Mother's Day and Memorial Day

The greatest gifts to have on Mother's Day.....

How thankful I am for these girls and that I get to be their mother each and every day. 

I treasure them!

We had a great morning at church, we then went to Pat and Steve's for dinner. It is so nice having grandparents close to us. We had a great dinner with them and the Matthews family. There is nothing better than family and good friends.
The girls showered me with little notes and cards that they had made at school and church and I got some pretty flowers for the yard. 

The next day, Drew and I celebrated our 14th anniversary!
We celebrated big, by going about our normal every day activities. 

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Memorial day...

Instead of taking flowers to uncle Cody's grave, the girls made pinwheels...

Memorial Day Morning we took the girls and hiked Table Rock. 

This may become a new tradition. The weather was perfect for hiking and the girls did so good. Last time we hiked we didn't quite make it all the way.. There was no giving up this day! 

We got to the top and I pulled out the camera to take pictures, only to find out that my camera was out of batteries.... UUUHHHH.

that made me mad...

So I pulled out the phone and actually got quite a few cute pictures...

I had packed some snacks, so we took a quick break  to snack and prep our legs for the hike down. 

There was another family up there and we offered to take their family picture. Drew then asked if we could borrow their batteries to put in our camera to get one good picture.  The lady then pulled out 2 new batteries out of her camera bag and just gave them to us. 

That was so sweet and I am so thankful that people are so nice. 

So here are a few pictures I got with the camera at the top and on the way back down.

It really was a fun hike to do together.

I am glad that the girls get along so well and love doing family things like this. 

They helped each other, encouraged each other, explored and laughed together. 

Building family friendships and memories is one of the greatest things!

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in going thru and adding all my pictures from my phone, I came across this one that was sent to me on a day Drew was at work....

 Drew's crew was working out, and one of the guys really tweeked his back... So the rest of them went to the ER to check on him...(aka diagnose his condition) 

Do you notice anything odd about this picture?

Fun in May....

 May 3rd was the first plunge... Too cold for the momma, but the kids and Drew couldn't wait to get wet... The water was 65 degrees.

 Thursday May 9th aunt Jodi surprised the girls with a quick visit.. She was surprised to find the kids swimming when she got here. The water had warmed to almost 70 which felt nice because it was in the 80's that day... We are glad she took the time to come see us. The girls swam, we visited, had dinner and Kara really wanted to play tennis with her. After tennis we went out for ice cream, then we dropped her back to her hotel and she went home the next morning. It was quick and fun.. Thanks again Jodi for coming!

The many faces of our sweet Hallie....

 May 16th was Field Trip day for Brae. 

She was excited that I was able to go with her class to the Botanical Gardens. 

It was a perfect day to go, and the gardens were so pretty...

 Friday the 17th was the BIG field trip for Aubree. The 4th graders wait for this all year. It was a long day but really fun to learn a little history, and spend time with just Aubree. She loves school and was so excited for this day to come. We got rained on a few times and it was a little cold, but still so fun playing pioneer games and panning for gold.

And just like that...

Tooth number 2 is gone!

 This time the tooth fairy had a treat to leave... She was  pretty excited!

 Hallie is all done with preschool... she is getting so excited to start kindergarten in the fall. Her little class had a fun picnic at the park and played a few games to celebrate being done.

 Drew discovered that we had 5 baby kittens living under our shed... We have seen cats in our back yard before and didn't think much of it.  However there is one particular orange cat that began hanging out a little more, and now we know why. The kids love it! Mom and dad, not so much. There has been a few time they have gotten their hands on one and were able to hold them, but they are pretty quick and pretty scared of us. We hope they find their way  out of here by them selves so we don't have to call animal control.

 Kara had her spring piano recital and did an amazing job! We are so proud of her and are still amazed at how much she has progressed! Practicing is still hard, so we are going to take it a little easy for the summer. She played " Come Back to Sorrento"