May 2013

Well, I did it.  I missed a month of blogging.  It was only my second time in nearly eight years that I have missed a whole month without posting.  I tried not to, but May was a pretty busy month!

Olivia and Carter got to watch our friend, Pat Hoffart, glaze some donuts in the back of his donut shop, Bee's donuts.

Carter played on his first soccer team this spring and LOVED it!

Go #6!

Haylee and Olivia hanging out during one of Carter's practices.

Aaron had a few business trips during May and so  our neighbor, Gary, was awesome and cut our grass for us!

Aaron ate at this pizza parlor while he was in England last month.  It's an old church.

Aaron also got to go to Texas for a golf trip.  That man on the right is his boss, Randall.

Another fancy restaurant in England...Indian restaurant.

Love Haylee's curls!

I finally took the kids to the school district's art fair this year.  It is always held on a Sunday and this year it didn't interfere with church.  It was so fun to see all the awesome artwork!  Carter made this fish.

Olivia with her picture (above her head).  It's a worm, owl, caterpillar, bunny and bee.

A toe for a pacifier.

1950's day in her class.

All ready for her Spring dance recital.

She did awesome and just LOVES being on stage.  She was so happy that they had two different performances this spring.

Haylee riding a tricycle during therapy.   

Doing a puzzle at therapy and working that trunk with twists and leaning!

Last week, Aaron and I met with Haylee's behavioral pediatrician after going through lots of evaluations for Haylee.  Dr. Valentin was so kind in going over all the evaluations with us and what comes next.  Haylee was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum.  She gave us our assignments in regards to the appointments and things she wants done before we meet with her again at the end of the summer.

I don't want to go into my private thoughts on all that we've been through the past eight months.  It brings up a lot of emotion.  We are happy to live where we do with such awesome resources close at hand.  We plan to utilize them and see Haylee improve in her speech and also her gross and fine motor skills.  She is so sweet and we are honored that Heavenly Father has sent her special spirit to our family.  We love our little Haylee bug.

This little guy LOVES his mama!

Drool bomb!

Olivia is such an awesome big sister to Haylee and Ryan.  Olivia is definitely Haylee's favorite playmate and Olivia is always happy to do just that...play with Haylee.

this bathroom faucet has been a headache.  When Aaron went out of town, he let me know that he found something to slow the drip...a bag of brown sugar.  Very resourceful.

I recently go to go with some friends to get a pedicure.  It's only my 2nd time and this remote for the chair had me pretty confused, but it was fun to play with anyway.

Pedicures were to celebrate Clarissa's 30th birthday!  

Pretty toes.  That was kind of a painful experience, but the end results were so nice :)

Aaron was able to get Lasik eye surgery in May.  When Carter and Olivia got home from school that day, he decided to tease them by pretended that the surgery had gone wrong and left him blind.  Not funny, I know, but the kids love being teased.

This is my mother's day dinner!!!  I didn't plan it, shop for it or cook it!  But I ate it and it was WONDERFUL!  Aaron did so good!

I sure love this little sweetie!

Carter and Olivia had a roll-y poll-y farm for awhile in May.  They even painted some of them with nailpolish so they could name them and tell who was who.  This one wasn't painted...he was black and they named him Usher.  hahaha!

Carter and Olivia went over to the neighbors and helped Vanessa plant some Mother's Day flowers.  Vanessa has been doing this for me every year and I love it!

Carter with his 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Lloyd.  They hold an awards ceremony at a nearby baptist church.  Couldn't get him to look at me or crack a smile while on stage.

Carter earned the athletic award and holistic writing award.  The athletic award came from his PE teacher...his most favorite subject!  And Carter is a pretty creative story writer.

The woman on the left is Olivia's home room teacher, Mrs. Persiani.  The woman on the  right is Mrs. Wotring, the school principal.  Olivia was all smiles on stage.

Olivia also won the holisitic writer award.  She loves to write stories!  Olivia also brought home the math award and an award for being on the Honor Roll.  She laughed about the math award because she hates math.

Olivia and her two best friends from her class.  Brook and Lexi.

Last summer, my mom sent this water slide home from Utah with us and we've finally been able to enjoy it! 

loads of Spring!

We got to celebrate Easter with an egg hunt with the Stratton family.  They recently moved across town and from our ward and so it was great to see them again.

Olivia making a mad dash to find her next egg during the Easter egg  hunt.

Aaron helped Haylee find a few eggs so she could get some candy too.

Easter Sunday - getting ready to go to church

Easter Sunday we had the Anderson's and Scheidegger's over for dinner and egg coloring.

Carter had a great time dying eggs and in the process colored his hands too.

Haylee loves to play on my phone and so I often find little pictures  like this that she's drawn and saved...this is her version of a happy face.

She also likes the camera app on my phone and takes loads of pictures.

Always great pictures from Haylee :)

Aaron finally got a grill!  I actually kinda like it because then Aaron cooks dinner!

We had a great spring break!  Smashburger is a favorite place for us to eat and so we had to go for some fried pickles during spring break.

Aaron took Carter and Olivia to the bank so they could exchange some of their smaller bills for a $50 bill.  They thought that was pretty cool.

Chuck E Cheese was another stop during spring break.  

I must admit, I do love these little pictures you can get at Chuck E Cheese.

We also went to the zoo during spring break.  The weather was beautiful and so it was a very busy place, but we got to see lots of animals and enjoy the day outdoors.

In front of the Rhino

During Spring Break, Olivia and Carter made a tent downstairs out of anything and everything they could find.

Then they slept in it a few times.

Carter is getting ready to start his first season of soccer.  Uncle Daniel was happy to hear that and so he went and picked out Carter some cleats, shin guards and shorts and mailed them to Carter.  Carter was so happy to get them!

After running errands with Aaron one day, I looked down and saw this...a salt shaker in my diaper bag.  I laughed pretty hard to think that I threw this thing in the diaper bag as I was packing snacks that day.  I don't know where my mind went somedays.

Olivia got a new comforter...picked it out herself and boy, it is snazzy.

We are getting ready to drive to Utah again this summer and a baby takes up a lot of room in a vehicle so we decided it was time to get a bigger cargo carrier for the top of the van.

This is as big as they come and it's huge!

hanging out in Mommy and Daddy's bed.

I've recently learned how to make a few different kinds of bread...this Italian bread is so good with some garlic seasoning on it.  Who knew making bread was so easy?

The kids are already getting lots of use out of the trampoline.

Carter's spring pictures...I can't stomach paying so much for a sheet and so I just decided to take a picture of the picture :)  Carter is really such a joy.  He's so helpful and fun!

Olivia's spring pictures turned out so great too.  She is such a loving little girl and is so patient with Haylee.

Ryan enjoyed watching Carter play Just Dance.

This little guy is so much fun!