May 2016

We were on a walk and McKenna had to stop and play in this field of dandelions.  When she looked up at me it just took my breath away how beautiful she is- inside and out.  I had to take her picture and she gave me a sweet little smile...

 and then in typical Kenna fashion she busted out this cute face for me too!

Richard couldn't take any time off for my birthday but I told him not to stress about planning anything- his present to me could be finishing his dissertation on time!  But we did go out to eat where the girls showed us their moves... I wish I could go back to being this uninhibited!  And then my nice neighbor put together a girl's night with all of my favorite people and we had planned to play games but ended up just talking for hours!  It was a great night.

Kaylee has been begging for an Easy Bake Oven for years and I would always talk her out of it.  However, she found one at a garage sale for $2 so I told her she could get it if she used her own money to buy the mixes for it.  She was so excited but I quickly realized why my mom never bought one for me- each mix costs $7 and have the appearance of making a whole batch of cookies or cupcakes but really just make one.  And it also tasted disgusting...  Kaylee still loved it but I could not believe people still buy them after all this time.  I'll just let her make real cookies for us all next time!

Mother's Day was fabulous- Richard tried really hard to make it special for me.  Last year really taught me the importance of being a mother when Richard was out of town and I couldn't get any "special treatment", it was just me and the girls.  And it was the best Mother's Day ever.  So this year I didn't want to just relax and get pampered, I wanted to spend time with my girls.  They kicked me out to make me a treat however, so I did get to relax a little bit :)  To my delight, they made a GIANT cookie just for me and I enjoyed every bite!  Richard knows the way to my heart!  

Since we had already celebrated our anniversary with the Segway Tour, we thought we would just go out to dinner and had a babysitter already lined up when Brooklyn threw up and I canceled.  However, she was totally fine the rest of the day and I think she may have just gagged or choked on something so we decided to take the girls along with us and make it a family celebration.  Chick-Fil-A was having their last family event before taking a break for the summer and we decided to go even though it wasn't what we had in mind for our anniversary...  They have roses, candles and placemats at every table and a fancy background set up for a professional photographer to take pictures. They gave each family this mat that says "I love you because..." and a picture of your family to put in it. Then when you put it in a frame you can use a dry erase marker to change what it says.  I thought it was such a cute idea and we enjoyed being with the kiddos to celebrate our 8 years together. And Chick-Fil-A even asked if they could use our family picture for their example so everyone who came in saw us- we're famous!  ;) 

Kaylee's school had a little fun fair for the end of the year with pizza, two bounce houses, and lots and lots of little games to play.  They also got their face painted.  It was pretty ghetto but I was impressed with everything they put together for this school (can you tell I am not a fan of this school?)  

Kaylee also finished up her first year of soccer, which I was sad about.  It was fun being a soccer mom!  I don't think she liked it as much in the spring as she did in the fall and we will probably try something else next year but she just loves being a part of something so I think she will enjoy whatever she does.  

Kaylee has continued to lose more teeth and she finally got her wish of losing one at school so she could get the little tooth necklace they give you to keep it in.  However, it doesn't close well at all so they had her tape it close.  She couldn't resist opening it over and over to show her friends and so eventually her tooth fell out and she couldn't find it. She wrote a long note to the tooth fairy explaining where it was and was hopeful she would still get paid.  Luckily, the tooth fairy must have found it because she still got money in the morning!  

The girl's favorite dad in the ward signed up to coach a T-Ball team and since the girls fit perfectly into the age range, I signed them up to be on the team together.  I was a little worried about how they would do being on the same team and I was definitely not expecting them to love it so much!  The first few practices they were inseparable and both of them are doing so well! I would say they are definitely the best hitters on the team and Kaylee even had an opposing coach say to his team "Watch out, this girl hits it really far!".  I am really glad we decided to do it and it's just another way these two can be best buddies this summer, which I will be really sad to see end when Kaylee goes back to school. 

While Richard has been working like crazy to get his dissertation done, I wanted a project to do at night to distract me from the loneliness after the girls went to bed.  I found these projects at Hobby Lobby and even though I am NOT patient and this is NOT usually my kind of thing, I am really glad I did them and am quite proud of them!  Since I am not artistic at all, this is the best I can do... I probably won't do these again anytime soon but I am glad they helped make the time go faster.

McKenna had been struggling with the end of preschool and I was not as patient with her as I should have been.  She made a comment to me that broke my heart and made me realize I needed to be more loving and patient with her.  To try to help with that I took her on a date with just the two of us- we went to the bookstore and Graeter's.  I am so grateful I have this little girl in my life!