June 2017--week 2

Lake day!  Kaitlyn was a super trooper being so tired from Girls Camp, we would have stayed home but our next few weekends are busy and lake time wont be possible.  It was a gorgeous day!

"THE WASP NINJA"--When Kaitlyn got home from girls camp, she was a little bummed that she hadn't been able use a tent, so she asked permission to set up a tent in the backyard to sleep in.  A few hours after setting it up, she went out there and discovered a wasp in her tent!  Kaitlyn has been stung a few times by wasps (a bunch of them actually swarmed her once and she got stung a few times) so needless to say she's CRAZY scared of them.  Enter her hero little brother, "THE WASP NINJA" who crazy fast came in and grabbed the perfect tool--SALAD TONGS and went out to avenge his sister and banish the wasp.  I was cracking up. 

Needless to say, the wasp left and the three of these guys enjoyed a night sleeping in the tent.

Other fun happenings this week included going to the Ft. Worth Zoo with friends...

 Lindsey enjoyed her first meeting of her summer book club (Mr. Popper's Penguins).

And we enjoyed a visit from Grandma and Grandpa McKneely and they took a couple kids home with them for a week (Sam is taking Dad to scout camp, Kaitlyn is taking mom to Salt Lake City on tour with MCO) 

Kaitlyn goes to girls camp

Our sweet Kaitlyn enjoyed a week at Girls Camp.  This year they went to Collin County Adventure Camp.  We are grateful for a good group of girls that she spent a few days with.  She enjoyed canoeing, climbing the rock wall and repelling, and strengthening her relationships with the YW in our ward.

Memorial Day weekend 2017

We were so eager to get out onto the lake.  Our friend Britt Berrett (Uncle Britt) let us use his lake house and we were going to make a long weekend of our FIRST boating weekend of the season.  But then our boat had a minor mechanical problem, but we thankfully were able to work it out and still got out on the lake!  Whew!

Kids eager to head to the lake!  All crammed into the backseat of the truck.  Not sure how much longer they're going to last being packed in like Sardines (We're sardines, woot woot), but one trick that we've found keeps the fighting down to a minimum is that I read to them outloud for an hour while we drive.  It keeps things very peaceful and I LOVE it! We started reading "Wonder" and really enjoy it so far.

At the lake house we don't have internet access, so we're able to disconnect and reconnect with each other.

S'mores were a MUST over the fire pit....

And lots of time playing games as a family--here's a couple favorites of ours: 

Cover your Assets, Tenzi, and monopoly

And on Sunday after just attending Sacrament meeting we came home and went on a hike as a family.  Britt has this funny legend of the "Togo-pogo" that he set up.

May 2017--part 4

End of the school year activites have begun.  This week K had a flute concert, and the 3 younger ones had their End of Year parties....

Matthew with Mrs. Paige Bratton

 (side note--due to a change in principal and a new elementary school opening in our district, many of our beloved teachers from Marion are leaving to follow our principal to Preston Elementary School--this wonderful AIM teacher Karen Abney is one of them--how we love her and will miss her!)

Lindsey with Mrs. Julia Asif

Sam with Mrs. Samantha Fields

And just for fun, here is what kids will remember from the 2016-17 school year:

Dabbing, bottle flipping, making homemade slime and fidget spinners.

May 2017--part 3

What a FULL week!  

Kaitlyn was inducted into National Junior Honors Society.  Starting next school year, in addition to her academic, musical and church responsibilities, she's committed to give 10 hours of community service each 9 weeks.  She has such a giving heart, this shouldn't be hard for her.  Grateful for the opportunity to develop her "service" muscle.

I was fortunate enough to volunteer at the kids FAVORITE DAY of the school year--FIELD DAY!  A day where they can literally play outside all day going from station to station to play games (some of them involving water).  They look forward to this so much and as a mom, I do too.  Kids need to be kids.

And speaking of service, we were blessed to participate with our church in the community wide day of service called "Change the World".  This year we helped Davis Blacker complete a home improvement project for an elderly woman where we cleaned gutters, trimmed back bushes, planted sod, and built a retaining wall.  It was wonderful to serve as a family.

Mother's Day and MCO Spring Concert

Mother's Day is always a rough one for me because it's a big reminder that I don't get to celebrate mine.  But I did make sure she was remembered with flowers to her grave.  And I try to focus on my family celebrating me.

So speaking of celebrating me, these 4 kids whipped up a fabulous breakfast for me on Mother's Day--wasn't sure if my kitchen would ever recover but they did great.  Lindsey made me this sweet tray in Activity Days that they served me food on.  I'm pretty sure Dad got the royal treatment too.  great kids!

After church we hurried to the Bennions to have a combination Mother's Day and Birthday celebration for Grandpa Carl.  We had yummy "Costa Vida" style burrito bowls/salads.  

And then it was so much fun they had a pinata for us too which was fun.  And of course, our kids decided that wearing the pinata after was a fabulous idea...funny kids.

 Happy Mother's Day to me with my sweet niece Elena who LOVED my necklace!

Our Spring MCO Concert was amazing--soul stirring and so wonderful.  It's hard to put into words what singing music with these people does for my soul, but it's for that reason that I keep singing with them.  We sang an amazing rendition of "Be Still my Soul" that was just heavenly.  So grateful to share this with my "book-ends".

May 2017--part 2

May 2017 week two and mom got to go on a field trip with Matthew to this great little exotic animal camp called Sharkarosa.  It's usually a delightful place but this time they were being so rude and so poorly managed that the children didn't get to do all the things they'd wanted to.  So sad.  But I think the kids still had fun.

One of my least favorite things about schooling is those blasted standardized tests, currently known as STAAR tests here in Texas.  My children get all worked up and stressed out over them when truly it's testing the teachers to make sure they're doing their job.  But here's a healthy breakfast on STAAR test morning!

Wanting to take a moment and brag on this kid.  He's still developing a passion for reading and he and I worked really hard to finish this book, admitedly even making him late to school on the morning this photo was taken so we could finish it before it was due back to the library.  So proud of him, I think this is his FIRST chapter book.

But that's not all.  Last night while Lindsey practiced volleyball at a school, he and I went to play at the playground.  Within a few minutes he discovered a wallet, that was filled with $42 and no identification.  He immediately brought it to me and knew that it must be returned to it's owner.  So the next day while he was at school, I took it to the school and told the story to the front desk attendant who knew exactly who the wallet belonged to and she got on the phone with the father who had called her that morning .  I overheard her side of the conversation, "Yes sir, all $42 is still there."  They'd been praying they'd find the wallet.  And I was grateful to teach my guy that honesty really is the best policy--it felt good to do the right thing.

May 2017

I have unique opportunities due to my church assignment.  One of the things I got to do was to attend the National Day of Prayer events in Plano and Dallas on May 4th.  

Kaitlyn, Stephen and I went to the temple to do baptisms for family members--so special!

And I took this sweet shot of Matthew and Stephen playing a game of checkers on a random night when he was the only kid home.  Love this kid!  He's a mean checkers player too!