may days: the conclusion

Might as well start with some pictures of a darling little Carma Junie (aka what Jack lovingly calls her). At this point (a couple of weeks before her birthday), Carma was craz.y. outside. She still wasn't walking full-time but alas, that did not curtail her climbing or wandering all around the front yard:

And of course there's always room in the cozy coupe for two! It just gets a little cozier ;).

And here are some lego creations by Will:

The kids continue to be completely lego-obsessed, which is fine with me. They happily sit in there for an hour at a time and build and imagine and it's darling.

Speaking of Willy boy, the next night he sneaked out of bed and joined me on the front porch glider for a bit. He wanted to take a picture of himself and the moon, so I made it into a funny activity. When he brought home his journal a few weeks later at the end of the school year, I loved finding this entry about that night:

And here are the pictures, as he detailed - the first one only has part of his face, the second one he's blocking the moon, the third one has the moon and his face but he's not smiling...

 

 And finally here's the winning shot! If I teach my children nothing else, at least they'll be competent at taking selfies ;).

 The kids all donned Star Wars shirts for May the Fourth [be with you]. Honestly, we end up with all the boys wearing Star Wars shirts at least twice a week just by random rotation and the fact that Jack rarely wears anything else, but we dug out Carma's shirt just for the occasion:

 Oh man these kiddos make me happy!

Carma observed Mother's Day by being an absolute nut during Relief Society, so we hied ourselves out to the foyer to entertain Sister Corse. 

 

 Chuck had stuff after church, so I gathered the wee ones for a Mother's Day group selfie. Honestly, I'm not super into Mother's Day but I am super into being a kick-a mom.

We spent the evening at my mama's house for dinner and dessert (delicious cheesecake!) and played at the park and also celebrated Cody's birthday. #multitasking

 Have I mentioned how awesome it is that my mom's neighborhood park is riiight across the street from her house? So perfect.

I have no idea what game or activity the boys were engaging in here, but I feel like it's a good illustration of "It's all fun and games until somebody gets hurt":

I already chronicled the insane part of Holly's visit where she had to keep me from completely freaking out when Jack drove the ol' van, but here's some more chill pictures of the rest of our afternoon: lunch/visiting Cody at work, and a picture of the two of us before she left. Also, we are the same height (I recently verified this via text) so I have no idea why it looks like I'm her kid sister. I feel like it's something with the angle... and I think the grass slopes a little there.. and she's wearing shoes (albeit flats, but still...). LOVE you Holl!

 I sneaked out that weekend for more girl time, hooray! Maren and Kautri and I met up with some of Kautri's friends to watch the Bellas attempt world domination:

Random pictures from the month. Initially Carma wasn't super steady on the ladder/slide, so her long-suffering brothers were constantly recruited to 'stand behind her' as she climbed up. And for a while Jack refused to eat unless someone was reading aloud to him (That Kid, grrr) so Will sweetly took up that job on a regular basis. Also sometimes I let Carma have her second lunch on the floor - I mean, it had only been sitting there for the few minutes since she had unceremoniously thrown it down... (That Girl, grrr).  

And here are some random pictures from Chuck's phone. Will's well-being check-up came up while I was in Utah, so Chuck took him. Will LOVES the doctor... like, he's disappointed every time someone else gets to go and he doesn't. So obviously they had fun. Also pictured: Chuck and I riding new bikes (Clyde's and mine, respectively), turns out Carma loves red velvet cake balls, and Chuck sent me a picture of my day lilies blooming while I was gone! He's sweet.

 Carma loves the trampoline and Chuck, possibly in equal amounts.

 

 The end of May found us at yet another ENT appt for Jackers (we had to switch because the one we went to first made me SO mad) and this is what I texted Chuck that morning:

 Amazingly Jack went the 'good' route nonetheless, even though we were in the flipping exam room for AN HOUR AND A HALF waiting for the dr. Luckily I am pretty chill in those situations because obviously emergencies happen (in this case the ENT was called over to the hospital for a emergency surgery thing) and Jack and I had loads of fun and read books and rested and played. He's cute. 

So Chuck found a great deal on craigslist for a new bike for me and even though it's not "cute", it is "functional" so I'm opting to be grateful and biding my time until I convince him to let me spray paint it, haha. Here Chuck is testing it out and taking Jack and Nathan for a ride:

And here we all are taking a family bike ride one evening!

Saturday morning think tank:

We were thrilled to be a quick stop point for Sam and Terri and their girls on their way to Warshington. (am I the only one who says it that way? I can't be... right?) Hazel was the sweetest little protector of Carma ever on the trampoline.

This is the very last picture I have from May: Clyde Monster sneaking out of bed to sit outside with Mom and Dad for a few minutes. Sometimes I veer towards panic attacks when I think about how old he is and how soon he'll be traumatically pulled from my grasp and thrown unceremoniously into adulthood (hopefully not before we figure out where he gets his melodramatic streak from...) but in the meantime I will treasure the fact that he still fits under my arm and lets me snuggle with him sometimes.

All right, done with May!