Welcome Summer!

The last couple of weeks have been full of end of school/beginning of summer activities.  The kids had all sorts of fun activities at school that they enjoyed.  The Monday after Mother's Day I got to attend a kick-off event at our church for the women's ministry's mentoring program.  A great speaker came over from the Quincy campus and it was a good night out.  Then on Wednesday night we had our small group barbecue.  Another family in our group, the Williams, offered to have it at their house and it was great.  I love hanging out with the families in our group.   And then I spent most of the week getting ready for our garage sale we had over the weekend. 

Ellie had her dress rehearsal Friday night.  She loved being able to watch the other girls dance and enjoyed some independence in going around Baldwin Hall with some of the other girls while I just waited for her in the auditorium.  After rehearsal, I rushed home to drop Ellie off and pick up the twins.  The twins and I stayed at my parents' house that night so I could finish up stuff for the garage sale and then get up early Saturday morning to get it all started.  Andrew took the other three out to the ranch in the morning.  Our garage sale this year was a little different.  Usually people are parked outside for a little while before we open and this time no one was out there.  After an hour of slow traffic, we checked the paper and noticed our ad didn't make it in.  I had put it on Facebook, so we had a few customers.  We decided to just leave everything up and have it again for a few hours later in the week.  We had to shut down shop at 11 because we had to feed the babies and then get to Jackson's game at 11:45.  It is fun watching Jackson's team this year.  He plays third base and has done a great job.   

Leah was trying to keep the sun off Miles :-)

After the game, we headed home for the kids to rest up a bit and then we were off to Ellie's dance recital that evening.  It was a long night since she had a dances before and after intermission.  We were there from around 5:30 to 9:15 and all the boys did great.  My parents helped out by holding the twins and I think they even enjoyed watching things for a bit.  Ellie did a wonderful job and had the prettiest smile.

Ellie got to give a rose to her class helper who is graduating

One of the first dances was to "It's a Small World"-Jackson said he was going to go crazy.

Take a bow

We started the next week with a couple more ball games.  Jackson and Ellie had them at the same time.  It was Ellie's first game, so I stayed with her most of the game.  My parents and Lissy and Molly were also there, so they stayed for a little bit while I went to watch Jackson.  Ellie's games don't have the most action (each kid gets six pitches and then they bring out the tee and use that until they get a hit and every kid bats every time) but she sure looks cute.

Then on Tuesday, Ellie got to go with her class to Pizza Hut and make their own pizzas.  And then in thWe afternoon, we headed to Jackson's school to attend his Portfolio Celebration where we got to watch a class video and look over a lot of the stuff they have done this year.  We sure will miss him having Lori Ann as his teacher.

Wednesday was Ellie's last day of school and last day at Faith Lutheran.  It is sad to see her move on.  She got to have an ice cream party and we came for the last bit of it and Lincoln got to play on the playground with her.  He proceeded to spill bubbles on his pants and wanted to take them off, so it was time to head home.  So I ended up not getting a picture of Ellie with her teachers. Wednesday night Jackson had another game and then he had his last day of school on Thursday.  For teacher gifts, I ended up doing buckets with different mint candies in them with a note that said, "Thank you for all of your encourag'mint' this year" and I made labels out of chalkboard vinyl on the Silhouette and put the teacher's names on them.

Thursday after school, we did the garage sale again.  It was much more successful this time and we were able to get rid of a lot of stuff.  We were also able to sell some stuff on the Swap Shop.  From the garage sale, we headed home and quickly got ready to head to movie night at the Vincents.  They were going to set up an outdoor movie, but it ended up raining.  It still was a lot of fun and great to hang out with everyone.  Leah set up this really cute "concession stand" that she asked me to make a banner for. 

Jackson had already planned to stay the  night and at the last minute, Ellie got to stay too.  It was her first sleepover and she was very excited.  I think they were up very late and had a great time.

Lincoln got to have a "camp out" with Andrew, which meant he slept on the family room floor.  We turned on some Mickey Mouse and the thought it was awesome.  But he quickly fell asleep.

I tried desperately to get the kids to nap Friday afternoon since they both had games that night, but it didn't really work and they were exhausted (and crabby) by the end of the day.  They both still had good games.  Jackson is getting pretty good at throwing people out at first and Ellie got her first hit without using the tee. 

Some of my family came into town for the weekend and most of the days were spent in the pool.

Some of the Powells came over and Kathy got to help with a feeding

They were singing "Jingle Bells" and Andrew was loving it

Saturday night we went to my Uncle Bob and Aunt Shirlene's 60th wedding anniversary.  They had 10 kids and it was neat to see the family all together.  Our kids had fun running around dancing and playing.  Sunday was church and more pool time.  And today I finally got all the boys in the "Relax, I'm a Ninja" shirts that Lissy got for them.

Lastly, are some random stories/pictures.  Lincoln still loves looking at the tractor catalogs and was showing one off to Miles and Bennett.

And then on Saturday, one of the warmest days so far, Lincoln decided he needed to wear his winter hat and gloves.  Molly got this picture of him eating a donut outside-he did have to take off the gloves to eat it though.

And the last story is from Jackson.  We got his test scores back on the last day of school from the standardized testing they do at school.  He did really well and I think he realized he did well.  He was telling Andrew that he is kind of like two people since he came from both Andrew and I.  He said he is a cowboy like his dad and he is smart like his mom.  Glad he figured that one out :-)