The Delinquent Blogger...

Tanner recently reminded me it's been over a month since our last blog post.  And now school is out.  Maybe I'll play catch up or maybe not.  We'll see.  May has been a wild-n-crazy month.

Elsie has enjoyed her preschool days at Burton Elementary along with carpool buddy, Eliza.  I had to capture their first experience riding a school bus for a class field trip to Yellowstone's Bear World.

We had a great view of the animals but had to keep the windows up while driving through 'bear country'.  For good reason.

After driving through the park, the children were able to "pet" a baby bear and observe feeding time.  They asked lots of interesting questions - my favorite part of the adventure.  

And besides Elsie getting 'freaked out' in the petting zoo area by a crazy deer, losing her balance and falling into a small stream, she had a great time.  Really.

Thank goodness for band-aids.

A few days later - Preschool Graduation.

Ms. April, Elsie, Ms. Dawn - Head Teachers

Ms. Vilma and Ms. Kara with Elsie

Elsie with Mr. Lee - a BYU-I student in rotation.  

The school district has a special needs preschool program where normal students are integrated in a classroom setting.  Elsie was part of this program which explains why there were so many teachers.  Overall, it was a positive experience for all the children to learn how to interact with each other.

She liked 'playing school' and showing me around the classroom.

Kindergarten - here she comes!

Mother's Day Weekend -

When Aaron asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, I was ready with a list of to-do's.  

Fortunately, the weather cooperated and we spent our Saturday at home - doing projects :)

(The apple didn't fall far from the tree).

 After enjoying a wonderful breakfast-in-bed (we had fast Sunday on Mother's Day), we dressed up (or not - Quinn believes less-is-best in the clothing department) and headed outside to work.

It's been a slow process getting our garden boxes to this point - but we're hopeful about planting something this year.  And maybe it's okay that at least 1/3 of our vinyl material was stolen from our property (Easter weekend?).  Yes, even in "zion" we experienced one of those head-shaking randomly rude gestures of theft.

Jantzen worked on the firepit area.

Some areas were fertilized by hand.  Everybody had a job to do.  It's a big yard and there will always be a lot of work to do.  What were we thinking?

I received all kinds of surprises for Mother's Day.

It was a wonderful day!

I think we went from youngest to oldest this year.  The kids love sharing their handmade treasures.  Here we are all checking out a 'photo book' Tanner put together including pages for each of the children.

String art at it's best.

I sure adore these amazing people surrounding me!

Great-grandmother Ruth, G-ma Janene, me, Brinley, Anna, Elsie
Four generations - though not all through one line...