Schools out for the SUMMER!!!

'Twas the year of the dab, brought the birth of the fidget spinner, began their love of Pokemon and on a more serious note was the year our Ever Knight learned how to read and my Mr. T found his passion in publishing. Both of these darling boys worked so hard this year and learned so much. I am so proud of them and love them so much and I'm SOOOO excited for a summer full of adventures with them by my side. Hooray for the best eight weeks of the year!  

One of the best Memorial Day's in Memory

Memorial Day weekend absolutely ROCKED this year. It was so fun and so restful and so full of family time and both James and I have commented multiple times during the crazy week since that we would not have made it through without such a great break. The real reason it was so wonderful was that the documents James was waiting for on Friday (which would have taken him the whole weekend to turn) didn't show up until Tuesday morning so even though it made for a crazy all-nighter and some late nights this week it also meant that we were free from work all weekend long. It was amazing!

We went on a little family adventure every day--a hike on Saturday, the cemetery on Sunday and the beach on Monday. Here are a few pictures to remind us of the fun.

Inspiration Loop at Will Rogers Park. Pacific Palisades. Perfect!

He has rocks in his pockets and she was sticks in her hands. She's the pokiest of the bunch so she gets the best service!

Our pretty city, LaLaLand. 

Photocred: Mr. T.

Front and center and a few steps ahead, like it or not!

Not a rock left untouched on that whole mountainside. 

Oh the places they'll go!

Such a great after-church activity--starting fire with magnifying glasses. Little (and big) pyros!

Our first cemetery was tucked away inside a city block in our neighborhood and we didn't even know it was there until our visit. I was shocked to learn that so many celebrities were buried there, including Marilyn Monroe, Rodney Dangerfield, Farrah Fawcett, Merv Griffin and Walter Mathau. It was a gorgeous cemetery and I'd love to be buried in a place equally lovely (and not spooky) someday! 

From the celebrity cemetery we headed to the Veterans cemetery and were touched to see tens of thousands of flags honoring the great women and men who fought for our country. We talked to our kids about what this weekend was really about and felt honored to tell them about our own brave family members who have served in the military. 

Summer! Summer! I love Summer! It was so fun to play with the Hayes family at Will Rogers beach on Monday. I can't wait for a hundred more beach days this summer!

Happiest baby on the block! Happy Memorial Day!

There and all theirs.

It's the end of the school year and the events are endless. I'm so proud of my boys and all of their hard work this year, and seeing the twinkle in their eyes when they show me their stuff assures me that they too know they've accomplished something great. Education really is such a special gift.

The circles under my eyes may have replaced the twinkle inside but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't darn proud of myself as well. This year was intense and exhausting and I had a million excuses not be present in the boys' life at school, but I was present. I never missed an opportunity to read during library time, help with parties, share our culture, go on field trips, admire their artwork or hear them sing--always with a baby on my hip and a toddler doing somersaults by my side. There are so many big and great things I could be doing in the world and sometimes I wonder why I'm not, but then I attend morning events like the Spring Sing for T or the Bug Bash for Ev and realize that the big and great things I'm doing are the small and simple ones. I'm present. I'm there and I'm all theirs. Those sweet boys know they're loved, they're safe, and that no matter what is happening around them I will be the constant in their lives. It's not always glamorous but boy is it a beautiful thing.

SPRING SING

The second graders at T's school gave a concert to all the parents last week and it was great. T has suffered from polyps on his vocal chords so he is a little self-conscious about his sometimes squeaky singing (and speaking) voice, but Mr. Harrison, AKA the worlds best music teacher, is so playful and silly and has really boosted T's confidence in singing. The concert was wonderful and he was so proud of having all the songs memorized. 

T had a special part on the Glockenspiel, and I don't know if he liked performing his part or saying that silly word more! I have not a musical bone in my body so let's just hope he inherited some from his Dad! 

T's cheerleaders! Luckily Grandpa Christofferson was there to hold Quinny and Cora was content to eat puffs on my lap so we all got to enjoy the performance. I love that happy smile on T's face.

And of course T wouldn't let us leave without holding Coco for a picture. He is such a great big brother and loves his little sisters so much. We're so lucky he came first.

BUG BASH 

Everett's class has been working hard to learn all about ladybugs and caterpillars and butterflies and moths and about a hundred other kinds of creepy crawly things. The girls and I went to his classroom last week and did a scavenger hunt to find all of his written work and artwork about bugs and he was tickled teaching me things like the number of legs a spider has (8) and the number of days it took the butterfly to leave it's cocoon (17). Kindergarten is so much fun and I'm so sad to see it end.

Quinny was running around there somewhere but here I am with my amazing Ever Knight (and the ceramic donut he made, yum!) I look at this picture and I just want to kiss the cheeks off of that squinty-eyed darling.

Kindergarten writing is THE BEST! I'm so proud of Everett. Like so, so proud! When he started kindergarten he could only write his name and barely knew his letters. Now he is reading well above grade level and writing like a true kindergartener and really excelling in school. I am so glad that he loves learning and works so hard at school.

Let's be honest, could there have been a cuter sequence of pictures than this one? Ev's class learned about the life cycle of different bugs so they also talked about their life cycle. It makes me smile super big thinking about my sweet Ever Knight and his perfect little life. 

An Almost One-year-old

One week from today my last baby will be one year old. Time is trippy, that's for sure. It seems like only yesterday I was big and pregnant, willing this little miss to stay in my belly so that I could attend all of the end-of-school events and performances for her big brothers (obedient even as a fetus, this one). Now we're doing the end-of-school stuff once again, only this time with an 8-toothed, wide-grinned, standing-but-not-walking-and-always-wanting-to-be-held-by-Mama darling in tow. Cora is just so easy to love and I love her so hard. She is the grandest of finales for our family and I'm so grateful she's ours.    

I have a feeling this lady love is not far from walking. She crawls super fast, stands on everything and cruises along furniture, but in true fourth child fashion she is uber content (and actually prefers) to be carried around. She's not in a hurry to get bigger, and that makes two of us!

Always smiling with her cute little mouth, scrunchy nose and those sparkling eyes. She's a dream. 

A girl can only pose for pictures so long before she's back on all fours, ready for another adventure. And ready or not, here comes our next adventure--a one-year-old Cora!  

Out of Gas

One of Talmage's great anxieties in life is running out of gas. I don't know why he's so afraid of this or why he thinks it would happen to me (I mean, I'm so together in every aspect of my life, wink wink) but he is super spooked. A few months ago it was getting seriously out of hand so I put a moratorium on mentioning my gas tank and cleared the "how many miles until you run out of gas" feature from my dash. This actually did stop him from mentioning it every. darn. time. we got in the car and boy was a I relieved...but turns out it also meant that I didn't know how many miles until I ran out of gas. So, gulp, for the first time ever, I ran out of gas.

I was pulling into Toys R Us with all four kids in tow to buy a new carseat for our big girl Coco when I noticed a random blinking light on my dash. I had never seen it before and hope to never see it again, but now know it's the "hey dummy, you're basically two seconds away from running out of gas in the middle of rush hour" blinking light. I quickly turned on the "how many miles" feature and unfortunately T and I saw the big fat ZERO at the exact same time.

"Um, Mom? So remember when you promised me that we'd never run out of gas? So, um, do you think we should call AAA right now because I think we actually ran out of gas. Right now."

Despite his declaration that we immediately needed to have our car towed, T wasn't as freaked out about the dilemma as either of us expected him to be, and to be honest I wasn't freaked out about it at all. In a twisted sort of way I thought our situation was hilarious so maybe that was Heavenly Father bringing peace to my soul or maybe I was losing my marbles but either way, I kept my cool. We still went to the store. We still bought Coco a carseat. We came out and like it or not, we still had no gas. But you know what we still did? Tried to drive our no-gas derrieres to the gas station.

The van was sputtering and I asked Talmage to say a prayer asking Heavenly Father to please let us make it to the gas station. It was only a few miles up the road but I seriously had my doubts. He said a beautiful prayer, I thanked him for his sincerity and then I asked him what he thought.

"Well Mom, some blessings don't come until later and I don't know if this is one of those times."

I literally had tears coming out of my eyes I was laughing so hard. But at the same time I was so proud that he realized that sometimes you can pray your heart out for a righteous desire and still not receive it. Such maturity in that little man and such a great truth to learn early in life.

Luckily for everyone, this was one of those times when the blessing came now! We made it to the gas station and filled up what I had always thought was a 19 gallon tank with 19.95 gallons of gas. I guess it fits 20 gallons and I guess we got reallllly lucky. We drove home high on our surprising success story and with a renewed commitment to feed our fuel tank. I have a feeling T won't let me make this mistake again!

Pinewood Derby and Fast Food One

Both James and Talmage took the challenge of making their first ever Pinewood Derby car very seriously, as any good Cub and Daddy Bear should. James was not a scout as a kid so we literally started at ground zero, but after watching a few Youtube videos, reading a little tutorial and scouring pinterest for creative ideas we got to work (and lest I make you think we are at all on top of things, said "got to work" happened the week of the race when James was working insane hours, the girls were sick, we were packing for KB's wedding and T kept saying, "So...shouldn't we take it out of the box now?"!)

T said he wanted a car that was super fast but also super cool, and we were quick to manage expectations by passing on Pepa's Pinewood wisdom that those two usually don't mesh. The fastest cars are usually the simplest and the cool ones rarely are the first down the track--so we had a decision to make. It really came down to this--James and T were going to make this car go as fast as they could but as first-timers they had little control in the outcome (also, they learned that some of those tips and tricks found online are easier said than done). What could they control? Making it creative and fun! Thus the decision to create Fast Food One.

Our little french fry car finished above average in the races down the track and T was pleased as punch with the results and had such a blast racing and cheering and comparing cars. But the real win was when the leaders announced that T's car had won the People's Choice Award, the only award voted on by participants. We may not have been the fastest, but we won the popularity contest, haha!

The boys are already planning their car for next year and Quinny wants in on the action as well with what else, a cheetah car. Daddy has his work cut out for him! In the meantime, we'll just count this as a first Pinewood Derby success story! Being a boy mom is so fun sometimes.

We were one of the first people there and the boys had a lot of energy to burn off after the long drive back from Sacramento. 

Just a few of the awesome cars from our pack!

I love these boys. Such a great group of friends!

We're so happy for you T! Love you, our little Cub Scout!

Auntie Chaya & Uncle B

On Friday, May 19th Kate and Brendan were married for time and all eternity in the Sacramento Temple. These two love each other deeply, share so many common passions and interests, and will do great things in their life together (which we're rooting for them to build in LA!) We feel so grateful that Kate found someone so perfect for her (he really is the male version of her--it's almost uncanny), and we feel extra lucky to have inherited an awesome "Uncle B" for our kiddos. More people for them to love and more people to love them is always a win and I'm excited for this extra seat at our family's table. We love you Kate and Brendan, thanks for letting us be a part of your special day!

(These are all just snaps from my cell phone...I'll post some professional pics when they come in!) 

The happy couple mere minutes after being pronounced man and wife!

Me and my handsome Daddy--I just love him!

Princess Lacey was the sweetest flower girl.

Our boys looked smashing in their suits and were such great little attendants. I was so proud of them! And also--look at Kate! Is she not the most beautiful bride?! I loved her dress, make-up and those gorgeous flowers.

A little bit of cousin love.

Silly prom picture!

Formal prom picture!

Bryce and Care are such a gorgeous couple. 

I always feel super blonde until I take a picture with this bleachy bombshell! I love my Mama!

A few of my favorites in one little snap. It was so nice to spend the evening with them (and believe me, you're sorry I don't have footage of me and my Mom on the dance floor!)

Couple Goals. 

Me and my baby boyfriend. He thought of this picture all by himself--love that kid!

OK, so maybe I was a little paparazzi-ish!

Brendan has the greatest sisters--just missing one in this pic!

And couldn't forget this picture with my favorite Vicci and Auntie Lynn. Love you two!

What a wedding!