As "just" a mom, I have a front row seat to my children's growth and learning, daily little miracles, and the funny things that happen in a marriage. I feel so very blessed to be "just" a mom.
I can't believe Parker is already 10 years old! We had so much fun celebrating her birthday and she loved all the things we were able to do.
Parker wanted to wake up to her decorations, so I put them up the night before. I did some simple decorations because we did her birthday party a week later (so cousins could be there).
The night before Parker's birthday was Ashtyn's no screens activity and she wanted to spend her activity making lemon bars and birthday cards for Parker.
Parker loved it!
Our traditional donuts! I didn't get a picture before the kids ate most of them 😅
During Leah's nap, Parker and I went to the store together to let her pick out treats for her birthday date that night. We also picked up Papa Murphy's pizza since that's what she wanted for dinner.
She spent the afternoon hanging out with two of her friends and then we went to her Grandma's house, where we had pizza and watermelon for dinner. Leah hanging out with Uncle Dalin was too cute to not get a picture of.
After pizza, we went out to the creek for a creek day.
Leah loved it!
Ashtyn swimming across the creek.
And Ben caught a snake! The kids were in heaven.
It was a yellow racer and was a little bit aggressive, which is why Ben held it with a towel.
For Parker's birthday date, she wanted to play video games to "earn" coins that she could then "buy" treats with. This is an idea that Ashtyn has done a couple times before. I gave her a lot of different options, but this is the one she wanted. She had a lot of fun with it.
We played Super Smash, Boomerang Foo, and Baba is You.
She loved all the treats and the video games!
Parker wanted a dragon (and specifically Wings of Fire, but dragons in general) for her birthday theme.
The kids had so many dragons to put on the wall XD
Our gift to Parker were the newest Wings of Fire graphic novels and she was SO excited.
Parker wanted an ice cream sandwich ice cream cake with this picture on top as a decoration.
It's not my favorite dessert, but it's the kids' apparently 🤷
Happy Birthday to Parker!
Dragon masks!
The kids also caught two snakes, they called them Parker's birthday snakes. Thomas caught the first one at the park on the way over and they caught the second one (which was HUGE) as they were letting the first one go.
Parker loved all her birthday celebrations and we loved celebrating her!
We had a wonderful month in May! I love this time of year as summer finally gets here and everything is warm (or hot) outside. Leah is in such a fun stage, I absolutely love the toddler stage as I get to watch them really become their own little person and learn and grow so much. The other kids are loving it too.
Swimming! We are so lucky that Grandma Lindi has an above ground pool she lets the kids swim in all the time. Oliver has gotten brave about getting into the pool this year. He started by holding onto the edge and has now gotten more used to swimming around in his floatie.
The kids LOVE when Uncle Dalin gets in the pool to play with them!
Finding bugs!
Oliver loves when Dad gets in the pool with him.
And, of course, gymnastics!
We are so lucky whenever we get to hold baby Neal! He is adorable.
Ashtyn and her cousin make these little books and boxes of them.
A little field trip to our local dinosaur museum.
It's a little underwhelming, to be honest, but the kids had fun.
Rylee 😂
Ashtyn and Lizzy started a gymnastics club with some other girls
and had their first meeting in May.
Leah!
That was about all of the donut she ate (I don't blame her, the donuts were actually not that great), but she loved it.
The kids have a lot of fun toting each other around in this wagon.
Helping Grandpa in the garden!
The kids all helped him plant.
Afterward, the kids got to see a horny toad Grandpa had found out at work.
It was a super rainy morning, which a lot of the kids loved (Oliver and Parker weren't as happy about it, but Kolson loved it).
Oliver and Ben got to go to our stake's Fathers and Sons campout together and had a lot of fun. They shot off a cannon and Ben circled where the cannon ball landed in this picture.
Parker made a quesadilla that had "6-7" on it haha
Ashtyn's drawing on cousins' trampoline.
Oliver's life drawing of a car.
Oliver loves building things.
During a different activity days, Parker didn't love teh activity, so she drew these dragons on the chalkboard instead.
Some marshmallow building (started off as constellations with our space unit).
More of Oliver building.
Some more fun space activities.
Rylee's tower got taller than Ben and I.
Rylee's sign 😂
The kids love catching snakes and there are so many around where we live.
Leah!
Leah loves her food still.
Leah knows to go right to Aunt Melissa's lunchbox 😂
I love how snuggly Leah is. I am so lucky to have all my kids.
Crepes for Crepes Day! The kids love when we do crepes.
Leah loves baths, especially bubble baths.
She fell asleep like this and I couldn't help but take a picture 😂
Selfie!
Leah loves to say no. Sometimes she'll yell it, "No! No! No!" and sometimes just says it matter-of-fact.
Leah also loves her fan (she calls it "wind"). I had turned her fan on her face while I was clipping her nails after her bath to distract her. When I was done, the fan had dried her hair like this 😂😂
Leah is getting so good at walking and loves it. It's fun to look back not that long ago and see how far she has come.
Leah loves to unload all the cupboards all the time 😂
Leah getting good at walking!
Leah loves bread.
Same, girl, same.
The kids love to lug Leah around everywhere and snuggle her.
Leah loved the whipped cream
(from the crepes, not sure why the picture is so much farther down from it).
Leah loves bugs.
I will always love sleeping kids/babies.
Pickleball prodigy!
Parker made homemade ice cream with ice creams for her first day of her birthday countdown.
Leah loves to suck her thumb in her crib, but hardly does it anywhere else, so I had to take a picture when I went in to get her as proof.
I love watching my kids have such a sweet relationship with each other.
Super Leah.
The kids were watching some old interviews I did with the kids on Facebook and they wanted me to do it with them now. So here we are.
There was a bird stuck in our window well for awhile. We felt the best thing to do was to leave it there until it could learn to fly out (it was an adolescent), especially as we saw other birds bringing it food. The kids checked on it all the time until it got out and onto the roof. Later that day, it was gone.
The kids named it Wish Nickel Anderson (an efficient name). Rylee drew a picture of it and especially missed it when it was gone.
Such a wonderful month full of summer fun and family and friends! We are so blessed.
