MAY MAYHEM

Where did the month go? It seems like it was just January and now school is out! May always feels like a super, crazy month. Well really after Spring Break it just feels crazy until school is out. I am glad to have the break though ... no more homework, projects, concerts, getting kids ready. I wish it meant sleeping in, but not with the 3 year old! She'll make sure I won't miss a sunrise.
The kids have been involved in dance at their school. Ky danced in Ballroom and Dal in Hip Hop. They both had a lot of fun in their classes. This month they had a Spring concert, Ky decided not to dance in it though because she didn't want to do the Samba and I think after she watched her friends do it she regretted that choice. Dal had a lot of fun doing his dance though. Their teacher is an instructor over at the VIBE studio in Lindon and he is awesome! (For any of you DWTS fans he danced during one of the result shows back towards the beginning as well as some of his students.) Dal has always enjoyed dancing and has a funky style of his own so this was a great opportunity for him. They even had a dance-off and he and his partner won!!!

Kylie's Orchestra concert ...

Our Memorial Day tradition is going to Deseret to do some decorating at the cemetery. This year we had a very pleasant surprise ... NO WIND!!! It was great! This was the first time we've been and the wind wasn't blowing everybody away. I'm not usually a big fan of the presentation, but it was short and sweet this year, and we didn't have to chase Ciara the whole time. These little ol' men are just cute too! They have so much patriotism and it's a lot of fun watching them do the 21 gun salute. They always have a local student speak, picked from a contest they hold about Patriotic Duty. The young man that shared his essay this year was very good. I really appreciated his thoughts he shared. It is great to be reminded of everybody who has served, is serving now, and will serve in the military to protect our freedom's. I am truly grateful that we live in our great country. I know that we often take it for granted and sometimes it is easier to complain about the choices our government makes, and the things that don't seem right, but we are so blessed. There are so many more things that we do have that others in this world will never have. We need to always remember to just be grateful for what we DO have.

On a sad note, this morning I dropped Dal off at the church so he could go on his scout camp trip this week. I can't believe he is old enough to do this now. It just didn't seem right sending him away for 5 days. SOOOO sad! He wasn't sad though, he was just super excited to be going. He wouldn't even give me a hug in front of everybody, that was just embarassing. LOL We'll just pray he has a super fun, safe, and mom-missing trip!!! (Don't forget your MOM Dal!)

FIRST DATE PICNIC

Today we had Hyatt over to our house while his momma was working, and I enjoyed it so much! It made the morning so nice. He and Ciara just played and played and I was able to get so much done with very little interruptions, like getting all the wood floors clean in the front room and kitchen, and the kitchen sink, laundry, and a good cleaning for the stove top. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I cleaned the floors on a day that it was snowing and raining but nonetheless it was nice being able to do it!!! (yes I do get excited about cleaning floors)

After lunch the kids went down to the basement and came back with this little basket which Ciara quickly filled with her little silverware, dishes, and a frog, and an umbrella. While she was getting these Hyatt grabbed his blanket and started laying it out and put the basket on the blanket. It looked like they were having a picnic so I grabbed them some snacks to put in the basket also.

Then they needed the umbrella ....

Seriously cute!!!

After snacks and Ciara pouring water on Hyatt they needed to play games.

I guess if you are 3 Connect Four is a lot more fun if you put the pieces in a paint roller, which they brought up from the basement also.

It was a lot of fun, they laughed almost the whole time!

Checking out the snow falling outside. Yep, that window is open thanks to the incredibly warm fire in the stove.

And after all of this fun they grabbed some pillows, their blankets, and took a nap under the umbrella.

If only they would've really slept. :)

All of this definitely had the makings of a date ... meal, playing, and then rest!!!

DRESS UP

Ciara has really gotten into dressing up lately and she loves to pretend that she is a prince (princess). Her favorite thing to dress up in right now is the Easter dress I made her. This morning she came out with the dress and wanted it on over her p.j.'s. Here is what we have ....

I'll have a little sass with this dress please!

It makes me sad looking at these and seeing how much she is growing lately :(

BEAUTY SHOP

Ciara has decided to start playing beauty shop

lately on her own.
Here is what she has done ...

Can you see where this chunk came from?

Oh ... so pretty!

SPRING BREAK

I love spring break ... I even love that the kids were out of school for a whole week! I was as ready for a break from school as the kids were. It's nice to be able to not feel rushed in the mornings or having to worry about getting kids (really just Dal) ready on time! I didn't get to sleep in much because Ciara still would wake up pretty dang early, even after sneaking some Benadryl one night. Yes ... she got the lid off of the bottle while I was packing for our vacation and I'm not sure how much actually got into her mouth but it must not have been too much. It looked as though most of it hit the floor, thankfully! I never cared to much for the flavor of Benadryl, Dimetapp was more my choice!!!

We decided to take a little vacation with some friends for spring break since we had not been on one for so long. It's been over a year and I can't even remember how long it's been since we've been on a fun trip! We knew we wanted some sunshine but didn't want to go too far; so we decided on southern Utah and found exactly what we wanted and needed!

And apparently you can't move pictures around on blogger right now so these are way out of order. And since it is being so fickle I am not going to fight adding anymore of them, but here are some of our pics of our little trip!

While we were there we also celebrated our 5 year anniversary! Happy 5th babe :)

We drove through Kolob National Park on the way home and decided that we will definitely need to go back to hike some of the trails there. The mountains are absolutely stunning!

Falls from the middle pools to the lower pools.

St. George Temple

We visited the Brigham Young home also, but I didn't take any pics.

We stopped at Cove Fort on our way down, it was very windy there but we had a good time going through the fort and learning about it!

This was our guide ... here he is showing the kids an old pioneer game and teaching the kids about eternal families. The kids got to keep the little toy and it kept them entertained through the rest of the drive down.

Inside Zion National Park at the upper Emerald Pools. The name upper made me think it would be at the top of the mountain, it was the upper pool of three different ones but still not near the top of the mountain.

This is the water running from the middle pool to the lower pool.

This is a fun little park in St. George. There are lots of the slick rocks to climb around on. More than once however we had to yell at Ciara to not run as she would take off to the edge not knowing that it was a cliff she was about to run off of. The girl has NO fear!!! She sure scares her mom though ;)

The Three Patriarchs in ZNP

HOLY ....

I just logged on to our blog ... and it has been a long time! I couldn't believe that there was still a Christmas background & banner on there. That's embarrassing ... especially cause so much has happened since Christmas!

I'm going to be brief cause it is late, and I'll try to cover more later. It should be easier to keep up on our blog because our biggest and best change is ....

RANDY GOT A JOB!!!!

WAHOO!!!!

Was that a little too excited?

He started in the middle of February out in Dugway. Yes it is quite a drive but he is really enjoying it. Especially when he gets to track the bombers! But once again it is a job that I couldn't really tell you what he does cause to me it gets a little blah blah blah boring. I don't understand most of the things he is talking about, but who cares? We are just happy he is working!

Kylie started ballroom in January at her school and she is loving it and is doing pretty good at it too! Both she and Dallin did awesome this last quarter, but that usually goes without saying. I wish I enjoyed school as much as they do. They are both going to be playing ball this spring and I was quite surprised that Ky wanted too, but at least they will be busy for part of the summer.

YW is still keeping me very busy. We just had our Gold & Green Ball last night! Does anybody remember those? I do and we always had so much fun at them and nobody out here had even heard of them except for the older people in our ward. As it turns out it use to be bigger than PROM, they even had G&G Ball King & Queen! LOL So I thought it would be fun to have one. It was a 50's theme and we all had so much fun! It did consume the majority of my week, so I am glad there won't be another one for awhile!!!

Well that's the short of the long ... for now!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas to all of our Friends & Family!!!

We have had lots happening in the last week and we have had a great Christmas season!

Thank you to all of our family, friends, and neighbors for everything!!!

We love you lots!!!

So good, she just had to have a lick ....

Cute as a button

The Mr. & Mrs. were not so fun this year

Christmas Eve dinner ... Chinese take-out!!!

Ciara insisted on using chop sticks

She even figured it out, I barely missed it going in her mouth.

The classic Christmas PJ's picture

Good Morning ... did Santa come?

Ciara almost always has a purse!

I think these are the faces of happy children!!!! :)