May mash up

We began May in race mode... a 5K to be precise.  Both Cloudburst and Sunshine ran.  Sunshine ran a 1 mile race and Cloudburst ran the 5K.  They both did so well, considering our many (ie 1) practice sessions!

Sunshine was a very good spectator for many events.  He was happy to have a ball to kick around, throw, or hug.

Can you see the tiny body at the end of those rings in the middle of the picture?  That's Tornado in his gym class.  He is on a team and is doing great.

Tornado really loved his teacher this year in preschool.  He is reading well and definitely ready for kindergarten at the big school with brother and sister.

Sunshine was busy running from soccer practice to baseball! But he loves it all.

We got up to the cabin a few times.  Ahhhh we love that place.

It's so refreshing.

Have I ever made our famous home-made guacamole for you?  We start with our own green salsa.  I'm really sad we are out of avocados right now.

Cloudburst played grown up softball this year! Where the kids pitch and everything. Their team took 4th place in the tournament and made it to the state tournament down in Payson.  She learned a lot this year.

This was our highlight and tragedy one day.  We noticed a mama duck leading about 14 little ducklings along the road.  We followed them all around taking pictures, but keeping our distance to not frighten them.  We were so sad when a few ducklings walked right into a storm drain! We tried to figure out a way to rescue them, but couldn't lift the gate :-(

And here is one small beginning of our garden this year... I attempted starting my own seeds.  Most of them grew...

Three's a breeze

Sunrise is lucky enough to live next to 2 buddies.  And these two friends are who he wanted to come to his birthday party.  He loves his friends and he loves cars, so we combined them!  

He thought tradition was overrated and just opened the presents as soon as they arrived.

When the two boys came over, everyone got to color some pages from the movie Cars, and then we watched a cute DVD called Mater's Tall Tales.  It's a collection of short stories about Mater and Lightning McQueen.

Then we were off to make real cars!  Each buddy had an older helper.  The night before the older kids and I had spray painted these boxes and glued on the wheels.  We put in ribbon handles on the inside of each side.  The buddies got to decorate with stickers and markers.

Then it was off to the race track! The cars were a little hard for them to figure out at first, but they got the hang of it.

Then it was time for cake! I saw a cake on Pinterest here and adapted it a bit to make it perfect for Sunrise.

Everyone had fun and Sunrise was in Cars heaven!

No, I did not turn 311 years old.

Thunder always takes care of me for special occasions.  He is very thoughtful and really pays attention to what I talk about.  This year he got me a sustain pedal for my keyboard and a bike!  We got rid of our old rusted ones two years ago and the kids had been begging to go on bike rides again.  It's an awesome road bike hybrid and it's rides so smooth.  I had lots of calls, texts and facebook messages.  As I tell Thunder, all I really want is attention!  And if you look at the last picture, I know what you're thinking.  "She doesn't look a day over 310."  Or, "what a clever husband to use the candles they had on hand."  It was a great day!

Bombs away!

A little boredom can be very entertaining to watch!  The kids were trying to fly on a Saturday morning. Thank goodness for a soft place to land.

Creative Time

I have been co-writing songs on Thursday mornings for a while now.  We get together during the day and our kids play together.  We are in a good rhythm but sometimes our kids need attention right when we are in the middle of something awesome.  I saw this idea on  Pinterest and decided to try it out.  You squirt tempra paint in two colors into a large zip lock bag, and seal each side with tape.  I just taped it to the table with some plain paper behind (to make it easier to see).  It kept everyone occupied for about an hour (not bad!) and we got some great stuff done on a fun song :-)