More May Happenings

May is always such a busy month for us between birthdays, end of school year events, holidays, and the extras that always seem to happen.

Like having to take a saxophone to an instrument shop for repairs.  And the lovely man at the shop sent these two home with kazoos.  Oh boy.  That was a long forty minute drive home.

The sax was fixed just in time for Trenton's eighth grade band concert.  It. Was. Awesome.  The band teacher at Fox Ridge Middle School is amazing!

 Colson had his last 6th grade band concert that night as well.  It's amazing to hear the difference in their playing from the beginning of the year to the end.  They were amazing!  

Best little buddies.  I love how they are holding hands in this picture.  We sure miss living across the street from the Lee family!

Someone is a monkey!  She figured out how to get out of her high chair buckle, and that brought on a whole new set of safety issues.  As if we didn't already have enough to worry about with this girl and safety!

All winter long, this tractor was parked in the parking lot of the apartment complex we lived at, and being that Preston still loves tractors, he would frequently ask me to take a picture of him with it.  This boy would really like to have a tractor of his own someday.  I honestly won't be surprised if he becomes a farmer just so he can drive a tractor every day.

Guess who made another mess?!  She is so fast!  It takes her no time flat to make these kinds of messes.  And she usually does it while I'm busy and distracted cleaning up a previous mess she has made.  I am writing this months after this picture was taken, and I can honestly say not a whole lot has changed.  It is so exhausting, but I would much rather have messes to clean up than not have this cute girl.  I love her, messes and all!

Another move.  This time across the country!  The nice thing about this one is we didn't have to pack anything up or load the truck.  The only thing we ended up packing were the suitcases full of clothes we needed while we stayed with Trent's parents for a few weeks until the kids were done with school.

Vivian and I went to the "Women in Leadership" night that Mr. Kennedy helps put together every year.  These are just some of the friends from her class.  They were all so upset that Vivi was going to be moving so far away!  On more than one occasion they begged me not to take her.

Guys night out!  Trent's friends were so nice to take him out for some fun and food.

With all the changes, Lou had a hard time sleeping the first couple of nights at grandma and grandpa's.  "Shaun the Sheep" was the only way I got some sleep those nights.  Whoever dreamed up that show is one of my favorite people ever.  That show is what has made it possible for me to take showers, sleep, get a few loads of laundry done (okay, more than a few), and even get through the grocery store on several occasions without a major melt down.  To sum it up, this show has been my saving grace!  While she is finally branching out and watching other shows, for months she was faithful to only "Shaun the Sheep".  She still loves it though and comes back to it time and time again.  And who can blame her?  It is the funniest show around!  

Another airport goodbye.  As I look back, I wonder how I made it through everything going on during that time with this guy gone 5-6 days a week.  I'm so glad we don't have to do that any more!

This was a bit of exciting news.  The rain stopped long enough (it rained all Spring and Summer long here in Atlanta!) for them to be able prep for the foundation.  Yay!  One milestone down in the whole long process.

My girl and I, hanging out with all the kiddos at the park.  I've said it thousands of times, but I really don't know what I would do without this girl of mine!  Love her to bits!

Something inside me must have known I wouldn't get to see a sunset for months because I have a lot of sunset pictures from the months before we moved.  

 My Buds and I.  He was insistent that I wear this princess crown and that we have a picture together with it on.  Just looking at him with that smile, and the glasses… Melts my heart like butter it does!

March 2013

I'm getting there with this whole catching up business.

March 2013:

Colson finished up his science experiment.  He built four types of bridges, then put weights on them to see which one could hold the most weight.  In case you were wondering, it was the arch that could hold the most weight.  Which is not the bridge shown above.

Jilly taught herself some new tricks.  She fell out once, and now just likes to hang precariously on the edge.  Her other trick is to get her legs stuck between the slats.  And I mean stuck.  I have had to use cooking spray on a few occasions to get her legs unstuck!  I'm sure it doesn't help that her legs are so chubby.  :)

The kids and I got to meet up with my cousin Nakole and her darling family at Red Robin.  They were in town for a few days.  It was lovely to see her and meet her kids.  I hadn't seen her and her husband since our grandpa Gubler's funeral over 9 years ago.  It had been way too long!

Our kids all had a blast getting to know each other!

We went with Vivi's teacher, Mr. Kennedy, and a few of her classmates to the fire station/police department to deliver some goodies.

Funny story.  The firefighter in this picture and his crew are the ones that saved Jilly when she was a mere 7 weeks old.  Story found here.

I read this fabulous book.  I highly recommend it!  I keep lists of the books I read by the year.  I was looking at my list from last year and noticed I had only read 6 books.  6 books!  The whole year!!!  I used to read a book a week.  (Although that was before having my third child.  It's been a while!)  It wasn't one of my better years for reading.  Of course having 5 kids doesn't seem to leave much time for reading.  And by the time I go to bed at night, I'm way too tired to be able to keep my eyes open long enough to read a few sentences.  My goal this year is to at least read more books than I did last year.  I'm setting the bar pretty high.  Hopefully I can do it.  ;)

This is my errand buddy.  And this is a pretty accurate picture of what she usually looks like by the time we get done with our errands.  Poor girl!

Trent went to Amsterdam, grew his hair out, and dyed it green.  Just kidding.  It's a wig if you couldn't tell.

He was only there a few days and most of that was spent in meetings, but his coworkers convinced him to go take a walk through the Red Light District with them.

During daylight I might add.  When there was no craziness going on.  His mom told him not to, but he just wouldn't listen.  ;)

Trenton got his braces off!  He was so excited!  And a few days that, he cut his hair short.  Between braces off, and a new haircut, he looked so grown up!  Like he had aged another year or two in just a few days!  And his voice is changing.  Stop growing I say!

These two have been as goofy as ever.  Preston got in the car one day after school and for some unknown reason was yelling out, "Pumpkin farts! Pumpkin farts!"  To which Vivi responded, "When a pumpkin farts, does it smell like pumpkin pie?"  Good question Viv.

We spent a day over at grandma and grandpa's a couple weeks after grandma Stock had her total knee surgery.  Grandma said she was getting sick of herself and needed some company.  We were happy to oblige.  Vivi showed Jilly how to dress the Barbies and Jilly loved every minute of it.

And Preston and Vivi thought grandpa was their pony for the day.

I tried my darnedest to get caught up on our whole laundry situation.  I was semi-successful.  For about a day.  Then it looked like this again.  A friend of mine suggested starting a nudist colony.  So, so tempting.

Jilly stole Trenton's dinner one night.  And he let her.  Cause he's an awesome big brother like that.  No wonder she loves him so much.  I'm pretty sure he would do anything for her.

Vivi acquired the nickname Fred.  Cause Jilly used to call her friend.  And it sounded kinda like Fred.

Trenton and I made an apple pie for him to take and share with his class for pi day.  We made pumpkin too.  His personal favorites.

A birthday text for Uncle Ryan.  Cause we love him.

Easter Sunday.  These are the dresses my mom made for them this Easter.  She is one amazing seamstress!

We had Easter dinner with all the family the day before Easter.  On Easter Sunday, we ended going over to my dear friend Michelle's house.  And this is the only picture I have from either day.

Trent took another trip over to Atlanta to do some house hunting.  He found a house that we loved!  It was on two acres, there was a pool in the yard, a playground, it was completely updated, and my favorite part... it had a 5 car garage!  We put an offer on it immediately.  And so did 4 other people.  Needless to say, we did not win that bidding war.  So he took another trip a couple weeks later and found another house.  But after getting the inspection done, and learning about all of the fire hazards going on in the basement (they finished it themselves) and finding out we would have to pretty much rip out the basement to fix it, we backed out of that deal.  Then we found another house.  The lot was amazing!!!  To say the least.  It was an acre and a half lot.  It backed to a lake, had it's own dock, a playground and basketball hoop in the back yard, and huge, beautiful pine trees to shade it all.  And the owners said they would leave us their paddle boat and fishing boat.  We pretty much were buying the house for the lot.  Because the house itself was less than fabulous.  First of all, it was small.  But with the beautiful yard, I was willing to look past that.  Second of all, the house was pink.  The whole thing, inside and out.  Carpet, blinds, tile, you name it.  All in various shades of pink from fuchsia to baby pink.  I was willing to look past that too.  It wasn't anything a little paint, new flooring, and some elbow grease couldn't fix.  But then we got down to the nitty grittiness of the situation.  It needed all new pipes, we would have to add a bathroom to the basement, and it needed all new siding.  That added to all of the other work we were going to have to do, the house was proving to be a money pit.  But the yard!  We were blinded to the house at first because we loved the yard so much.  It was that nice!  But after thinking it through, we backed out of that deal too.  And pushed our move date back another month.  And increased our level of anxiety.  Oh well... such is life.

February 2013

Back to catching up.  Here's a rundown of February:

 Jilly kept asking to do bubbles one day, but it was a bit too chilly outside, so we decided to blow bubbles inside instead.  She was beyond thrilled.

 We went to Hammond's Candy factory.  Twice in fact.  Once with friends from Vivi's DI team, and another time with friends from church.

We've lived here in Colorado for all these years, and had never been to Hammond's before, and ended up going twice in one month!  Go figure.  I highly recommend the chocolate covered caramel marshmallows.  To die for!

 Jilly never ceases to amaze me.  She's either constantly sneaking into the bathtub and gets the water running, fully clothed I might add, or I'll have just gotten her out of the bath and she manages to find something to get into which ends up requiring another bath.  She would live in the bath if I let her.

 I'm sure I've mentioned Vivi's lists before.  She has a list for everything!  This happens to be my favorite to date.  "When I did snaselspray."  Or in other words, nasal spray.  I just love her so much!  She brightens my days.

 Jilly learned how to call shotgun!  She's heard the older boys say it so much that when we go to leave, she calls shotgun now too!  Makes me giggle every time.

 Preston made a moth for his Valentine's Day Bottle Beastie.  When we first started talking about what type of creature he wanted to make, he said he wanted a dog, a cat, or a dragon, but then he settled on a moth.  When I asked him what made him think of a moth, his reply was, "I just thinked it in my mind."  And what an amazing little mind he has! 

 Colson put his mad sewing skills to use and made Uncle Sean a matching pajama shirt.

 Preston was the ring bearer at my cousin Kiersten's wedding.  He and Trenton got to take a little trip to Utah with my mom and Dustin so he could be in the wedding.  I guess he got a little nervous and was wanting to back out of his ring bearing duties when my brother took him aside, told him to suck it up, and let him know what his duties were.  And Preston did just that.  Then he stood there right in front of the groom for the whole ceremony.  Lol!

He also developed a little crush on the flower girl.  He and Trenton both had a great time hanging with the Utah cousins that weekend.

 Jilly became even more addicted to "Shaun the Sheep".  Some days I don't know how I would get a shower in if it weren't for that show!

Trent's National Sales meeting was at the end of February.  One of the speakers there was Stephanie Nielson, author of The NieNie Dialogues.  He got to meet her, her husband, and their five beautiful children.  He said her speech was wonderful and very inspiring.  He brought me home a signed copy of her book.  

Other happenings in February:

Trent and I took a trip over to Atlanta to do some house hunting.  And we found NOTHING.  We looked at 15-20 houses, but nothing felt right.  We were there over Valentine's Day though, so at least we got a great date night out of the trip!  We went to one of the yummiest sushi places I've been to yet, and I'm sure we will frequent it often once we get moved to Atlanta.  :)