May 2016

The month of May was another busy one with end-of-school projects, parties, performances, birthdays, etc. So in chronological order:

I go on walks with Olive to the park down the street from us all the time when the weather is nice and the girls are in school. The city closed it for a while and tore everything out and started from scratch. As soon as it finished we had to go check it out, and Olive approved. Her sweatshirt will always remind me of Ellie, especially since she insists on having the hood on like Ellie always did:

Ellie loved dressing up for the Kindergarten rodeo and bringing her stick horse. I didn't help out with the party but my friend sent me this picture of Ellie, Ellie S., and Ally:

That first weekend in May we went to Goblin Valley but I'll do a separate post on that.

Ellie enjoying a good spring rain:

Going to the grocery store even with just Olive can be such a struggle so sometimes I give in to her demands when she asks for a pink donut. I'm a sucker for her:

We met my mom at Thanksgiving Point one evening after school and had to get their favorite ice cream sundae afterwards:

This month we also finally made progress on our landscaping in the front yard. We had been slowly ripping out bushes over the last couple of years but we just needed to make a priority. I made a plan while Dan finished tearing everything out and trimmed trees:

We moved the curbing to make the planing area smaller and our lawn bigger. It was a small project but it makes our front entrance feel so much more open! Dan also installed a french drain so we wouldn't have a big drain pipe sticking out anymore. Before the re-sodding:

As an early birthday present to the girls we bought tickets for us to see Cavalia's Odysseo. It was a horse/acrobat show put on by Cirque du Soleil that was in Salt Lake for a few months. The tickets were a little pricey but it was completely worth it. And we even ended up getting moved a lot closer to the front when we showed up since there were some empty seats. It was really pretty incredible and we were all in awe watching the whole thing. I didn't get any pictures of the actual show, just a shot while we were waiting for it to start:

The kindergarteners had a "lunch experience" day where they got to eat lunch at school to prepare them for 1st grade. Ellie chose to buy lunch and I came to help her class. Olive loved getting to sit by Ellie and share her food.

I came to help a few days later when her class had their Mother Goose Olympics. Here's Ellie in one of the relays but I can't remember which mother goose rhyme it went with.

Alta's turned 8! She had been looking forward to this birthday for so long, mostly because she was so excited to get baptized a few weeks later.

Her birthday landed on a Saturday this year so we got to celebrate all day. My mom offered to help with her party and she drove up early so she could take Alta out to lunch and birthday shopping. They went to Corner Bakery Cafe, which Alta likes but Ellie doesn't so we rarely go there. It was a treat for Alta to go with just Grandma!

My mom took her to Deseret Book to pick out a scripture bag since she'd be getting her own scriptures soon. She also got to pick out a couple of rings and a journal.

And then the party started! I once again planned a mostly outdoors party only to have another rainy May saturday. During her actual party the weather wasn't too bad so we switched between indoors and outdoors a lot. I had a bag full of party games that everyone got to take turns choosing from. Balloon stomp while we were waiting for everyone to get there:

Using vaseline and your nose to move cotton balls from one plate to another (not everyone was willing to try this one!)

Alta in the mummy wrap:

And many more. They also sometimes took breaks to all jump on the trampoline together.

Alta requested donuts instead of a birthday cake:

And then it was present time:

It was a fun party! That night Alta picked Royal India (again) for her birthday dinner so we went with just our family.

Alta got to open her present there, a new camera! It was actually my old one but she had no idea it existed so she was ecstatic. She brought it everywhere she went for the first few weeks and still loves taking pictures. What a great 8th birthday!

The following Monday Ellie had her end-of-year performance for Jolley's. It was her first time performing with all the older classes at Corner Canyon High School. I didn't realize how many people would be there so we didn't get the best seats, but we liked seeing some of the older classes and what tricks Ellie would be learning in the future. Ellie did great in her class performance and continues to love tumbling!

A random picture from the next day. My mom had brought her old wagon on Alta's birthday and the girls have loved taking turns pulling each other around:

That Tuesday night was my piano recital for all my students. I had the three Peterson kids, Porter and Jackson Lebaron, Ruby, and Alta. My friend Amy Harman had been teaching her son Andersen and wanted him to have a chance to perform for a group so he got to come too. I didn't get any pictures or videos during because I'm always so distracted by having to be in charge. So this is the only picture, from afterwards:

Even though I only taught for a short time, I had some mixed feelings about it being my last recital! I'll definitely pick up teaching again at some point. And I'll still be teaching Alta and Ellie for the time being!

And I can't find the video, but for the next few days Olive would go up to the piano and say, "My name is Olive and I'm-a play my song" and then she'd pound away on the keys. She was paying attention during that recital!

The next day was the Sprucewood dance festival. Ellie and the kindergarteners did the hokey pokey and I already forgot what Alta and the 2nd graders did. My only picture, of Ellie S. and Ellie at the far left:

That afternoon was Alta's first time going to Activity Days too:

The next day we went to the zoo with Dan after school. Since I bought a pass when we went with Ellie's field trip I knew I wanted to use it before it got crazy busy during the summer. Dan so rarely gets to do these outings with us that it's always a special occasion to have him come!

And an updated look at our yard. I bought the main bushes for our landscaping, which will take a while to grow to maturity.

After this I spent a lot of time visiting nurseries and picking out flowers. I planted one big section only to have them all nearly die because June decided to be over 100 degrees half the time. I've decided the rest will have to be planted this fall or next spring.

And lastly for this marathon post, a picture from our memorial day picnic at the Browers. Olive likes trying to hold Penny but she's practically as big as Olive!