May

 Last year I heard someone refer to May as "Maycember" which I think is fitting. It is so so busy and every recital and concert and program is going on! I am learning that May as a mom AND a teacher is A LOT! 

These photos uploaded in a random order since they are taken on three different phones (Sean's, Jennie's, and Brett's). 

Brett was recognized at his awards assembly for his contributions and service as part of NJHS. This has been such an amazing thing for him this year. He has had so much fun and made so many awesome friends. He will be participating again next year and is very excited! 

We celebrated Mom P's 70th birthday! It was so fun to get together and celebrate her. She is such a wonderful example and leader to our family. We love her! Sean and I started that Saturday by going to the church house and setting up a breakfast for our Stake's Trek to the Temple. They were walking 9 miles to the Jordan River Temple. It was a really good test run with the food and we learned a few things that will hopefully help us as we head out on Trek. The biggest thing we learned is that youth eat a lot and we needed to up our food a bit! I think we will have enough for our 4 day trek...but we shall see. After we helped with the breakfast we came home and grabbed our kids and drove down to Orem. Mimi, Merrill, Alexis, and Brett were performing a musical number. Brett did flute, Lexi did violin, and Mimi and Merrill did piano. Brett, Kaden, and Xander also performed a piano song and Lizzie sang her choir song "Its a Hard Knock Life. It was a really nice recital! We came back home and did lots of Saturday chores and jobs! Then we headed back to Lindon to go to Los Hermanos to have a birthday dinner for Mimi. The food was delicious and they gave us our own little room. It was so fun! After dinner we went to Neil and Rebecca's house and did a Kahoot game about Carol that Kaden and Lexi made. Then we played pass the parcel and then watched the Peterson Boys film that I made Carol several years ago with videos of the boys growing up. Then we had cake and ice cream and let the kids play. It was a really nice party. I hope Mimi knows how much we all love her! 

Here is Mimi with three of the boys:

The Kahoot game we played. Michal was even able to join in from Pennsylvania! 

Los Hermanos:

Every year I eagerly await the blooming of my peony bush. It never disappoints. The snap dragons were also super pretty this year and have gotten quite a bit bigger. 

Sean and I finally decided to upgrade some of the light fixtures in our house. We started with the front hallway. This picture shows the new fixture in the back and the old one in the front. 

Brett and Alana have been wanting to learn to play tennis. One Sunday after church we decided to go down to the tennis courts. Oreo came with us and he was in heaven! We would throw the ball and he ran so fast to get it! After about 15 minutes, Alana noticed some blood on the court. We found that the tennis court was so rough that it had ground down Oreo's nails til they were bleeding. It was so sad! It also tore up the pads of his feet too. He loved playing so much I don't think he really noticed until we made him stop. We won't be doing that again! 

Lizzie got a new weighted stuffed animal from walmart and she discovered a popped seam in his back. He came to church with us and Sean promised to repair the pup's "hernia" after church. We came home from choir practice to see Max all ready for surgery. Unfortunately, in the days that have followed, Max has required about a dozen more surgeries for popped seams. He wasn't sewn super well, but he was so cute and Lizzie couldn't bear to part with him. 

Lizzie put on some makeup one day and wanted me to take a picture. 

Lizzie has participated in the Mountain Point Melodies choir this year. She loves going early on Tuesday mornings to practice singing. She practiced all her songs so hard and really loved doing Popular, Its a Hard Knock Life, I Just Can't Wait to be King, Two Worlds, and Supercalifragilous. After her concert we had s'mores in the backyard. 

Sean and I celebrated our 16th anniversary. We went to a special shop where they helped us pot a bonsai tree. Then we went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then to a place called The Milkshake Factory for dessert. 

These lights on this 20 foot ceiling have been mocking us for the seven years we have lived here. The fan light went out after about 1 year and we just left it and wondered what we would do when the can lights went out. Two of them started flickering a lot, and after researching ladders and trying to figure out how to get them switched, we ended up hiring an electrician to come switch them all. It cost $500 which is crazy! But watching them use that ladder was pretty intense. They had to move the furniture and piano to even fit the ladder in! The guy even dusted the fan while he was up there so that was nice! 

Our kindergarten team decided to do a fieldtrip to the fire station this year. It turned out to be a lot of fun, but it was a lot of work!! I really love my team! 

We went to Leatherbee's early in the month with Mimi and Neil and Rebecca's family. It was yummy and fun to put all the cousins together. 

Alana went to Audrey's birthday party and immediately found the baby to play with. 

Here are more pictures from Mimi's birthday party:

I've kept this succulent alive for more than a year. It was a gift from my student Clifford. It needed a bigger pot and Sean printed this one for me! 

Sean also found this fun turtle print and I asked him to print 16 of them for my students. 

Here's a fun wiggly starfish that we've been printing a lot of too. 

Sean printed 60 star buttons for my dad to put on some patriotic tissue box holders. 

Alana had her orchestra concert in May as well. I have been so amazed at how far she has come and how much she has learned this year! She has faithfully gone twice a week 45 minutes early to practice! After her concert, we went to Cold Stone to celebrate all three of the kids working so hard on their music. They loved cold stone and can't wait to go back! 

Sean helped the Elder's quorum plant three giant trees in Trisha's backyard. It was so much work and there was some tricky sprinkler work, but I know she was so grateful!

Brett jammed his finger playing basketball at the church. It was pretty swolen! Brett also performed in his band concert in May and did a great job! He felt like they could have done better, but I thought they sounded amazing! I loved the Wicked Medley they did! 

I found out at the beginning of May that I am going to be the team leader for my team next year. With lots of changes happening with so many incoming Kindergarteners, we have so many classes and decided to move all the classroom's around to get our team closer and give the preschool the nice kindergarten classrooms. This meant we needed to move all the team supplies out of the kindergarten classrooms and we needed to put them into the first grade workroom (which is now the kinder/first grade workroom). I went in early several times to move things, pack, and organize. It was a ton of work and every kindergarten teacher is switching classrooms, but I'm hoping it will be a good change. We are getting a new principal and vice principal next year too and I'm hoping it will bring positive changes to the school. I have loved working with both Jenn and Elizabeth and hope they have success where they are going! 

We have been reading the Alcatraz vs The Evil Librarian books together and really enjoying them. We also just finished watching all the Hunger Games movies together.