Mothers & Fathers

I enjoyed Mother's Day this year.  A few times I haven't enjoyed it as much as I concentrated mainly on what I was doing wrong and how I felt like I wasn't a good mom.  This year I enjoyed the little gifts and HUGE pile of chocolate Lee gave me, and thought about the moms in my life that make it so much better.  My mom, Lee's mom, the mom's in my branch growing up, the moms that are my friends.  It truly is better to think of others and not focus on myself!  One of my favorite things about Mother's Day is the notes my kids and Lee write to me.  I think they're so sweet and cute.  Lee even made me potatoes and eggs (my kind of breakfast!).  Lee served me as usual that day and made me feel very blessed.  Sometimes I get overwhelmed with this job of raising kids.  Very often I'm so thankful I get to do what I want: be a stay-at-home mom.  Sometimes the reality of having kids hits me too.  I'll think "Wow, are these really my kids?  Am I really responsible for them?"  Yes. Yes.

This chocolate was oh so good.  The day after Mother's Day I ate only four pieces a day (that is huge for me with chocolate sitting around) and let my kids have a few piece quite often too. And Lee.


Lee gave me a cute water pitcher too.


I received some yummy chocolate from church.  I think it was gone before we made it home (I shared too...a little....)


As to my job of mothering there are times when I think something must be going right, sometimes. Like when Cal one morning randomly emptied the dishwasher (all but the utensil holder thing) for Haley.  No prodding, no serve-your-siblings-suggestion.  Love this. Love the note too.


As for Fathers, Lee went on a Father's and Son's campout recently.  Father's Day obviously hasn't happened yet.  Lee has been doing a lot of work with Clark lately for scouts, which has been great.  One thing has been lots of bike rides as Lee did the Cycling merit badge with Clark.  Here they are before an eight mile ride.




And after.  I could not get the mud out of Clark's shirt, and you can see it slightly in Lee's shirt after I scrubbed it. 


Before the Father's and Son's campout the boys went to Wood Grill.  They saw a pretty sweet car too!




They went to Camp Shenandoah again, the boy scout camp.  I love that they boys were excited to camp with Lee.


The Gaga pit.  This is the first time I've seen it....in a picture, never in real life.  I had imagined something quite different.  But this apparently is a popular game at boy scout camp!








A cool photo by Lee, of a cicada.


The boys had a terrific time at the Father's and Son's.  I'm glad my kids have a great dad. Fathers are so important and crucial.  The next morning we all met up for a bike ride which I will post about soon.  It was epic.  And crazy. 

Jumping & Playing Around

So parts of this post aren't chronological, but that is the great thing about my blog...I get to arrange it as I please! 

A few family fun activities....

We went to a trampoline place in Charlottesville on their Family Night.  When we first arrived just one girl was jumping.  She soon left and we had the entire place to ourselves.  At one point we played a couple of rounds of capture the flag with the family.  Even a couple of workers joined in.  I think that was my favorite part of the night! Of course I took pictures....
























For a cute fundraiser, a middle school group "flamingoed" us.  We had to "pay a fee" to have them removed.  I paid extra to have them moved to Lee's office!  There is a tiny plot of landscaping under his sign in town, and they put the flamingos there.  We aren't pros at our lawn...but are making a tiny effort this year.  I think the flamingos ate some dandelions, don't you?


Yummy eats.


I started doing a sock folding "game" with just one child, and would rotate through the kids having them help me (except Clark as he does his own laundry).  Now they all want to join in and play the "sock game".  So cute.




A member of our congregation is in a rehab facility.  We've been wanting to visit him for awhile and finally did for family home evening one night.  Thanks to my friend Brittany (who had gone on the same trip--thanks!) I knew that there was a custard stand nearby.  Yummy treat.




We let Elden be in charge of the "game" for that same family home evening and he wanted to fly paper airplanes.  Also nearby we found this dead-end and it was the perfect spot.




Lastly, the boys had their spring piano recital!  They did a nice job.  And even though their music is out they both had their pieces memorized.




Weird lighting and shadows, but here is the picture I picked from the lot.  I love going to their recitals.  Next year we'll have four kids in piano!  Shanna and Haley start this summer. 

School Fun

We've participated in a few school activities lately.   The girls and Elden each had more field trips that aren't documented here, as I didn't go on them.  But to document what we've been up to on the school end:

Cal's Spring Concert.  It was a fun concert where the fifth graders played xylophones.  They had each piece memorized too.






I didn't even think about Cal dressing up!  Lee got the memo though....


I went with the girls to Carter Mountain for a learning field trip that was all about soil: composting, absorption and chemical make-up.


Carter Mountain is an apple orchard.  They treated us to apple donuts, apple cider (thanks to our field trip fee!) and a wagon ride through the orchard.






My random photo: I sent some fun packages!  There are a lot of birthdays in May!


As you probably know I go to the school once a week and make copies for several teachers.  I really enjoy it...it helps that I know the copy machine so well now!  This particular time I changed the toner.  Very easy.




Some of the teachers gave me some fun gifts for volunteering this year.  They are so thoughtful!


I am getting close to 150 hours of volunteering this year!


One of the gifts from a teacher was a giftcard to a local restaurant.  Lee and I had fun using it one day for lunch.  Yum, love calzones.


I snuck in one more field trip with Elden.  I could have gone on the last one, but just didn't want to.  They went to a trampoline place that our family recently went to. Hopefully Elden didn't mind too much! Anyway, the field trip we went on was to the JMU Planetarium.  It's a pretty cool presentation and sometime it would be fun to attend their star gazing activities in the evenings.