The Season for Snow Cones

It was the first official day of SUMMER VACATION today. All children slept in until 8. I can get used to this.......

We've been/will continue to be busy with various sporting events of our choosing. Ethan and Mitch are doing baseball, Ike is doing track, Hub is going to take over swim teaching duties (I'll let you know how this experiment goes by the end of the summer) and the little girls are along for the ride. Good thing Noelle is good at picking up new friends at the baseball field, or we'd have some really long nights.

As a bonus here are a few recent photos to be entitled Things I Love.

Kid Picnic Table----who cares if you spill your milk or get crumbs everywhere?? Not me! Bring on the ants----better outside than in, any day of the week!

Kindergarten Graduation---Easily the most superfluous event of all. I don't remember anybody getting very excited when I graduated from this grade, and there's no way my mom brought me flowers and balloons like I witnessed some moms doing.  Fun anyway to see the little ones dressed up and hopefully they'll be that excited to wear graduation caps in 12 more years.

Spontaneous Dancing in the backyard--Need I say more?

Last Day of School Blues-- This was seriously the fastest school year for me. Mitch will not miss 2nd grade, but Ike had a great year with a teacher who focused on art and PE and reading--everything he loves. So I kindof think his 'sad' face is genuine. (though he'd never admit  it!)

Trivial Matters that Matter

After Mitch and Ethan hanging out at Lego.com, Ike checking his scores on espn.com and trying to beat the computer at chess, it was my turn for the computer.  But alas, my turn was cut short as I noticed out the window Mitch and Ethan making several trips to the garage. When I saw Mitch running with the pogo stick I had to go investigate. A scene straight out of our family favorite movie The Sandlot was in play. A ball had landed in our neighbor's backyard---A backyard with two barking dogs. The neighbors weren't home but the boys could see the ball through the fence and thought if they used enough brooms, pogo sticks and smarts they could retrieve the ball themselves. Meanwhile the dogs were barking enough at the fun things being jimmy-rigged their way that I thought doggy seizures were imminent.
That little paragraph was just to share a moment of the excitement that is our life.
***Onto some more exciting news...we had Mom's Day. Love this day. Here's me and my brood.

And here is this year's Mother's Day flower pot. The flowers are a little too planned out this year and I am suspicious that Hub was influencing the kiddies too much at the gardening center.....

***I was in charge of our family night treat this week and went all out by making some peanut butter bars. I didn't have a recipe I loved and didn't feel like reading everyone's reviews on allrecipes.com where they 5 star the recipe after changing most of it (does this bother anyone else?!) So I went to our ward cookbook. There were two nearly identical recipes, but one called for a whole cup less of sugar. I was in a healthy frame of mind and made that one. 5 days later this is still sitting on my counter:

Moral of the story: Cut out a whole cup of sugar and be amazed at your ability to not chow down on peanut butter bars. Of course you might get angry that nobody else will eat them either....

***And in more unrelated news....Syd had the most awesome hair this morning. I just had to share. (Her loud outfit was not supposed to be part of the picture, but she was playing 'dance class' with Noelle and had to wear a leotard over her clothes.)