Catch Up

It's official. I have become a pathetic blogger. I use to update this thing 3-4 times a week and now I'm averaging only about one post a month and that's on a good month! So today you get a months worth of posts all piled into one. Luck you.

THE SILVER BULLET

This silver beauty has been Mike's commuter car for the past nine years. He's hit a deer in it, the front grill flew off while driving, and he's replaced the entire engine, but it has carried him safely to and from work and has been our little baby. Mike calls it "the silver bullet." I call it his "wind-up car." We have loved having it, dent and all, but we finally felt it was time to say goodbye and let someone else enjoy her in all her glory, so we listed her on KSL and by the end of the day she was gone. It was a sad, sad day, but the 16-year-old girl who bought it was thrilled to have her first car and we know she'll treat our baby well.

12-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

Mike and I celebrated our 12 year wedding anniversary on May 14th. Mike surprised me with a private airplane ride over the Salt Lake Valley. We got to fly right over our house (middle house in cul-de-sac) which was really cool .

We also flew over or around five beautiful LDS temples. Our bishop has a plane and was kind enough to take us on the flight. Mike's dream is to learn to fly airplanes or helicopters, so he loved having a mini flying lesson along the way.

OUR FAVORITE MISSIONARIES

Both sets of our parents are currently serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mikes parents (left) are serving in Budapest, Hungary (you can follow their blog here) and my parents (right) are serving in the Family History Center in downtown Salt Lake City. They are both doing awesome and we love hearing about all of their amazing experiences.

NEW BIKE

Mike surprised me with a new beachcomber bike for my birthday and I have been peddling it all around town like the Wicked Witch of the West (as Mike teases) ever since. Lilly loves to be pulled behind in her little trailer. I've been trying to bike everywhere I possibly can and was able to make it an entire week without driving my car. It was fabulous!

HOUSE UPDATES

I have been very slowly working on getting our new home decorated. I'll share pictures as I get things finished, but today I'll just share a quick photo of the numbered baskets I added to our mud room lockers.

LADY LILLY

Lilly is growing like a weed. She now weighs 22 pounds and has finally upgraded to a front-facing carseat. She loves to read (she especially loves David books) and is always bringing us books to read to her.

Lilly looks slightly freaky in this picture (even so she's still stinkin' cute), but it shows her sitting like a big girl up at the counter. She absolutely refuses to sit in her high chair and insists on sitting at the counter next to Bryson. She is also walking up and down stairs now and can put on her own socks and shoes.

ART MASTERPIECE

I have been volunteering at Bryson's school a ton this year. I give his class their spelling test each week and I also teach Art Masterpiece twice a month. The eight prints below are the ones I've shared with Bryson's class this year. I have loved teaching the kids about each of the different artists as well as the different principles and elements of design (ie: line, shape, form, space, value, texture, color, balance, contrast, movement, pattern, etc). Art, like music, is such a powerful form of expression and I have loved sharing my love of it with Bryson and his class.

CANCER IS SO LIMITED

My beautiful and amazing little sister Rachel was diagnosed with uterine cancer last month and had to have a hysterectomy in order to remove the cancer. Luckily the cancer was contained to just the uterus and she is now cancer free, but it was definitely a huge scare. Our prayers were answered and we feel so blessed she is still with us. My other amazing little sister Taylor created this beautiful video of Rachel's experience.



PLAYING

Bryson spends every free moment he possibly can playing outside with the neighborhood kids. I had to snap a picture of how cute they looked playing "school" in a box.

YARD GAMES

Now that we finally have a yard, we've been spending a lot of time enjoying it. For Mother's Day Mike gave me some yard games (Bocce & Croquet) that we've enjoyed playing out in the yard as a family.

DANCING

After a hard day of working in the yard there's nothing better than to end the day with dancing. Ever since Lilly joined our family, we've been doing a lot of this lately because she just loves it and can't get enough of it.


Mike cracks me up...


Favorite quote this week:

"If you don't accept excuses, then people will stop giving them and will start looking for solutions."

-Ben Carson

Life rules.