The Merry Month of May

 In general, I like the month of May.  There are flowers, and it's warm, and the bugs aren't horrible...

For some reason they needed to wear bike helmets.  And fill buckets with water.

And slide down our cellar door.  (...and we'll be jolly friends, forever more....)

Emmy's class got to have an outdoor music program.

Oh look, there she is in her bright yellow dress (because they sang yellow submarine).  The weather was great and it was short enough that no one got bored.

Bob was working on the mower so Miri brought hers over too.  :P 

My great-aunt Carolyn is a Titanic fan too!  She and Susan happened to be in town to babysit at Nancy's and they invited us to come join the party and share Titanic stuff.

Arlo warmed up to a bunch of girls invading his Grandma's house.... it helped that Susan comes up with all kinds of good games. 

Also, I kind of love it that I have a stack of books borrowed from Aunt Carolyn now- my Grandma Schlipf almost always had a stack of books that Aunt Carolyn had brought over for her to read.  :) 

Miriel has just discovered the library and she is a big fan!

The girls have been in tumbling classes since February- the last class they took pictures and it was parent watch week so we could see all of their skills.  Cadence and Emmy are in the same class; Cadence is on the trampoline and Emmy is on the bar.  Cadence is such a scrappy little nichtsnutz.  She can't really do a cartwheel, but she would just bop right up to the bar, grab it and pop her toes up to her hands and be off again, ponytail bouncing and little impish grin on her face...

This is a blurry picture of Cecily flipping over the bar.  :P 

They wanted the girls to all get matching leotards and bows for pictures... yeah... I'm not really interested in buying pictures for gymnastics and we don't need 3 leotards that they will instantly grow out of, so I sent them in all black and made quick bows from ribbon I got at Hobby lobby.  Show me the pose you did for the pictures we'll never see! Hehe: 

I've been sewing.  I bought several yards of cute knits and have been making things for the girls.  And for their AG dolls out of the scraps.  I don't have a knits pattern for dolls though, so they aren't my best work- don't look too closely.  :P 

Jayla invited Cadence's Sunday school class to a park to play and for lunch.  Little sister was quite happy to get to come along.  I have very few pictures of Cadence because she was a blur.

We will have to recreate this in a few years... 

We went straight from the park to school for Emmy's field day!  Woot woot!  Haha. 

Thank goodness for snacks.  I forgot sun screen for all of us, thankfully I'm the only one who got a bit burnt.

She refused to tell us exactly how/what she hit her head on (probably doing something she knows she's not supposed to do) but it made a pretty nasty, impressively sized goose egg.  This girl is tough as nails though, so the joy of getting an ice pack pretty much made it feel better.

Aaaannnd we were back at school the next afternoon for Cecily's field day. She was in a relay and her team came in second.  So fun, and so funny.  Grade school P.E. teachers are saints.

The three new trees that we ordered were delivered so Bob and the girls planted them. 

Josefina came home from the doll hospital!  Hair fixed, clean legs, hospital gown with socks and id bracelet; there was great rejoicing!

Fairy garden planting was full of conflict.  I had to referee a lot and there were several laps around the house taken.  But they finished it and it looks adorable.  Also Miri moved any unattended plants all over the porch- "help you." 

They very industriously cleaned the playhouse.  It always involves lots of water and paper towels and looks about the same when they are done as when they start.  :D 

 Tate and Tamra got married on the 23rd and I took zero pictures the entire weekend.  We went over to Ron and Kary's on Saturday night to hang out with the out-of-towners.  And then Sunday was the wedding in Eureka.  Sometimes I wonder if they are really my children- I took the girls down to Sunday school and they just... went.  No looking back, no hesitation, who are you and where did you come from??  And then they told me that they made new friends!  They can't possibly be mine. 😜 They were even relatively good during the wedding, and survived the long reception line with minimal complaining.  It helped to have Gideon and Aurelia and Jack to be crazy with.  I'm generally feeling old- Tate was only 8 when we got married... and he's only 10 years older than Cecily... cue all the feels.  hehe.

WE MADE IT TO THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!  And only one healthy quarantine (Cecily's whole classroom was quarantined, which makes me wonder- where they all actually exposed?).  Emmy: It's the last day of school!  And I didn't get quarantined!! 

Drinking pop is serious business.

Take a picture of me and Rebecca in our matching dresses! 

No school and warm enough weather means it's time for the pool!

And celebratory bottles of pop.  Em is living her best summer time life; Cadence- "I'm living the dream, Mom."  haha ok?!

Take a picture of me and Maryellen matching!

Emmy came with me while I was running errands and we just so happened to see this Nat Geo magazine at the checkout.... it was all about Titanic sooooo.  I'm an enabler.

Spur of the moment on Saturday afternoon we decided to see if Grandma Beutel could come over for pizza.  The girls were pretty excited and had to show her just about everything. 

And pick her flowers.  We looove to pick flowers.  :D 

It didn't sound like there was going to be much going on in town for Memorial Day so I took the girls up to Washington.  They have a parade (that we were almost too late for) so that was exciting.  It was also exciting to see Amy and her kids riding in her Grandpa's classic car!  Also, they got a fire call in the middle of the parade and the fire trucks turned around right in front of us and went rushing off- we could see them suiting up in the back while they drove.  

They were not very excited about the "boring talking" at the cemetery, and it did get a little bit long (not that I'd admit that to them hehe).  They were rummaging in my purse for snacks and random things like my tape measure and key chain but overall were pretty quiet and non distracting.

Oh hey, there's Miri's head from her constant perch on my lap.  It never fails, just when I'm getting frustrated that they just aren't behaving and I'm telling myself that the important thing is that I brought them and people would rather see noisy kids at a Memorial Day service than not have them there at all,  an older lady came up and complemented me on my four adorable girls and "they were so good and quiet for so long."  Haha  Good thing you couldn't hear me whispering to them to sit down and be quieter....

But we made it and then we got McDonald's and went to the park.

This is a pretty fun park.

Next stop was to see Grandma-Lydiann-at-the-condos and Grandpa Carl before heading home for naps.

They could not be quiet today while Bob was in a meeting so they got shooed outside.  So sweet- they were actually getting along and having fun together. 

Blessings.