, he just wants to leave after 30 minutes and go see his Daddy. Can't say I don't blame him. But we still had a fun morning and then stopped at Dreamworks (since it's only a couple of miles away from the zoo) for lunch and some Daddy time. 

Serioulsy skinks are scary looking. I couldn't decide which end was it's head at first. Creepy. 

One happy little boy that's for sure!

Busy Monday

So after my crazy morning with Carter and the gym incident, I collected myself (it took a good hour. I was quite upset at him), went home (never having gotten to exercise), showered and then got some lunch. I picked up my Zaycon ground beef delivery (20 pounds of ground beef. yahoo), picked up the kids from school, made 22 jars of strawberry jam (from the strawberries my awesome brother got me for Mother's Day) and then headed out to Golden Valley High School for Ashlyn's very last Elementary School band concert. I have SO completely loved having her be in band. She has learned so much and worked so hard and I'm just so proud of her for sticking with it. I think she really enjoys playing the flute and I couldn't be happier about that. 

Cutest flute player around! Love you my sweet Ashlyn! Always and forever!

Mother's Day Weekend

I don't understand why women don't like Mother's Day. I've always loved it. I know I'm not a perfect mom. Far from it. But celebrating Mother's Day or being happy it's here doesn't make me feel guilty.  It's a day to celebrate motherhood and all of the great women in my life who have mothered me or influenced me for the positive. It's also one of the only days of the year that I can get my kids to do what ever I want simply by saying "but it's Mother's Day". I fully do not mind using that to my advantage. 

Having said all of that, I had a great Mother's Day weekend. Friday night was the Mother/daughter activity night that is held yearly. I got to take both of my girls for the last year together. We made cute picture frames, had ice cream sundaes and listened to great speakers talk to us about being modest physically and spiritually and loving our roles as girls and women.

Then the next morning was a Stake RS conference themed "You are Amazing". What woman doesn't want to go to a conference with that title? We got to pick two classes to go to. I picked one on relationships where the speakers were uplifting and absolutely hilarious. Then I picked another one about finding the "amazing" in everyone. Because we all do great things..small or large. It doesn't matter. If we are trying to help or serve one another and be more Christlike, than we are doing ok!

Then after a "tad" long (one full hour) musical presentation where I may or may not have gotten distracted reading "cleanhumor" on my instagram account (I never said I was perfect), we had a yummy lunch and then I headed out with Becky to go shopping for the afternoon at the mall. That night Paul and I went on a little date out to dinner at BJ's Restaurant and then on Sunday I got showered with love and chocolate and affections all day long. It was fantastic. I loved it. I got to sleep in until 9:30. Got up and made breadsticks (for dinner that night) and a Texas Sheet cake (for RS that day) and then went to church. We had dinner at a friends house and partied until well…8pm cuz it was still a school night after all. I considered myself pretty darn lucky. 

Which I had to remind myself of the very next day when Carter threw such a ridiculous fit about staying at the kid's club at the gym that I had to yank him out of there before he threw up, completely missing my class and embarrassing myself pretty bad in the process. Just keeping it real people!

Leah made me this Mother's Day box which I thought was so completely adorable and even more so because she thought to make it all on her own. It made me so happy! 

And since I won't keep it forever, I took thorough pictures of it to remember it well.