Phew! I am now caught up for May. Stay tuned for our June escapades!

Talented Lydia

I missed the beginning of Lydia's reading in the school talent show, but here is the exciting ending. I will also include the text for your enjoyment. This is the first chapter of a story she is writing called "Breezy in the Wind".



Chapter 1
Breezy: The First Flight

Shakayla felt it for the second time that day. This time it was harder. She stood up, and looked down at her one large egg. Shakayla had hatched from her own egg about twenty-five years ago. Now, her own baby dragon egg was about to hatch. She blew a quick flame onto her baby's egg. The flame quickly went out on the egg. Then the egg started hatching. Little by little, pieces of the egg began to fall into the nest. Then a pair of light blue wings poked out and started fluttering. They started to fly upward, then the rest of the pieces fell off. A small light blue and white dragon flew up, his scales shining. Wait, he was flying! Most baby dragons don't' fly at first. "Breezy," flew through Shakayla's mind. Breezy was a First Flight Dragon.

Talented Felicity

Here is Felicity performing in the school talent show. She had the song memorized, but was nervous so she used her music. She did a great job and we are so proud of her. P.S. The man behind the curtain is the principal :)

Everybody wants to be a Cat

Here is Evie's dance from Wonderland. It was easier to focus on her as the lights were on and there was only one of her to film :)

Mushroom Dance

This is the first few seconds of the hip-hop dance Felicity and Lydia were in. After this the lights went out and you couldn't see a thing. They're both in there, you'll just have to trust me :)

May Week 4

Here are some highlights from the last week + 2 days of May:

- Primary teacher improvement meeting
- Evelyn excelled in the first grade spelling bee and was the last girl standing!
- Felicity performed a piano solo in the school talent show
- Lydia read some of her own writing in the school talent show
- Book group discussed Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell
- Girls made us proud at the school awards assembly - faithful attendance, Newbery Club, 100+ AR points, 200+ AR points (she was 3 points away from 300!), 400+ AR points, 400 AM objectives, etc.
- Lauri played some games in Lydia's end of year class party
- Lydia received the highest Science grade in her class
- Made teacher thank-you treats and cards
- Shawn supervised the bounce house at the school Field Day the last day of school
- Celebrated Memorial Day in Boise and Caldwell with a picnic at Katie's house
- Shawn and the "boys" golfed while Grandma Karen took the "girls" to see Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" - thanks for the fun weekend!

And this is just what a mom looks like after a busy school-year, after a busy last-week of school! (And how much the girls think I cost - ha!ha!)

Catching Up

It has been too long since I have posted, and so I am beginning the "catching up" posts. Before June is over, I better catch up on May first. So here is our May, Week 3 report:

The 3rd week of May was pretty much dominated by the girls' dance activities. Tuesday night they had a dress rehearsal, Wednesday night was their dance performance called "Wonderland". All the dancers joined together to tell the story of Alice in Wonderland. There were some really fun dances, costumes and props. My favorite dancers were my girls of course. My favorite props were the giant mushrooms - kiddie pools painted red and turned over on some sort of base with touch-lights attached to the tops. They were used during Lydia and Felicity's mushroom dance as well as a disco light and some black lights. Funky! My favorite dance however, was the tea-party scene - bright, colorful, wild and crazy chaos. So fun! Thursday afternoon and evening we went down to the dance studio for team pictures and then Friday night Felicity and Lydia got to perform with the competition teams in a reprise of their mushroom dance. I love watching dance, but even I was a little worn out after that week. Here are some pics of the girls in their costumes - Lydia and Felicity are hip-hop Mushrooms and Evelyn is a jazzy Cat.

The girls were also busy with other school and church activities - Evelyn went on a field trip to the zoo, Felicity had her final Newbery Club meeting after school, Felicity and Lydia had activity days after school one day, Felicity went to the orthodontist and we went and selected some "new to us" clothes for the girls at our ward's Share and Wear.

I'll also share pictures of a crafty project I did. I live by the giant sized wall calendars. I can fit everything on it, have it where I can see it anytime, and see the whole month at a glance. I got tired of just poking some nails through the top and attaching it to my wall though, so I've had this Calendar Holder idea developing in my mind for a year or two. Several months ago I got around to attaching a couple of big silver clips (I forget their technical name) to a board I had painted black. That did the job for quite awhile. Then I started using some small magnetic clips to hold things like birthday invitations or Relief Society reminders. That led me to the thought that I should add some tin squares onto the sides of the board to stick magnets too. I've also wanted to come up with some cute little catch phrase to cut out with my Cricut to put in the middle. After letting all this stew around in my brain for a couple of years and slowly working on it, I finally decided one afternoon to finish it. So I got the tin, found the tin snips I bought at Harbor Freight with Shawn a few weeks ago, cut the squares, glued them on with some E 6000, and cut out my cute little bee and "Busy Bees" out of vinyl and put it all together. It may have taken me awhile to complete, but I am very happy with it and it is much cuter and more functional than a couple of nails in the wall.

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Since it is Father's Day and I didn't get around to getting a card in the mail (sorry Dad) I thought I would share A few things I love about my Dad:

- He is sweet with babies.

- He showed me the joy of growing a garden.

- He showed me the joy of a good hike.

- He is a good example of working hard until a job is done.

- He takes us geocaching, even though we probably “cramp his style.”

- He is generous and comes to the rescue when “times are tough.”

- He is honest and follows the rules in life (unless it is a game, then he may make up his own rules).

- The look on his face when he finds something really funny.

- He taught me everything I forgot about rocks, wildflowers, trees and other plants.

- He would rather take pictures of wildflowers and scenery than people.

- He honors the priesthood and fulfills his callings faithfully.

- He is modest in his abilities and accomplishments.

- He likes the simple things: root beer, spice drops and wintergreen life savers.

- He is my Dad!

Happy Father’s Day Dad! I love you so much!

These are for you :)