May

this has been another flyby month for us. we are SO STOKED for this summer!!!! here are some of the highlights not previously blogged about =o]

caleb and his best friend will (who is moving this summer =o[ )

natalie loves to do "baby school" with seth and "teach" him things. they are so adorable and have the cutest relationship! she just explains away about colors or shapes or whatever it may be and he listens so intently smiling big as day. 

kent and the kids have been doing a lot of experiments lately and i love that they are all enjoying each other and learning at the same time!

it's ALWAYS a fun day when rachel comes to play! especially when pillow forts are involved =o]

whitney had a frozen party and rebecca sent us some of the left over stuff! it was so fun!! i can't believe she is still so on top of things with the baby due any day!

i love painting with the (older) kids, and they LOVE it too!

kent is so sweet with seth! have i mentioned this? seth loves everyone, but he has a special smile and kicks his feet excitedly when he sees kent. =o]

i love family home evening. seriously. sometimes it is ruckus for sure, but i truly believe it is an inspired program that has such potential power! 

here is caleb modeling how to be reverent during the prayer (since this lesson was basically for him and jenna lol) about five seconds after this we were DONE lol but at least the Spirit was there for a little while, right?

here is kent trying to guess the smell during natalie's lesson about the Holy Ghost =o]

jenna and seth are absolutely best buddies! i LOVE watching them play together! they just laugh and play (they are too young to fight yet lol) and have a ball =o]

natalie and jenna got matching dresses (thank you costco =o]) and they wanted to pose in them for a picture

update on natalie:

she is teaching herself to swim (though we finally caved and we're playing for lessons this summer)

she is almost done with school and is SUPER EXCITED for the summer and all the "summer school" things we have planned. she has her "exams" tomorrow, tuesday and wednesday and then we ship all her textbooks and equipment back. all in all it has be the perfect situation for our family this year and we are so grateful it was an option for us to do k12 homeschool!

update on caleb:

he continues to be a creative builder who pays attention to detail

he continues to take selfies with my phone at every opportunity. 

he is learning to write so well! i love his cute handwriting. i didn't expect it to be small! for some reason i imagined that he would write HUGE, but if i had been more observant i would have noticed that his drawings have lots of tiny marks and always have, so it makes sense. 

caleb almost drowned. (hence the lessons!!) he fell in the deep end trying to reach for a ball. he was only thrashing around in the water for maybe ten seconds but it was still terrible. he was a champ about it though and was back in the shallow end after about 20 minutes. when we got home we talked about how strong his body was to keep him afloat, and how brave he was to jump in at all, and that now he just needs to get the right technique (he likes that word) so he can move where he wants to in the pool instead of getting stuck. he nodded earnestly at that =o]

 update on jenna:

how can someone be so adorable and so destructive at the same time? lol

she bites the ends off all the pencils and the tips off crayons and markers.

she loves books! and loves to rip them. so i only let her look at board books. 

doesn't phase her.

the graveyard behind her bed. every time she rips a book during quiet time or bed time she doesn't get to read them in her crib the next day. but the day after that she smiles sweetly and says "me try again, mama?" and i let her and BOOM it happens again. to her credit though, she is getting better. these pictures were taken early in the month and last week i think she only ripped the spine off one story. 

notice the bare feet. but that is all my kids lol

she is FEARLESS in the water (another reason for the lessons!!)

and this pretty much sums it up. this is the FHE chart my grandmom made for us when we got married. each sunday after scripture study we go over to the chart and kent hands everyone their hearts and then we all get moved one over to the next job. when kent lifts jenna up to hang hers on a peg it is always newly misshapen. lol we LOVE our miss jenna and wouldn't trade this crackup kid for the world!! 

update on seth:

talk about growing in leaps and bounds- our little brother is quickly become a little boy! he loves playing at the park. 

he LOVES his blanket (i'm convinced now that we did this to our children, meaning we made them all blanket lovers)

he will eat anything and everything we have given him (but sweet potatoes) as you can see here since this is the butt end of an uncooked broccoli stem 

so cute! (and so skinny =o[ )

i LOVE this hilarious face he makes! it is hard to explain but he scrunches up his nose and laughs while sort of snorting. trust me, it's adorable =o]

"just chillin' " as the kids say =o]

he gets up on his knees and rocks but still only scoots around on his belly which is fine with me! i'm in huge trouble when this kid goes mobile! 

kent and i are doing well too. just plugging along, but in a happy, team-worky kind of way =o] life is oh so good! we know we are blessed and are living our dreams!