The Rest of May

For Memorial Day, we were in St. Anthony visiting Shane's family. We went to a graveside service for Shane's Uncle who passed away earlier this year. We also visited Shane's dad's grave.
We just finished our last week of school for the kids and Shane. We are so excited to have some fun family time. It has been a busy, tough year for all of us with the move, new job, and making new friends. Shane put hours in learning new curriculum, grading papers, learning new technology, etc, etc. A fourteen hour day was not uncommon for him. Luckily, he was able to bring most of that work home to do. He never took a day off of work aside from the scheduled days off for holidays. Summer is a welcome break after the grueling year for this teacher!! On Shane's last day of school, we took off to Lava Hot Springs and swam. Yes, I did try out one of the speed slides, only to get off to the sound of my eight year old son laughing at me for screaming the whole way down!! We all enjoyed the new slides there. These kids are die hards when it comes to swimming. They are so brave and love to learn new swimming techniques. The Hall family (Shane works with both Tom and Shirley) went along with us. We drove to Pocatello after swimming and ate at the Mandarin House. We then went to see Night At The Museum-Battle of the Smithsonian. It was a late night, but a great start to our summer vacation! May has been an eventful month full of fun, exciting, and exhausting activities.

Shane's dad's grave

Last Day of School for the kids-We had a water fight along with the sprinkler under the tramp. Our cousins, the Heuseveldt boys, came over to celebrate with us.

Lava Hot Springs-This is Parker after swimming, he was cold and wanted to be under the blanket.

Taylor going down the little slide.

Shane and B learning how to swim

B wanted me to take a picture of him under the water-so here it is!

Tay hanging on to the side

Our little swimmers!

Our kids with the Hall kids hanging on a funny little statue at the Mandarin House

May-One Of The Busiest Months of the Year!

I think I say this about every month of the year, but seriously, May is so busy! It started out with Taylor's birthday party, baseball for B, softball for Tay, I ran in the local Medical Center fun run (placing third in my age division-three miles in 29 minutes-not bad for a chunky old woman!) We went to my nephew's birthday party at the Jackson Hole Rec Center-swimming a couple of Saturdays ago. I'm in the middle of spring cleaning and dejunking-the garbage can is full and garbage day isn't until Friday-AAAhhh! I went with Taylor to her achievement day. They learned about family history. A tid bit of info here, Tay's fifth great grandpa is the Martin Harris-witness of the Book Of Mormon. Check out the wallet in the Church History Museum in SLC-Shane, his mom representing Shane's deceased dad, and his grandpa submitted it along with Dallin H. Oaks (quorum of the twelve) another relative of Martin Harris. May brought nice weather allowing us to play outside, have cousins come play, and our kids were able to go play at their cousin's house too. We have mowed the lawn twice now and have a ton of weeds growing in the flower gardens! May is also the month for field trips, end of the year tests, and grade time for Shane. Summer is on the horizon hooray! May is still not over yet; however, I love this time of year busy as it "MAY" be no pun intended!!!

Here's a bunch of pictures of our month so far!

Brennen's Field Trip to Tauphus Park Zoo and Playland

He always has to take goofy pictures of himself

On top of the ferris wheel-how did he talk me into going on it with him???

Fun on the Octopus

Medical Center Fun Run-I'm in the middle in a white shirt

Coming in to the finish-I'm the one in the front

Finishing

My cheering section! B is taking the picture-I think I'm ready to pass out here.

After the kids left for school today, Parker grabbed his backpack and said "by mom, I'm going to school!" He wants to be big poor kid, he still has three years before Kindergarten.

I helped him pretend he was going to school. He went outside and came in the "school" door. He took off his backpack and came into the table to do some "school work".

"School Work" Coloring Spiderman!

Parker wanted Tay's goggles on. I couldn't get him to take them off. This is what he looked like for most of the day.

Jumping on our tramp with cousins

Tay's family party-just so you all know, Taylor does have nice new jeans without holes in the knees. I don't know why she put these ones on for her party! Oh well, self expression I guess.

Tay's friend party-The balloon game-tie a balloon around everyone's ankle. Then try to stomp on eachother's. The person with the last balloon unpopped wins the prize. So much fun to do and watch!

Tay's party jumping

Pizza Hut pizza and cupcakes for food

Our Preemie is Ten Today!

Ten years ago today, Taylor Brooke was born at 10:03 am. She weighed TWO pounds, SIX ounces. I had extreme pre-eclamsia and was rushed in for an emergency c-section nearly losing my own life. In this picture, you can see Shane's wedding band by Taylor's hand. It could fit all the way up her arms and her legs as well to give you an idea of how small she was. Taylor was a miracle baby. She was only on the ventillator for about a day and a half. She breathed on her own at first but then needed that extra help. Tay stayed in the hospital for a month and a half and came home in the three pound range. Taylor has always had a sweet spirit. She is amazing to her dad and I. We call her our little mommy because she is so good to her little brothers. She has no effects of being a preemie and today is a bright, beautiful light in our lives. We love you Tay-Happy Tenth Birthday!!!!

We still have this big bird to remember how small she was!

We were able to start feeding her bottles in the hospital

Before we could feed her bottles, we gavage fed her breast milk. Can I just say that nursing is sooo much easier than pumping!!!

This is Taylor at her preschool graduation. She had an AWESOME teacher!!!!

Kindergarten

First Grade

Second Grade (Baptism dress)

Third Grade

Fourth Grade-Current

First of 5 New Posts! (I'm catching up!!)

BRENNEN'S FIRST PINEWOOD DERBY

This week was Brennen's first Cub Scout Pine Wood Derby races. All month long, Shane and Brennen have been in and out of the garage working on the car. I loved watching Shane teach Brennen how to use the power tools. Brennen was so excited to use them too, which made me a LITTLE nervous!!! He did a great job and almost all of it was done on his own with a little guidance. I was so proud of him! His won a few races and lost some too. It was really fun to watch. One down and two more to go. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next year!

All done and ready to go race!

Brennen and his best friend, Logan

Brennen with his cub scout buddies

The Wolf Pack and their cars

Brennen nervously looking on as his car is ready to be dropped down the track