Millie Moozers

In going through my pictures from May I had a several of Millie that I wanted to share.

One day there were lots of trucks going on and off the land across the street from us as part of the road construction in the new development. Camille watched them closely for a long time from her room.

I had to wake her up from a nap and found her sleeping like this. One sock on a foot and one sock on a hand. I found her a different day with both socks on 1 foot. She likes to play for a while in bed before going to sleep and socks are just 1 way she entertains herself I guess. 

We have 2 different sets of memory game cards that have our extended family on them- one for the Nielson side and one for the John side. What's funny is that we got them both as gifts from different people at the same Christmas. Camille loves to "play" memory with them. It is all due to these cards that Millie can name all of our extended family. 

Tantrums have become slightly more frequent from this girl. This one made me laugh. She got mad because I chopped her avocado and she wanted them sliced. It was so ridiculous it didn't annoy me at all. I just took pictures and shared them on Instagram.

Finally, I love that Millie will go play outside by herself for long stretches of time. Especially if I put water in the water table. She carefully scoops out water and distributes it around the backyard.

Our first First Grader is done

School ended on May 27th. You can see that Sadie grew a good amount from the first to the last day by comparing where her shoulders are relative to the front door. First Grade was a great experience for Sadie. She never once told me she didn't want to go and she even cried several times during school vacations about missing her teacher and classmates. Mrs. Fanning was wonderful. The good news is that she is moving up to teach 3rd Grade next year so Sadie is set on having her in 2 years. We would all love it.

The last week of school was filled with all the fun stuff like field day, the school dance festival, and various class parties. I distinctly remember the excited feeling of cleaning out my desk at the end of a school year. For the school dance festival Sadie's grade did an adorable dance to Singin in the Rain. She is the third one from the left on this picture. I loved the kid on the right who brought a massive umbrella.

We are all proud of Sadie and can't wait to have both girls at Deerfield next year. I can't imagine having 4 hours with only Camille every day! 

Accidental

So our family had several accidents in 1 week in May, which is very out of the ordinary for us. Our kids don't tend to get hurt badly, knock on wood.

First I burned my face with a curling wand. I have never burned myself with any hair styling tool and it was slightly humiliating.On the left is a few hours after I did it. When I woke up the next morning the next morning it had turned brown.

 It looked much worse than it felt. It took about 8 days to mostly fade away. You can still see a light pink line where it was, several weeks later.

Then Millie fell on the swing set. I wasn't watching her when it happened so we aren't positive how she did it. Maybe climbing up the slide? Maybe flipping over the swing? Either way she hurt her lower front teeth. There was some blood, as there always is with mouth injuries. And 1 tooth was somewhat loose, but the dentist was hopeful it would settle back into her jawbone.

The pictures above are about 20 minutes after she fell and she was acting normal. I didn't even think she was hurt that much until she tried to drink out of a sippy an hour later and freaked out.  Then when she tried to eat she cried again. Still, I wasn't worried until she woke up 45 minutes into her nap screaming her head off. That's when I looked more closely and saw bruising all over her lower gums. She was much better Saturday morning so we were feeling ok. Then she hit her mouth again! It bled like before and this time her 1 tooth was most definitely loose. A couple weeks later and she is still cautious about eating on her front teeth, but none of her teeth have turned gray so we are crossing our fingers that they will be fine.

Finally, Elise fell off a bar stool and split her chin open. Again, Daniel and I weren't there. Are we terrible parents? I was at Home Depot and Daniel was doing yard work. Elise came outside screaming and dripping blood. By the time I got home the bleeding was very slow and Lou was settled into watching Netflix with an ice pack.

I sent Steven a picture of it to get his opinion on how bad it was and he thought it didn't need stitches.

 A few days later it looked great. 

Other May Happenings

May ended up being very busy for us this year. Here is some of the other stuff we did during the month.

The first Sunday in May we had a BBQ with a group of old friends. Tyler Dunn and his older 2 kids, Ella and Cooper, were in Utah so we had the Faucettes, Merrills, and McCoys over. The only picture I got was this of some of the kids on the swing set.

 Daniel and I drove down to St. George so he could interview at Dixie State for the head coaching job. He actually interviewed for this job a few years ago and didn't get it. This time was different because I didn't really want him to get the job, so he invited me to come. We have some awesome friends who agreed to take our kids so it was just the 2 of us for a day and a half.

 I went running on a gorgeous trail while Daniel was in various interviews and I attempted to take pictures of the view. I didn't realize my camera was turned around so these are how my pictures turned out. Wish I could insert dorky mom emoji here. In my defense, it was super bright out and I couldn't see my phone screen at all so I just held up my phone and didn't look at the pictures until later that day.

While we were gone Sadie stayed with her darling friend Bentley. They went to the Tulip Festival and she sent me all these cute pictures. The girls pretended they were twins and ran around giggling all afternoon. Bentley is the youngest and only girl in her family so her mom told me she was in heaven. 

Oh, and Daniel didn't get the job offer so in the end it didn't matter that I went. 

Elise was so proud of her coloring work on this picture. I was proud too. Her coloring has gotten so much better this year.

Sadie was just looking cute one day before school so I took this picture of her. Fierce.

Gymnastics day play date. Elise and Madi usually played together every Tuesday after gymnastics this year. Lou is taking a break from gymnastics this summer. We will see if she wants to do it again in September.

One morning I watched a friend's kids. The kids played/fought over this car for an hour.

 We had a couple of Daniel's players over for dinner. We made them play with the girls outside and then read them books. 

 Then Elise and Sadie performed Duncan the Story Dragon for everyone. Sadie narrated while Elise acted it out. I wish I had recorded it because it was quite the performance.

We went to Bobpa's 95th birthday party. He is such a wonderful example. It was good to see him and wish him a great birthday.

We had a quiet Memorial Day at home. We walked to a nearby park with a creek.

The girls played in the water the whole time. Millie fell in within 10 minutes. No surprise there.

Had to document the peonies from our backyard bushes. These flowers are incredible- pretty and fragrant. I think I want to plant some more. 

Bye Preschool, See You Never

Elise finished preschool this month. I am very proud of her. She told me, "Mom, when preschool first started I didn't know how to sit still and pay attention, but then I got really good at it." Which is true. I know she will do fine with that in Kindergarten.

 Her preschool program was very cute. Lou's favorite song was You're A Grand Old Flag. They sang several songs and recited the entire book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom while doing the sign language for each letter. I had heard Elise reciting the book around our house but I figured she was just doing that because we own the book. 

 Elise missed most of the graduation practice days because we were in California, but she did a wonderful job. Sadie got choked up during the graduation ceremony. She was watching Elise's every move. She was a very proud big sister. She said the song reminded her of when she went to Kid's Village and then it was like she had a wave of nostalgia and realized how fleeting her childhood is. It was sad and adorable.  Millie ran around in the back the entire time so Daniel didn't get to hear a lot of it. Elise was absolutely adorable walking down the aisle after receiving her diploma. She happily posed for several pictures with it.

 Elise cried when she had to say goodbye to her teacher, Miss Valerie. Sadie had Miss Valerie as well and we all really like her. Lou and I happened to run into her recently at Jiffy Lube and we found out she only lives a couple miles from us. Not that that means much, but maybe we will run into her again some time.

 Sadie and I both insisted on pictures with the graduate. 

 I am so looking forward to having 2 kids in school next year. I am very excited to watch Elise learn even more in Kindergarten. 

Return to Mimi

We had a couple more days with Mimi when we got back. 

First up, when we walked in the door after our drive back from California she had made this adorable Minnie cake for Elise since we never had cake.

 The cutest thing. And delicious too. 

One night Carolyn and I went walking on trails in Highland/Cedar Hills. We got slightly lost and ended up on gravel trails in the foothills of Cedar Hills. The views were gorgeous and the trail was challenging since it went up and down constantly. 

Daniel and Carolyn took the older girls to visit Grandpa again. 

Grandpa got some great shots of the girls playing/wrestling and possibly fighting? I love Lou's face in the first picture below while Sadie shows off one handed cartwheels.

Saying goodbye to Carolyn wasn't too hard since she is coming back this month for a wedding.