Wedding Week

Last week was a crazy, fun week in Utah at my sister, Monica's. Three of her daughters had big events going on, so we stayed for the whole week. Katelin graduated from high school and will be heading to BYU in the fall. Way to go, Kate! We missed her graduation, but the next day we made it for Kelsey's first time through the temple. She went to the Draper temple and it was a really neat evening. The next day was Collette's baptism. We played all day (Josh took Deryk on the scooter for hours and Deryk had the time of his life, but really wanted on the motorcycle) and went to the baptism late that afternoon. She was so adorable and excited to be baptized! Josh came back home that night so he could do church stuff on Sunday and get back to work. He discovered we had some baby kittens in the garage. We knew this was going to happen, but didn't expect it quite yet. This was probably a good thing we were gone for several more days so they could grow a bit and not be injured by children/Deryk. They are so tiny and cute. The girls LOVE them! We will be giving them away in a couple of months if anyone is interested.


Sunday night the girls and all the cousins went down to my niece's house in Payson and had a sleep-over. Deryk and I went to visit my cousin Brittany and her family for a while. He loved having some boys to play rough with. Monday and Tuesday were spent doing flower prep for the wedding. When we went to pick up the flowers at the wholesalers I was so thrilled to be in a huge flower cooler again. Something about it gives me a little rush of adrenaline. :) Tuesday the girls went with some cousins and Uncle Roger to Lagoon while I worked on flowers. Everything turned out great after a couple of flower tragedies, but what's a wedding without some unexpected problems along the way? Kelsey and Danny's sealing was beautiful. I am excited to see the pictures at the temple because it was the hugest downpoor and hailstorm ever. Lots of great memories! Now we are home and getting back into a schedule and trying to enjoy the summer. If it would ever stop raining.........

Riding the scooter for hours.

New kittens

Riding a pretend roller coaster since I wouldn't be at Lagoon to take pictures.

Kelsey and Danny Lambourne outside Draper Temple

Some wedding flowers

Graduation Day

Maycee graduated from kindergarten yesterday. She was so adorable! They each had to say in the microphone what they wanted to be when they grow up. Maycee wants to be a superhero and a teacher. She has been practicing all her powers to make them stronger so she can save people when she is older. :)

May 2009

I am way behind on the blogging thing, so hopefully I can get caught up in one posting. Our May has been busy and fun. I've spent lots of time this last year with Maycee's kindergarten class and I was able to go on a fieldtrip to a farm with them and eat lunch with Maycee for her first time in the cafeteria. Have to practice for the big 1st grade. Her class has the funniest little characters in it and I will truly miss going in every week to help with math. At the farm we went to they had animals just roaming all over the place. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, dogs, and goats. Deryk happened to love this little pygmy goat that was just his size. All of a sudden the goat butted Deryk right in the stomach. Deryk was a little shocked and mad at that darn goat. He just stood there and glared at it like he wanted to tackle it down and teach it a lesson. It was so funny to see his face!

Shaylee did great in her piano recital. She always gets extremely nervous (sick to her stomach), but does an amazing job and loves the feeling when it is over. She loves taking lessons from her Grama. Shay is excited for school to be out in 3 days, but also sad. She gets so attached to her teachers and has a hard time with change. But we have a fun summer ahead that will help her adjust.

We got the garden planted and have signs of plants coming up! Can't wait for August to have some fresh veggies. We left a little corner for Deryk to dig in since he's obsessed with dirt. So far all the little plants are still there. We'll see how long that lasts..... :) He loves to wear this bike helmet around the yard. So funny!

We have been to the cabin twice this month. Once to help clean up and prepare for summer. We also had a fun bridal shower for my niece, Kelsey, that day. She is getting married next week and I get to do her flowers. So exciting! Hopefully I remember how to do them. And the second time we went to the cabin was for the annual Manning family reunion on Memorial Day. It was a gorgeous day and it was great to see people we only see once a year. However, that same day was also kind of not-so-fun. Deryk was happy as could be all morning and then started slouching and wanted to be held while he moaned and wriggled around. He got a really high fever, but no signs of anything else. Poor little guy. He was not happy. And then we went on a little hike and ran into a herd of goats that were up there eating. They sometimes come onto the property to eat down weeds and pretty much everything in sight. Three of the goats followed us for about a 1/4 of a mile while the dogs tried to herd them back and the goat herder tried to carry them back, etc. They really like us for some reason. One of them decided to bite onto Maycee's arm and got a good kick to the side by me. But it still stayed by us. Maycee had four raised teeth scratches down her little arm and was very upset. Apparently we have problems with goats in our family.

We stopped by the cemetary in Oakley to see Daddy's grave. The girls love to see it and bring a flower and a special rock they have chosen for him. They still miss their Grampa. Don't we all?

Oh, and my favorite part of every May is Mother's Day. I am so grateful to be a mom! That is what I have always wanted to be since I can remember and my kids' birthmoms made that possible. I want to thank them again for making me feel so complete and have these amazing children to raise. I usually hate putting pictures of myself up, but I like to take a picture every Mother's Day with me and each of my beautiful angels. So here they are......

So we have had an eventful month with a lot more excitement coming soon in June. If anyone wants to take a few minutes to teach me how to do a slideshow, feel free to email me or call. I would love to figure that out.

Funny Family Videos

For some reason we used the video camera a lot this weekend and caught a couple of funny and/or cute moments. Mostly Deryk because he seems to crack us up so much lately. The video with the family doing Easter eggs had us laughing all weekend. I was taking the picture and everyone was saying cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese and then I realized I was taking a video instead of a picture. That's one of those that might not be funny unless you were there. :)

The Park

We bribed the kids on Saturday and told them we could go to the park if they did all their chores and helped around the house. We saw some friends while we were there and Deryk had a fun time with their little car. He pushed Benson around in it for a while. The other picture is so funny because it shows a typical moment in our family. Deryk loves to pull Maycee's hair for some reason. Maybe its because she likes to stick her face right up close to his and bother him?

Draper Temple

We drove to my sister's in Sandy last Friday to see my niece, Katelin, dance in her senior dance concert. She did so great! What an exciting time for her. This was the day before the last day of the Draper Temple open house, so we went to see the temple. It is very beatiful! Josh had to work, so I just took the girls and my nieces, Kennedi and Collette, to the temple. Deryk got to stay at Monica's so people didn't have to hear him yell throughout the temple. :) We had to drive home after the concert that night because Shaylee had her piano festival on Saturday morning. Thankfully my mom was with me to keep me awake. She's really good at that. We got home at 1:30 a.m. and she had to be there at 10:00. Shaylee did so great! She got a superior and was so relieved to have it all done!

Is it Spring yet?

It was about 45 degrees a couple of weeks ago and the sun was shining, so it seemed like the perfect time to let the kids go out and play for a while. I was so excited to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen while they were out playing. I asked Shaylee to try to keep Deryk out of the garden area because it looked really muddy. Well, it lasted not even 10 minutes when I heard screaming. I looked outside and Deryk was stuck in the mud, facedown, and couldn't move. Shaylee was trying her hardest to get him out and Maycee was jumping on the trampoline as if nothing were going on. I got him out of the mud and stripped him down outside. He was not a happy little guy and he was freezing! We are ready for warm weather!