Everything is more Glamorous now!

Remember that camera I got for my birthday?  Well, I have been having fun playing with it, and just have to tell you that my life looks vastly more glamorous through the lens of my canon rebel.  And that's just the lens that came with that camera--not one of its super expensive upgrade lenses.  :)  

So last post, (before I had my camera) was all about the busy-ness of May.  But then my camera arrived, and I started noticing other parts of May.  Here are some lovely moments that happen in May between all the other running around: spring weather, flowers, sunshine, cherries, gardening, trampoline time . . .  May is good after all.

The kids found this perfect birds nest in our apple tree.  We got up and took it down to look at it after the birds had left for good.

Bennett and the Esplin twins on the swing.  Couldn't narrow it down to just one . . .

Bennett is unofficially betrothed to one of these girls.  I can't tell them apart, so this may or may not be the right one.  But we could probably use it in their wedding video someday, regardless.

Arthur finished a major project on his to-do list.  He pressure washed the flaking paint off the cinderblock wall fencing in our yard, and repainted it all, so it is fresh and clean and new.  It was a huge undertaking!

Garden helpers

Doesn't my green bean sprout look like a rockstar when captured by my new camera?

Crazy May

How many things can we possibly squeeze into one month?   May is the month of frantically trying to make it to concerts and recitals and end of the year picnics and banquets and graduation parties . . .  It's a little crazy.  But it's also full of springtime and lovely weather and the anticipation of summer.  Here are some pieces of our May.  And if I ever recover from this month,  I may go into detail about 1 or 2 of them.

Sean ordered himself some spy glasses on Amazon.  They have mirrors on the edges so you can see  what's behind you.  Nobody can sneak up on him now.  :)

Our good friends, the Shepherds, finished building their new dentist office. It's the prettiest building I've seen in ABQ. Seriously, they should consider renting it out for wedding receptions.  So excited for them and proud of all their hard work.

Dallin and Daphne's Spring Violin Recital.  

It was really fun to hear them play in small groups together.

Scriptures for Cold Stone

We are trying a new scripture reading incentive this year.  Every month we have a 100 scripture reading boxes to fill.  They can be filled by our family scripture reading, and anybody's personal scripture reading.  If everybody read everyday, we'd have more than enough to fill the boxes, so the 100 squares leaves some room for error.  But it is still really hard to fill up those boxes!!  Despite our seeming failure at getting all our readers reading the scriptures every day, our scripture chart has drastically increased everybody's personal scripture reading and kept our family scripture reading much more consistent.  If we fill up all the squares for one month, we get to go do a family activity.  In January we did a trampoline park.  February we failed.  And this was the reward for March.  (April was another fail.)  But we are on track for earning a May reward if we finish out strong.  Maybe next year we'll be good enough to get a reward every month, instead of every other month!  Still, I feel like we're making progress, and that is good.

Hayden's Kindergarten "Moving On" Performance

Hayden LOVED being in Miss Phillips' class this year.  She is so much fun.  

Hope our other kids are lucky enough to get her too!

 Hubert Humphrey Basket Night

Hayden with his classmate Ethan, who just moved to Texas.  :( 

This particular night was a little nuts.  We all went to basket night and had dinner together, and then Arthur and Dallin left so Dallin could get to his last orchestra concert of the year, while I stayed at Basket Night with the other kids.  And even though we have a pep talk before going to basket night, we still had some tears from the kindergartener who was devastated about not winning a basket this year.  Again.  I told the kids,  If you want to go to Basket Night to have a picnic dinner at school with lots of friends and dancing and other fun activities then we can keep going. If you are going to basket night because you're really hoping you might win a basket, we should just stop going.  Not gonna happen.  And, despite Hayden and Sean's disappointment, we made it back to the car without making too much of a spectacle of ourselves, I guess.  And Dallin's concert was almost 2 hours, so I was really glad we didn't take all the kids to that.  Thank goodness for averted disasters.  :)

Daphne at the NM State Reflections Open House

Daphne submitted this art piece to our school's Reflections Competition.  Since she advanced to state, she got to attend an open house at a hotel where her work was displayed and enjoy some yummy food and get a balloon in the shape of a butterfly, and lots of free bags, water bottles and other things set up by PTA demonstrators.

 Sound of Music Auditions

Dallin, Daphne and I all tried out.  I may give this one its own post.

My Spring Recital for my Piano and Voice Students

I was too busy putting on a recital to really document it, but these are the symphony bars I gave all the performers.  It was A LOT, but that isn't representative of my actual teaching load.  I have 7 piano students and 2 voice students.  The others performers were from families where the mom teaches her own kids, and therefore needs a recital for her kids to play in, and my own children who I do not teach, also added to the numbers.  (I tried it and then decided it would be best for all of us if someone else taught them.  So now I trade with another piano teacher mom, and it's been great!)

This is just Bennett.  

If I don't clean up breakfast quick enough, he climbs up on the table and makes a mess.  Scrambled eggs was pretty mild.  The time we had syrup left on the table was much, much worse.

Me and Hayden at his Kindergarten "Mother's Day Tea."  

He told me emphatically NOT to come because they were serving tea.  But I didn't want him to be the only kid who's mom didn't come, so I told him,  I could still come; I would just not drink the tea,   :)  I thought it was cute that he was so worried that I not be in a position where my tea-drinking standards would be compromised.

Syd and Hayden in Hayden's classroom for the Mother's Day Tea.  (It was pajama day at school and that is why Hayden is dressed in his jammies.  Figured I'd clarify so you don't think sending my kids to school in jammies is just my way of getting my kids to the bus stop on time.) 

Here is the picture Hayden made for me for Mother's Day.  Each child had made one and they were hanging all over the classroom and the Moms had to guess which one was them.  It didn't take me long to find mine, because Hayden was pretty accurate with his answers!  The one where he's supposed to say something I always say is the one that gave it away.  I say that every day.  Didn't think any of them noticed, actually, so that made me smile.  

 In case you can't read them, here is what it says:

My mom is 34 years old.

My mom makes the best cookies

My mom's favorite thing to do is rest.

My Mom's favorite color is all of them.

My mom's favorite food is vegetables.  

(I think it's funny that he put that because of course my favorite food is not vegetables, but he probably thinks so because I'm always nagging everyone about eating their vegetables!  It's definitely the food that gets talked about the most.)

My mom always says, "Welcome Home" when I get home from school.

I love my mom because she is nice to me.

Why April Is Rad

April is Rad because that's the month I was born.

The end.

But this April was especially rad because I felt like I was celebrating ALL MONTH LONG!  

GLORIETTA SCRAPBOOKING RETREAT

The first weekend, I went on a scrapbooking retreat with some really great friends.  We stayed in a cabin and ate yummy food and scrapped our little hearts out.  Here are a few of the layouts I finished while I was up there:  

And of course, watching General Conference was wonderful, as always.  It's another reason April is such a great month.  

TIME OUT FOR WOMEN 2014: INEVITABLE LIGHT

The second weekend, I got to go to Time Out For Women with my dear friend, Tamera.  There were so many great messages and such great music shared during the day and half we spent together.   Tamera is good friends with one of the ladies who presented in Albuquerque, and as a result, we got VIP seats right in the front, and got to have lunch with the presenters on Saturday.  It was my first TOFW and I loved it!

Here I am with the Beautiful Tamera Shepherd and the Beautiful Sandra Turley.  Sandra was one of the presenters.  She is a mother of 4 and played Cosette on Broadway for 3 years (I think?).  She had a really inspirational story to share about her experience with infertility and adoption, and how their experience took a very heart wrenching twist.  She has a gorgeous voice, and it was very fun getting to meet her and hear her sing and speak at the ABQ TOFW.

This special lady is Kris Belcher, another of the presenters.  She lost vision in both her eyes after 2 battles with cancer.  She was hilarious, and I fell in love with her positive attitude and sense of humor with which she has responded to her devastating loss.  She told some pretty funny blind jokes and went around offering to take pictures for people, clicking the camera at anything and everything and rarely ever getting anyone's face in the pictures.  What an incredible lady.

EASTER EGG HUNT AT THE PARK:

Sydney has made a lot of progress.  This year, she happily went out to collect eggs, instead of putting her basket on her head and freaking out.  Bennett didn't really figure out that he was supposed to get eggs and put them in the basket, but it didn't take him long to figure out that there was good stuff in those eggs, and then he was opening any egg he could find regardless of whose basket he took it from.

ORLANDO

The third week we went to Orlando, which I've already written ALL about.  Major party week!!

PRESCHOOL FIELDTRIP TO WALKER'S POPCORN:

Sydney's preschool took a field trip to Walker's Popcorn that was really fun.  Mr. Walker was totally hands on, taught the kids songs, played games with them, let the kids try lots of different flavors of popcorn and made them cotton candy.  (That was Sydney's favorite part.)

Obviously, this is not Sydney.  

This is our fun friend, Nate, and I just LOVED this picture of him, so I had to post it too.

Playing the funny game, "Don't hit Mr. Walker's nose!" 

(the game where everyone hits Mr. Walker's nose with a bag of popcorn.)

These flavors are Orange Dreamcicle, Strawberry Lemonade, Green Chili Caramel (tastier than you might expect) Butter Pecan, and Cinnamon.  Pretty tasty stuff!

HOLY COW BURGER AND "INTO THE WOODS"

The 4th weekend we went with our friends, the Shepherds, to eat at Holy Cow Burger (home of the delicious salted caramel and pretzel shake) and then to see MTS's production of "Into The Woods."  It was so fun!  We took Dallin, Daphne and Hayden.  Sean didn't want to go, and Hayden really said he did, so we got him a ticket.  But when it came time to go, he decided he really wanted to stay home with the babysitter instead.  Well too bad, because we already had a ticket for him.  He donned his red polo shirt under severe duress and the only thing that made it better was drinking half of my salted caramel pretzel milkshake!  I think he actually did enjoy the show, but it'll be just fine if he's a little older the next time we buy him a ticket.  

MY BIRTHDAY

And of course, the main reason why April is so rad:  My birthday.  (kidding, kidding . . .)  I am so blessed to have wonderful friends and family who make me feel so loved on my birthday with cards and messages and phone calls and treats left on my porch.  That night, Arthur and I got to go with Dallin to do Youth Temple Baptisms for Dallin's first time, which was a neat experience, for sure.  Then after we got back, and while I took the babysitter home, Arthur quickly blew up balloons and prepared for our cake and ice-cream celebration!  

Athur got me this for my birthday:

I'm so excited to have a real camera, and can't wait to figure it out!!!

Seriously, what a great birthday month.  I was spoiled all month long!  

How can any of the rest of the months hope to compare?

Here's to being 34 years old and very, very blessed.