We survived and almost thrived

It's usually a dreaded week of the year: SCOUT CAMP

A week where I pull duties as a single mom while my husband uses a week of his vacation time from work and takes the youth from our church on their summer activities. Off and on for the last 8 years or so we've endured mountain biking, camping, rock climbing, etc. Stephen loves it, I support him.

So this week in his absence we stayed busy: (sorry for the lack of photos--Stephen had the camera)

TOY STORY TRILOGY:
We watched the whole Toy Story Series 1, 2 & 3 This was pretty fun, we own the first one and that's all my kids had ever seen so on Monday night we reviewed #1 (a perfect FHE activity!) and then on Friday night we borrowed #2 from some friends and THEN when dad got home on Saturday we watched #3 which we rented on Blu-ray. They were really cute. I think I still like the first one the best but the last one was pretty cute too!

SWIMMING:
Every morning, except for Tuesday (we had doctor appts) we hit the community pool by 9:00 and would swim until Matthew needed a nap, at around 10:30. This was so ideal for us as Lindz and Sam just finished some swim lessons last week so this let them get even more exposure to the water and let me reinforce what they'd learned. The pool was not crowded at that hour so I could keep a better eye on my kids. And it allowed my kids to get a bunch of energy out and helped them be pretty mellow for the rest of the day.

CHORES & LESSONS
Another way we stayed busy was a chart of chores and lessons that we did faithfully each day. My children already do a daily chore but in the summer we add to that chore list as they are home and around to learn AND with them all being home, keeping the house in order is a lot more work. That combined with Kaitlyn's daily piano practicing and Sam's reading lessons, we were pretty full.

DEVOTIONAL
My favorite thing about summer is the added time in the mornings where we get to really study the scriptures and go into more detail teaching and explaining the gospel found in them. This week was 2 Nephi 31 and it was fun to create a diagram showing a path that leads to heaven that has a gate you must pass through to get on. Doing this diagram with Sam and Kaitlyn really helped it click for them. They were all into it and it was a great mommy moment for me!

The other thing that they're really into is "marking" their scriptures. Parts that they really like, they'll highlight and mark up. Sam even has taken to opening his scriptures on his down time and "looking for words that make him feel happy inside" and marking those. Sometimes I wonder if it's going to get out of hand and if they'll miss the concept of highlighting because it seems so much like being able to color in a book (total no-no in our house) but for now, if I'm guiding it it's working ok.

Throw in a couple doctors appointments and an adventurous purse shopping/kick board shopping/sonic ice cream treats outing with our favorite Rachel Hay--one of my most special friends--love this girl. (And my new purse is super cute!) And that was the week!

So that's how we did it, we just stayed busy. And know what? I LOVE having all my kids home with me and planning our week of activities and doing special things with them. Bring on the rest of the Summer!!

Memorial Day Weekend

We decided to take advantage of the extra day off and take a trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa McKneely for Memorial Day! It was a great visit, as always. We love spending time with them and cousins and just getting away from our own life for a couple days. Here are some of the highlights:

We DID fly some cheesy cheap kites, or tried to without much success, We DID help to cut down a dead tree, we DID listen to Grandpa McKneely''s favorite song, "Stars and Stripes Forever" really loud and march around the house AND--

Kids helping grandma make cakes and muffins in the kitchen:Getting our swimming legs used to the water again: A walk down to the pond where we went canoeing: And this little guy finally decided that he COULD walk and was really taking to it by the end of the weekend and is quite sturdy now a week later! He's loving his new "trick"!!

Kaitlyn End of Year stuff

So Kaitlyn has been quite an involved little girl this year....she played soccer for the first time this year. She had amazingly patient and encouraging coaches who made it fun for her. I think she sometimes even surprised herself with her abilities. One memorable moment was in a game a little over halfway through the season where she ended up with the ball and began to dribble it up the field and she almost shocked everyone, including herself by scoring a goal but didn't quite make it there. Her coaches and all of us on the side were thrilled for her! It was like it all clicked. There are days when she wants to play again, but she really wants to try ballet too--so we'll see.

A really fun thing that happened close to the end of the school year, when her favorite children's author, her Grandpa Lewis. He came to her class and shared his books and gave a little lesson on what it takes to be an author and taught each class member to draw their own duck!! She even prepared a sweet introduction about him and here is a photo of her getting up and reading it:

Then there was the end of year class party and class awards. Kaitlyn was recognized by her teacher for being a super great reader AND for being very responsible! I've really enjoyed being active in her classroom and really feel strongly that parent participation improves learning and improves the education your child receives. I have come to love her teacher oh so much--she LOVES Kaitlyn and I love anyone who loves and cares for my child. I just hope she can teach more of the McKneely kids!! Thanks Mrs. Donahue!!

Sam's End of year Fun!

Sam is 5.....he starts Kindergarten in the fall......he's getting way too big!

Here are some of his end of the school year activities:Their musical performance where they sang "I am a pizza...." Sam was a GREAT performer, especially considering he'd missed a whole week of school and practicing while we were on vacation.
They have "water day" at school where they have fun water play and they get to paint their faces. Sam became a Tiger--I tried to tell him that tigers aren't allowed in my van, but he didn't buy it!!

And then there was the end of year picnic--which happened to be rescheduled due to weather, here is Sam with one of his BEST friends, H....And his AMAZING teachers, who have grown to be my friends, Marcy Griffith and Laura Crutchfield
These ladies are key players in my mom support system, always encouraging me and offering me good sound parenting advice! LOVE THEM! Feel so blessed to have found true partners in raising my kids!! I feel so wonderful about leaving them in their care for preschool!

But school now is over--BRING ON SUMMER!!

A perk--with the Cooks!!

Our road trip home from Orlando took us to our wonderful friends Kevin and Krissie Cook!

Those of you who know us, know that I served a mission in Houston, Texas and at the end of my mission, my assignment kept me crossing paths with an attractive, single, Ward Mission Leader who I later married. Kevin and Krissie were missionaries that I served with and the two of them were serving in the branch where Stephen served when he and I met! They are good friends and were thrilled when they got married! We even attended their wedding in CA.

Anyway, fast forward it WAY TOO FARand we were thrilled to find that they lived on our route home from our cruise and we stopped in for the night, played with their darling kids, ate some wonderful spaghetti and enjoyed a way too short of a walk to a lake and boat dock! Total envy!!
We've decided to come and see them again and enjoy their wonderful beaches and even better company!! Love you guys!!

Last Day on Board

Last one, I promise...on the boat. It was just a such a full day!!

After the princesses, and Tink, and the Diaper Dash upset, you'd think that was enough for one day right? It IS, BUT.....this is Disney!!

We enjoyed miniature golfing on the top deck (I wonder how many balls get thrown off the boat each trip?) a matinee showing of one of the nightly shows--Matthew wasn't a fan so I waited in the lobby with him and let him climb up and down stairs,

And we finished up one of the most clever activities I think--it's an on board mystery. You get a card with a who done it mystery and there are 10 "paintings" on the ship that are really computer screens. You have one of 2 mysteries and you hold up a card to the painting (which is really a computer screen) and it starts into the mystery giving you a clue and you have your list of villains that you're trying to narrow down the who done it. It was very clever, a great activity for us to do to fill time throughout the week. Our mystery involved stolen paintings and I think Maleficent was the one who was our culprit--bad lady!!

And while Matthew took a nap, Stephen took the older 3 to the pool and the much anticipated AQUA-Duck--a 750 foot enclosed water slide on the top of the boat that at one point has you going out over the edge of the ship so all that's below you is a 150 foot drop to the ocean! Kaitlyn and Sam each went twice and were super thrilled with it! Wish they'd brought a camera!!And that night for dinner, we all dressed up a little fancy--all except for Sam who we had to coerce into just wearing a collard shirt--this kid HATES dressing up! This is a photo of Stephen with his family--just love these wonderful people!!

That night Kaitlyn cried because she didn't want the vacation to end--inside I was right with her, I didn't want it to end either.

We had an early morning breakfast--here we are with our glorious waiters who took care of us each time--they were amazing!!
And then we got off the boat--here we are with it in the background--time for 8 hours in the car!! (we had to be jump started because we accidentally left an indoor light on!! oops! Thanks to a good guy named Jon who rescued us!)

Diaper Dash

So Matthew was one of a handful of babies on board, and at 13 months old, is probably the oldest one of those who don't walk, crawling is his thing, and YES, HE'S FAST!

The Incredibles" themed Diaper Dash was a crawling event for all babies on board and we knew he was a shoe-in for the win. Perfect strangers would watch him crawl (crew members too) and come up to me to ask if I was going to enter him. One guy jokingly said he was going to start a betting pool on him because he was so fast!

So come time for the event and we register, we size up the competition which was really a joke because he was so much bigger and faster than the rest.Stephen held him at the starting line and I waited at the finish line. We'd warmed him up and were holding him back because he just wanted to GO!!

But when it came time for the race to start, all the yelling and screaming really scared him and he turned around to go back to dad. I crawled about halfway to get his attention and get him to crawl to me, which he did faster than he has in a long time, crying the whole way--but know what?

HE WAS ROBBED!! the mother next to me had gone halfway up the lane too to get her babies attention and she picked her baby up before she crossed the finish line and they deemed her the winner!! (We've even got it on tape!)

It really wasn't a big deal to us, we thought it was fun and a good time. (and we knew who the REAL winner was!) There wasn't any big prize we felt robbed of, but it seemed to be a big deal to other guests. For the rest of the cruise people would call him "the crawling baby" and come up to me telling me how they'd seen that other baby cheat--and they were so upset about it! So funny!!