A Lot of Catch Up!

Last week was my friend Taraka turned 30! This picture was taken on her actual birthday--May 20th--at a girl's lunch. We teased her a lot about having a birthday week, because she had like 7 or 8 different celebrations. I love this girl, and yesterday she gave me quite a scare! We were at the park, and she was laying on a blanket on the grass. We looked over and she was sweating and hunched over in pain. She could hardly move and said she had never felt this much pain before. I left all the kids with our other friends at the park and I rushed her to the emergency room. The nurse there thought it was her gall bladder, but after she and Ben spent 3.5 hours there, the results were inconclusive. Poor girl! Last night she told me that she was going to take me to lunch sometime for everything I did for her yesterday. Seriously, you only take someone to lunch if they help you out when you are doing something fun! She took care of my kids until after midnight two weeks ago when I went to the Taylor Swift concert. I'm pretty sure the emergency room is not on the same level as a concert!

On Tuesday my parents had a runaway truck crash into their yard. It took out a few trees and made quite a mess. Crazy!

Today was Olivia's last day of preschool, and it was a very, very sad day! She has been a little tearful the past few days when she thinks about leaving Teacher Barbara. She is the greatest! The only way I could console Olivia was to tell her that we could visit Teacher Barbara anytime she wanted. Look out Barbara! Olivia told me this morning that she probably wouldn't visit everyday, because she goes to church on Sundays. These pictures were from preschool graduation on the 16th. They had a farm theme, and everything was adorable. I actually just watched it on video, and Eric took her. I was at the boy's soccer tournament that morning. A couple days before the graduation, Olivia told me that when I saw her up on stage I was going to think,"Oh! Why do I have the greatest child in the world?" Ofcourse it was because, "I have the best singings--way better than everyone else!"

On the 9th was Jackson's very last soccer game with his team he has been on since Kindergarten. They had 10 seasons together. It was a little sad now that everyone is splitting up for different select tryouts in U-11. They were such a good team, and the mothers were some of my best friends--so we always had a great time. One of the mothers gave coach Rudy a picture of the boys from the first spring season in kindergarten. I actually got a little choked up looking at it. They were so darn cute! I wanted them to be 6 again.

My family has been doing a huge garden up at my parents house, and all the families have put in a ton of work (Myron for sure the most!) These pictures were taken at the beginning of May, so it has come a long way since then. I will have to put updated pictures of it and the garden Eric has done at our house on the blog.

Eric did a lot of work on the garden boxes and the deer fence.

On May 1st, Olivia's dance class performed in her dance teacher's ward talent show. It happens to be the ward all my family is in, so she had lots of people cheering for her. Her recital was a few weeks later, but I can't figure out how to download her class pictures. They will have to be on a future blog post. Olivia's friend Katie is 3 1/2 months younger than her and about twice her size!

Their 2 numbers were so cute! Her teacher Mauressa does such a great job! Olivia is very sad that dance is over for the summer.

Olivia is such a fun, crazy little girl! She told me last week, "Mom- sometimes you ware me out, but I love you!" I told her that it was funny, because that is exactly how I feel about her. Last week Uncle Parker came to town for a golf tournament with Eric. He had absolutely no voice, and he told Olivia that he had lost his voice. Aunt Carol told her that maybe she should help him find his voice. Evidently Liv hadn't ever heard the expression of losing your voice, because she started looking around. She looked under the kitchen table and came up and said, "I don't see any talking under there!"

Cupcakes and such

Olivia got a cupcake maker with her giftcard from Aunt Carol to Toys R Us. It is kind of a pain to make them, and they don't taste very good--but she loves making them. They sure didn't turn out pretty like the pictures. Olivia's friend Ella came over after dance one day, and they talked me into making cupcakes.

These pictures were taken at Olivia's soccer practice back in April, but I haven't blogged in over a month--so here they are.

This was before Carter got his haircut. I guess I didn't realize at the time how bad it looked. He is also really dirty from the rocks around the playground, so he is quite a train wreck.

Easter

We had a really wonderful Easter weekend. We were so lucky to have Eric's parents come and spend it with us. We were very sad that they had to leave after church to head back to Utah. Olivia cried on Anita's lap during church and then fell asleep in her arms. She did not want grandma Needers to leave.

Olivia is never very excited for me to do her hair, but she endured.

Carter showed off his new sunglasses from the Easter Bunny! He is just about the cutest thing in the world right now. I just hug and squeeze and kiss him constantly. Anything he says is cute to me. I don't want him to grow up! He didn't sleep very much while grandma and grandpa were here. He had 2 monster tantrums that were the worst he has ever had, and we all said it is a good thing he is cute.

Olivia got a pink football from the Easter bunny and a rake. She showed me the rake she wanted at Target. I told her I would tell the Easter bunny. She told me I should just buy it then and give it to the Easter Bunny and he would pay me back. I agreed and thought that made life a lot easier if I didn't have to go back to Target later. I just adore Olivia...most of the time. Sometimes I think she is going to put me over the edge. The constant unanswerable questions and nonstop random noise and talking and screaming at times make me crazy! Then other times I remind myself what a great sweet girl she is. I really am lucky to have a little girl. Eric is out of town, and she has been missing him a lot. She told me the other day that we really needed to get a gift for daddy. I asked if she wanted to get one for his birthday, and she said that she just wanted to get him one so he would know how special she thinks he is. She is such a sweetheart. She said maybe we should get him some more copy paper to put in his office. Now that is a very practical gift. Not quite sure why she wants to get him that. I guess maybe her and Carter go thru a lot of it for drawing.

Jackson had an adventure finding his basket!
It was down in a window well with a lot of tumble weeds that blew over from the vacant lot across the street. It is a good reminder that we need to get them cleaned out! Jackson has grown up so much in the past few months. He just makes me so happy! He is the sweetest nicest boy now. It is not that he wasn't nice before, but he has just changed. He is so responsible and hard working. He tries so hard to be the best person he can be, and I'm so proud of him! We are so thankful to have him as a son.

Hayden also had to climb in the window, but he didn't have to battle the tumble weeds. He is just a fun kid! He must be going thru the stage Jackson just got out of, because I have to get after him about stuff more than I used to, but he is still great. He is constantly going and busy with sports and loves every bit of it.

Rainy Egg Hunt

Ofcourse we had a few days of yucky weather right around Easter. It was raining on Easter afternoon, but we the kids still wanted to have an egg hunt up at my mom's house before dinner. Most of the eggs were filled with money this year, so the kids loved counting up all their change. It was also a good lesson to figure out how much tithing everyone needed to pay. Even with the rain it was a really good day. Deanne made primerib and we had lots of other delicious food! Kimmy and Jenny did a great Easter lesson for us after dinner.

Shock Game

Last Saturday we took Eric's parents to a Shock game. Olivia was once again much more excited about the dancers than the game. She got every one of them to sign her Shock towel.

The boys were so cute watching the game together. We kept on having to pull Carter back down so he didn't jump onto the field during the game. The boys did a lot of dancing for the camera, and the announcer even commented on the crazy boys on the front row and put them on the jumbotron.

We had lots of soccer games that morning, too. The weather was rainy and cold so we only got a few pictures of Jackson.

Rivefront Park

When Eric's parents were here over Easter weekend, we went to Riverfront Park with Carter and Olivia to feed the ducks, play, and ride the carousel. It was a beautiful day, and we had such a great time! The geese were pretty aggressive when they wanted food. There were some really big ones that were a little weird looking that freaked out Olivia. She ran up to grandma. I was laughing and telling Eric about Olivia, and then one came right up to my leg and scared me to death. I screamed and felt a little silly! Carter loved it. He couldn't get enough of feeding the geese. The boys were feeling a little left out that we had a day of fun without them while they were at school. We took them to a movie later that night.