Mud buds

 One day I decided to remove a bougainvillea plant so the kids would have more space to play. Not as easy as it sounds. I dug a HUGE whole and possibly pulled a few muscles and still there is part of the stump way down there. Now I filled in the whole........same day, my kids found the 'soft' sand. Then the husband got involved, this is the result. Best dad award goes to.......Jeff!

  Lea was less than thrilled to 'wear' the mud.

 Ice cream at Scooptacular for good grades and good behavior.

Teacher Appreciation week

Since we have 3 teachers this year for school, it can get expensive! So a budget friendly I am, but still giving things the teachers can use, is what I do. :) And I wanted to do something every day for a couple reasons: 1: I truly appreciate my kids teachers - they are amazing and deserve every gift they receive. 2: the kids love giving their teachers the gifts - gives them great joy to be so responsible for the gift and making their teachers smile and feel loved.
Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3: pack of 5 notepads from the dollar store - comes in several different colors. Abbey wrote her name - so dang cute! All because her teacher taught her, not me.

 Day 4: Flowers - bought 2 bunches of the flowers, split them up among the 3 and put them in mason jars. we added ribbon around the jar and a sticker with their name on it.

Day 5: 'Days until' dry erase countdown - printed out the 8x10 - this was the most expensive one and I printed one for us - click here. Bought 1.92 picture frames from Walmart and figured they could provide their own markers.

Last day appreciation - I felt bad for not showing our appreciation to the Specials teachers: music, PE, art, computers, library. They do a lot for the kids too and may not get the same appreciation as the classroom teachers. So while cruising Walmart at 11 pm, I found a cart with gum marked to .25 a pack! Extra gum - see where this is going..... and then an idea sparked to get the whopper movie candy boxes. 71 packs of gum, 5 whopper boxes, 2 cute plastic cups/straws, I headed out the door to figure something out for the next and LAST day of school. Nothing like waiting til the 11th hour - literally - sheesh.

Still unsure what to do, candy-gram idea, a google search and this is what we have:

Simple, easy, cheap - it's how we work around here. A wonderful year - thanks Vista teachers!!

Birthday Bash

My husband and kids hard at work making cupcakes

That looks a tad dangerous.....

Some not so happy because he wanted to do more 'helping'

Dinner at the fabulous, luxurious..................................MCDONALDS!

So here's the story before you freak out that my husband must surely hate me for taking me here on my birthday. 

We wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse, after making the cupcakes, it was 6 pm. We got there, 30 minute wait......that was just for the table. I was not interested in waiting another 30 minutes after that for our food, trying to wrangle my kids to sit down, stop throwing things, give back the crayon, leave the food on the floor - we don't eat that, quit staring at the other tables behind us, and the list goes on. So we left the parking lot and Jeff suggested McDonald's to which my question was 'Does it have a playland?!' yes. Then let's go there. The kids can play, we can eat and get dessert before we would have ever been seated at a table at Texas Roadhouse.

So there you have it. I honestly don't mind and we had a great family birthday party - there were no tears, no fighting, no whining about not liking the food and the kids were free to roam. What more could I ask for?!

More birthday fun at home:

  My card from Lucas and Jeff

Happy birthday to me - another year older and wiser too. 33 - seriously where did the time go??

Primary mash-up

Abbey is quite the singer - she loves to sing along to the cds or radio in the car and knows most of the words. She sang, I think the loudest, during the Easter song the Primary children sang in church back in April. Maybe it's because I know her voice, maybe it was because she was on the front row, but with 50+ kids, you'd think you wouldn't be able to pick out one little voice. :)

The other day she was singing 'The Lord gave me a Temple' - this song was from last year and she wasn't even in Primary yet to sing it. We listened to the Primary cd every time in the car til October (we got it in January...) when it finally gave up and quit working. 

The line: 'The Lord gave me a Temple, to live within on earth. Once in heaven I was spirit, but I left my home at birth......'

Abbey version: "The Lord gave me a Temple, to live within on earth (so far, so good). Once in heaven I was spirit, but I left my mom at work!!!" (so close!)

My other favorite (she's now learned the correct way): Book of Mormon Stories, last line:

"Given this land, if I live righteously."

Abbey way: 'Given this land, if I live right-eous-me' 

 She cracks me up!

T-ball - go Braves!

At baseball, we do whatever it takes to entertain those who aren't playing. There used to be a playground......someone, somewhere thought it would be a good idea to take it out...........WRONG.

Laveen Youth - Atlanta Braves

 Coach Farris

Tristan, Luke, Jared, Lucas, Stephen, Mason

Perrin, Jack, Devin, Mia,Marcella, Ammon, MacKenzie

(and there were at least 5 more kids not there - it was a big team)

 Dog-pile on coach!

 Future MLB

 Quite the slugger

 He SCORES!!

 Are we ready for the ball????

 Oh there we go - now we're ready.

 Wait, what?

 A little batting practice before he steps up to the plate another time

Running home - Run, Lucas, RUN!

Girls day out

 Found this little note outside - 'HAPPY B-DAY MOM' awww, sweet

 400+ pictures - we definitely NEED the new camera. :)

 HERE's the girls day out part - the above was just fun taking pictures.

 Lunch with Grandma Judy at Taco Bell after introducing her to the world of Hobby Lobby!!