End of Lacrosse season

Brendan finished up his first season of lacrosse. We have been done for a little over a week and he is going through withdrawals. This has been the first sport he has loved so much. I am so glad we found something for him and I truly loved it too.

His team was such a young team. Only four players on his team had even played before. They only had one win, but they sure fought hard. They had such heart and were just such a good group of boys. They all improved so much and worked hard to do so. Their coaches were just amazing too.

 We went to the High School championship game where they league was also giving out all the season awards. Brendan's team was selected for the sportsmanship award for their whole division. These boys truly did earn it and it was so exciting for them.

Brendan is already asking about summer camps and carries his stick with everywhere. It may be a long wait until next season!!

Around here

 1,2, & 3- Somerset had an art show displaying some of the art the kids have made throughout the year. Hailey, Emery and I stopped in really quick between lacrosse practice and basketball and found some of Brendan and Hailey's masterpieces. Emery just can't be left out and had a picture with Hailey's elephant. The art teacher at their school is quite amazing. I love the pieces they come home with.

 4- I have had the kids help me in cleaning out some spaces around the house. I had given the boys the assignment of going through our gigantic bucket of Transformers. They were supposed to go through them and get rid of broken ones and put them in a smaller container. I found them all playing with them. They are still in the gigantic bucket.

5- This girl can play with play-doh for hours. I don't even mind the mess because she loves it so much. She also likes hair decorations some days. Just not hair bows. Never does she consider those.

6-My dishwasher handle broke. It wouldn't latch so we couldn't run it. It was awful. We had to wait several weeks for the part to come in. There was a lot of hand dish washing and I felt like my grandma who only used her dishwasher to dry the clean dishes. I was so glad to have it up and running.

 7- This was taken at Brendan's one and only lacrosse game that they won. It was also the only game that we were freezing. FREEZING! We were all so excited that they won, but the celebration was short because we were all so cold and couldn't wait to get into our cars. 

8- Made some more strawberry jam. We were down to our last container. 

9- My bad. I hate it when I do stuff like this and can't even blame the kids. I had just refilled my flour container too before I knocked the whole thing down off the shelf. It was everywhere. 

 10- We went to visit Corey's parents on mother's day. The horses had been brought up from the farm to the backyard corral. The kids were so excited to have them so close. It was so cold outside, but we couldn't keep them away. The horses were so friendly too. They were in heaven.

11- While the younger kids were busy with the horses, Kayden kept himself busy making weird hats.

12- Emery has begged forever to spend the night, all night, in my bed. I had told her the next time Corey was gone she could. She got her wish last week when Corey had to be in Texas. She was thrilled she got to spend not just one night, but two.

13- Emery loves to play with Hailey's hair. I'm hoping she gets pretty good at it then I can let her take over.

14- Hailey selfies. I found a bunch of these on my phone. They start at such a young age. 

15- Corey and the boys went on the father and sons campout. I asked the girls what they wanted to do while they were gone and all they wanted was to go get ice cream. Easy enough and they were happy as can be.

Mother's Day tea

Emery had a Mother's Day tea party at her preschool. She had brought me an invitation and was so excited for weeks before. I heard singing the songs they were practicing at school and she talked about how she was going to serve me lemonade (not tea, she made that quite clear). She was so excited for the day to come. 

When I arrived, she greeted me at the door and led me to a table. She then served me my lemonade (she refilled it many times because she was enjoying it too) and a plate of delicious food. She was so excited she was almost shaking. It was too fun.

Then she brought me my first gift she had worked on. A book she made about me. 

Mrs. Tate asked them questions about their mom and wrote down their responses. I love that kind of thing. Although Emery said I was 86 years old, but she did know that my favorite food is cereal so I guess I'll forgive her for aging me. And apparently my favorite sport is soccer. Too funny since we really don't have anything to do with that sport around here, nor did I ever play it. But there is no doubt that the girl loves to go out to lunch. She asks everyday.

The kids then sang some songs for us.

Then her teacher asked each child what they loved about their mother then they presented us with a bracelet and flower. 

 It was such a fun morning to spend with her. I know my days are numbered having a little one that gets so excited to do these things, so I really soaked it all in. We also just love her teacher. She has spent so much time doing so many fun things this year and just loves Emery too. Emery has come leaps and bounds this year and has learned so much. We have been so lucky to have her in Mrs. Tate's preschool. It's going to be hard to have the year over and say goodbye.

Hailey's baptism day

This is a day that Hailey had been so excited for. When her baptism day came, she was a little nervous, but was so happy that she smiled all day.

It was not the day I had planned in my head though. It turned out to be such a hectic day. Our stake had youth conference scheduled the same day, Kayden wanted to attend as much of it as he could. Brendan had his last 2 games of his lacrosse season that morning, he really didn't want to miss them. Carter's first spring season basketball game was in the afternoon. And my nephews baptism was also the same day in St. George, making a time crunch for my in-laws, also making difficult for many family members to make the trip to attend. Then a day after I sent the invitations out, I got a message that the time of the baptism had changed, only making things a little more complicated.

We did our best to make the most of it all and make sure Hailey felt special and knew how important this decision was. Even though we had so many things going on, she knew she her thing was the most important.

Her grandparents were able to come, a couple of her cousins made the trip with Les and MaryAnn, some of her primary friends came, and even her school teacher came. She was so happy to see such special people there to celebrate with her. 

 We had to snap this picture without Corey and Brendan. We had told Brendan we would do our best to get him to one game. They had to take off right when we ended the program.  But we were so glad to have family to be their on the special morning with us. It's hard when families are so spread apart that it's just not possible to have everyone together for these special events, but we know they were all thinking of her and proud of her on her big day.

Hailey and her friend Nicholas

 Then Corey and Brendan met us at Chili's and we were able to have lunch together before Les and MaryAnn had to leave for the other baptism. We were so glad that the baptisms were at different times and we could have them come, even if it was just for a short time.  My parents were able to stay the whole weekend and we were glad to have them.

Hailey felt so loved and happy. She knew she had made the right decision to be baptized and she knew how proud everybody was of her. She hasn't stopped beaming since. And we are so proud of her and the sweet girl that she is and that she was able to go with the flow of the crazy day.

Easter Weekend

It's been our tradition to spend Easter Saturday with Corey's family whenever we can. This year we were able to go with them again and we always have a great time. 

We headed to St. George on Friday. Corey and his brothers had arranged to surprise their dad for his birthday and take him golfing. I dropped him off at the golf course then took the kids back to our hotel to swim. Then we picked up pizza factory for dinner. The kids insist on their bread sticks whenever we go to St. George.

The next morning we all met up to take some family pictures. Les and MaryAnn are leaving on a mission to Omaha, Nebraska at the end of the month and we wanted to make sure we had some pictures of all us together. 

I put my camera on the tripod, set the timer and made Corey do the running back and forth. We hoped for the best. It's always a little crazy trying to get a picture with so many of us. There was only one melt down too, I consider that success.

Then we headed to the park to picnic and spend the day together. 

The kids were in heaven and played so hard together with their cousins. MaryAnn even had a little Easter egg hunt for the smaller kids. Well, we mostly threw a bunch of candy out all over the park and let them go crazy. Fun was had by all.

(we still consider Brendan young enough to hunt for eggs and candy.)

We all left tired and a little sunburned, but we loved the company and love our traditions together.