Young Womens Fun

On Tuesday, May 29th we had a fun Young Womens activity to celebrate some graduating seniors and some birthdays. We ate some yummy treats and played some fun games including "Speak Out."

Here are the girls who were brave enough to get their picture taken with their mouth pieces!!

Abby adores being in young womens and I hope she continues to foster these great friendships and strengthen her testimony with these amazing girls!

Memorial Day 2018

We spent the morning of Memorial Day at Antietam National Cemetery. They have a nice program each year that really helps to set the tone for the day and remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to protect our freedoms.

Walking among those thousands of headstones is truly a humbling experience and fills me with so much gratitude. 

Of course sharing this experience with Tasha and her family makes it extra special. Willow and Maylie are quite the little pair and I love how close our families are since we make the effort to see each other several times a month.

After the cemetery, we had a picnic lunch and went out for ice cream. A great unofficial start to the summer season!!

Landon's Ready Stance...

I tried to get a picture of Landon's "down & ready" stance in baseball. He basically slouches his shoulders and pushes out his hips so he looks like an old man ready to play baseball. It cracks me up every time!!

So we're having a....

BABY!!!

We are very excited to announce that our family is growing!! Baby #5 coming this November!!

8 week ultrasound...

13 week ultrasound...

Me at 12 weeks...

The first trimester was ROUGH. I was sick almost all day everyday. Never in the mornings so I was still able to exercise every day, but evenings were terrible. I finally started taking Diclegis at week 7 which helped with the nausea a bit but the month of April was definitely rocky. I am now just over 13 weeks with a little baby bump and feeling much better, with only occasional nausea rather than the constant sickness from weeks 6-12. As I am of "advanced maternal age" (38) I have more tests and ultrasounds which so far have all come back clear and the baby looks great so far. We had a blood test yesterday that will check for possible chromosomal abnormalities and will also tell us the baby's gender. We should find out those results in the next week or so which is exciting. With two boys and two girls already, this baby will be the tiebreaker!!

The kids and Jason are beyond excited about this little one. It admittedly took me a little while to get on board with having another baby, especially since being pregnant is hard and natural delivery is very painful for me. But I had a wonderful spiritual experience in the temple last October that helped me realize another little one was meant to come into our family. So right around Thanksgiving we will have an extra special blessing enter into our lives and hearts this year!!

Birthday Fun!

Jason had a hard time with turning 40 on May 21st so he channeled the negative into something positive and spent his birthday building us an outdoor shed!! 

It turned out amazing and it has been so nice to clear out some of our garage items and become more organized with some of our outdoor gear. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening opening presents and eating out at Longhorn Steakhouse. Overall not a bad way to bring in his 4th decade!!

Ward Cultural Night

We have a large group of diverse backgrounds from our ward so it was to celebrate some of these cultures with our ward family on Saturday, May 19th. We had lots of yummy foods to sample..

Some interesting new drinks to try...

And some fun tidbits of information that were shared throughout the night!

Here is Sister Trinidad sharing some things about her native country El Salvador...

They had a special area for the kids to make some cultural crafts...

And even some of the youth got into making origami. Here is Abby surrounded by lots of boys!!

One of the best parts of the night was when Jason taught us a native dance from India called the "Bhangra."

Everyone really got into learning and Jason was a great teacher!!

They even had a little section of the gym for dress-up too and Maylie LOVED that area!! Here she is channeling some Harry Potter!!

Sure do love these kids/youth and how welcome they make everyone feel!

Such a fun night to share with our ward family!

Emoji Fun

This is how Landon entertains himself at Abby's volleyball games...

He told me he was the "Nerd Emoji!"

6th Grade Chorus Concert

Abby had her final 6th grade chorus concert on Thursday, May 17th. They sang a fun selection of songs and sounded great!!

Abby even had a solo during their rendition of "A Million Dreams" from The Greatest Showman. She was fantastic!!

Here she is with some of her friends from chorus this year. She is actually trying out for Magnet Chorus for next year and may switch to that instead of Magnet Theater. 

So proud of our talented girl!!

Volleyball

Abby has enjoyed playing another season of volleyball at the YMCA this Spring. She is now in the 6th-8th grade league and her team is quite good. They named themselves the "Flaming Hot Cheetos!"

Quite a talented group of young volleyball players!!

A few shots of Abby in action during one of her games. She has practice every Wednesday evening and then games on Saturdays.

It is fun to watch these girls play. Abby has been playing volleyball at the YMCA since 3rd grade so it has been neat to watch her progress over all these years!

Munchkins with Mom

On Friday, May 11th, I headed over to Paramount Elementary with the boys for "Munchkins with Mom." We had fun eating some donut holes together and then worked on a special Mother's Day craft before school started that day.

My boys are crazy and loud, but I sure do love them and feel blessed to call them mine!!

Feeding Ducks

We have been enjoying some beautiful weather here in Maryland lately so we have taken advantage of it by enjoying several park dates. On Wednesday, May 9th we headed over to City Park with some friends and played for a bit before buying some food to feed the ducks. Maylie loved doing this and got quite a kick out of her new webbed-footed friends!!

She was especially enamored when the ducks would stick their bums up in the air to get some food down below the water.

After she ran out of food, she spent the rest of the time terrorizing the ducks by chasing after them in an attempt to try and pet them. This girls is quite the animal lover, sometimes a bit TOO much!!

Mary Poppins!!

After months of preparation and lots of after school and late night rehearsals, Abby performed as Mrs. Corry and in the ensemble of her school's presentation of "Mary Poppins."

On Friday, the cast made the front page of the local newspaper. You can see Abby as the crazy pink-haired lady on the left in this newspaper clip...

She was very excited for her first big performance. The kids and their teachers all worked so hard on this production and it showed. The show was amazing!!

I was able to go both Friday and Saturday nights and was completely floored by the talent of singing, dancing and acting that these middle-school kids displayed.

Here is one of the ensemble pieces that Abby was in called "Precision & Order."

Part of the lighted umbrella scene too...

Abby had a lot of people from the ward and other friends who came to watch both Friday and Saturday night. Our whole family came on Saturday night including my sister and her family and some other ward members.

Here she is after the show with Olivia who played Jane. They were both so thrilled with how everything turned out!!

I caught their principal, Mr. Mauriello taking a selfie with these two sweet girls too!

A shot of Abby with her friend and neighbor Lauren who played the Bird Woman.

I didn't get any pictures of Abby in her costume as Mrs. Corry so I hope to get my hands on some soon. It was quite the getup with her pink spiky wig and crazy clothes. Mrs. Corry was the one who came up with the letters for "Supercalafagilisticexpialadocious."

It was an amazing production and so fun to see Abby right in her element. She LOVED it!!