Catching up in May: Wyatt is finished with Preschool

On Friday, May 23, Wyatt successfully completely his last day of preschool.  From September to May he grew three inches and gained five and a half pounds.  His handwriting is great.  He's artistic, and clever and friendly and a nice boy.

On his report card, his teacher wrote:
Wyatt has made a lot of friends and he is always happy.  Keep up the great reading!  I will miss you.

He is a good boy and I'm happy that he had such a great year at school.  His dad and I are so proud of him and cannot wait for him to start kindergarten.

Our preschool, thank heavens, has no pomp and circumstance for the end of preschool.  There is no graduation cap and gown, no program, no speeches.  Just the end of the day - a day of fun and games.  And afterwards, we went to In-n-out for lunch.  I was so happy that he didn't choose McDonald's, that I may have done a little dance.

Catching up in May: Off-track adventures

Whenever Elliott goes off-track from school his pattern is the same.

Week 1: Sleep in until 9 am, struggle to figure out what to do, how to be home, how to behave, how to get along with Wyatt.  Get in trouble a lot.  Do some stuff with mom and brothers.

Week 2:  Sleep in until 9 am, struggle to figure out what to do, how to be home, how to behave, how to get along with Wyatt.  Play with friends. Get in trouble a little bit.  Start to get sick.

Week 3: Sleep in until 9 am, find a groove, play with Wyatt, hang out with mom, go to the doctor and get diagnosed with something (this time bronchitis and an ear infection), stop getting into trouble.

When Elliott went back to school last Monday, he jumped out of the car, yelled a quick goodbye as he slammed the door shut and flew on a cloud, running to meet his friends.  You see, my oldest child is a social and extroverted being stuck smack dab in the middle of a family full of people who are perfectly content being home all day long doing their own things, minus the occasional trip to Target or to get a Slurpee.  Or go to a museum.  This mama and eldest son face monumental power struggles, but the mama is starting to figure out how to back-off and let the seven year old do his own thing.  Even though for the life of him, he cannot figure out what his own thing is.

We did have a good break though.  We ate and slurpeed and played in sprinklers.  We blew lots of bubbles, went to museums, and got to meet our dad in the middle of the day for lunch.  The boys played video games and played with friends and played baseball and soccer and jumped on their trampoline until their feet were black.  We made cookies and went to the new Aquarium (lame and expensive) and the new Children's museum (which was totally awesome by the way) at Thanksgiving point and my children, who rush through everything, ran out of time and didn't even see everything.

I try really hard to be a good mom.  To give my boys lots of wide and varied experiences.  To get them out of the house and to see that there is so much out there for them to touch and smell and see and do.  To introduce them to lots of people and places and open their eyes to the world around them.  I hope it's rubbing off.

If nothing else,

sometimes....

at least....

I manage to make them really tired.

Catching up in May: Arizona Cousin Visit

Clear back at the beginning of May, we got to have a quick Utah visit with our Arizona cousins.  They came to Utah so their mom could go to the BYU Women's Conference and even though the timing wasn't great for us (school and baseball sort of ruled our life), we tried our hardest to spend some time with our cousins.

It's been our tradition for a while now, when Elliott goes off track, either on the day he's off or the following Monday to go bowling.  Our tradition started with Uncle Willie, when Quinn could hardly crawl and were going strong, nearly a year late when he can walk...and run away to the arcade.  So, we were able to take Isaac and his dad (Ross' brother) with us and introduce him to bowling.  Isaac had never been before (or so he told us) and I was quite surprised how quickly he picked it up and seemed to have fun.

On the last night they were here, we had a BBQ at our house so the boys could hang out and play together.  It was also the day before Ross' birthday and the week before Wyatt's so a few gifts were given.  All 6 boys had a great time running around and playing in the yard.    At the end of the night, as we tried to get our standard group kid picture, there was one kid (Quinn of course) who wouldn't quite cooperate, but we at least tried.

These boys are growing up faster than we can blink.

Catching Up in May: Wyatt's Birthday!

In our Family, Ross and I decided that we'd do friend's parties for the boys on major birthday's - five, eight and twelve.  Well, Wyatt hit one of those milestones so a Lego party it was.  We tossed around ideas for weeks about some of the things that he wanted to do for the party without any real solid plan of activities until a day or two before.  All he really knew he wanted to do was to frost sugar cookies at the party.  Okay, that's a pretty easy request.  And honestly, I was more concerned about the party favors (homemade coloring book, crayons, poppers, hi-chews, and a Lego mini figure) than the actual festivities anyway.

Besides, with Ross and Elliott and Quinn as my helpers, and a small group of wild five year olds, what could possibly go wrong.  Nothing of course.  The party was a huge success and a lot of fun. I was really happy that we were able to do such a fun thing for Wyatt, like we were able to do for Elliott when he turned five.












And then, after a quick clean up, and a few errands, we turned around and had a small family party for Wyatt in the evening.  He requested Mt. Mike's pizza as his party food and I made him the ugliest, yet tastiest Lego brick cake with chocolate Lego guys.  Great Grandpa wasn't able to join us, but we were able to tell him all about the parties when we visited with him a few days later.

I always feel very lucky that my boys are so loved by so many people.  Family is a pretty incredible thing.










We offered to buy Wyatt a new bike for his birthday.  He declined the offer.  Instead, he wanted a Lego X-wing, complete with Luke and R2D2 and requiring about three hours of his dad's time.  The instruction manual was a short novel and dad diligently put the thing together, with Wyatt by his side for a little bit of the construction.  He was a pretty happy kid though and a few weeks later, with minimal repair, has managed to keep the thing still put together.

Memorial Day

On Sunday, we visited a few graves, mostly just to say hi to my two best ladies, my grandmas.  Whom I miss dearly by the way and while visiting both graves, I shed a few tears.  I was super emotional.  Not sure why.  Probably because I miss them both a lot, lately.

On Monday, we decided to stay home.  Well, we stay home every year with little exception so this year was without exception as well.

And it was really nice.

You see, we aren't home much.  Not as a family of five that is.  There is always one or more of us going somewhere, usually with a bag of gear - baseball gear, work gear, church gear, hi chews, you know what I'm talking about.  So, we decided to have a day at home.

We slept in.

I went to the gym.

Ross did all the yard work (and the yard looks smashing, by the way!)

The boys played legos, rode bikes, blew bubbles, jumped on the trampoline, made rubber band bracelets and didn't play on their kindles or watch the televizzle all day long.

I'd call it a success.

In the evening, we went to visit my grandpa.  The boys were monsters.  I guess they'd had enough of being good.  But by being naughty, they got sent to bed early, so Ross and I ended the night on a quiet note, with our sonic drinks of choice.









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