Once upon a time we were people that waited for movies to hit the dollar theater before seeing them. Then Marvel movies and spoilers and yahoo boys came along, and now we apparently see movies the Tuesday after they're released for the $5 ticket deal haha. Chuck, Clyde, Will, Jack, and Grandma Pam all give Infinity War rave reviews!
I was recruited to work on Election Day with some friends from church and it was exhausting and fun and crazy and gratifying to see the turnout for a May election. Insta caption: Precinct 73 has the coolest poll workers ever... not just saying that because I got to be one of them today ;). But if anyone wants a spiel about the various ballot options, I’m your girl! 🇺🇸😎🗳✌🏼
My May bookshelf decorating - basically centered on me and flowers haha:
Guys. I'm not a crafty person.... alas, that doesn't stop me from trying sometimes...
Facebook memories reminding me that we bought our house TEN years ago... a wee bit crazy!
Speaking of big purchases, I may or may not have waxed poetically about my minivan with this instagram post: Quick love letter to my minivan: I made three weekend trips to Utah in a row 💸😂 and the Uplander didn’t even blink. Put up with one million plain cheeseburgers 🍔🍔🍔and half a million Nutella uncrustables 🍞🍫dropping crumbs alllll over its interior. (Also a few dozen Granny Smith apples🍏🍏🍏🍏 were consumed as well as a few pounds of gummy worms🐍😋 but those were eaten much more cleanly). Tracks 1-6 and 9 of the current Imagine Dragons CD were played over and over and over and over and over🎤🎸🎹 accompanied by pretty much all of us at varying pitches/tones/volumes🎙🎚, and the Uplander didn’t drop its transmission in protest😅. Sometimes I get stuck noticing that she’s getting on in age🧐, and I admire those fancy van doors that slide open with a click of a button🤩, or I wish the DVD player worked🔧, or that I hadn’t blown out the motor in the rear windshield wiper like four months after we bought it 😳😬 but this lovely lovely vehicle bears her high mileage pretty dang well 1️⃣8️⃣0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣👀and keeps letting me rack more up 💃🏻so here’s to our 2006 Chevy Uplander🎉🏆🥇, please please please give us another few years/thirty to forty more thousand miles 🙏🏻😍🚐🗺🛣🙌🏼
Carma Junie got bounced from preschool! Aka progressed to the point where she no longer qualified for the developmental aspect and switched to just speech once a week. Her last day was mid-May and so we sent along our gifts and cards to her teachers and took a picture with her amazing bus drivers. The developmental preschool has been an incredible blessing in our family, first to Will and now with Carma.
Speaking of Carma.... oh man we love this crazy girl!
Carma's actual birthday was pretty low-key: streamers and watching a rainstorm with Jack...
... thank goodness for a cupcake drop-off from her beloved Sunbeam teacher 'Sister Karlina'! Oh, and we went to plasma so that's pretty exciting, right? ;)
We made up for it that Sunday with a cake with alllllll the sprinkles:
and cousins coming over for cake and ice cream and playing!
Oh, and a quick Four Years Old photo shoot after church that afternoon in her awesome bike dress! Insta caption: Cray-cray officially turned four this week and ohhhh man do we love her. Carma is an absolute delight as long as you say yes to her 💯% of the time and also are chill with her calm, polite rejection of any efforts to get her out of diapers 🤦🏻♀️🙃. She’s wild and adventurous with the skinned knees to prove it and also pretty much never stops singing and we’re thrilled to be along for the ride and watch where she goes! 🚴🏻♀️✌🏼👧🏻🤸🏻♀️☀️💕
Carma in the dentist office waiting room is hilarious, fyi.
May held some notable facebook moments for Dan the Man - starting with the nine year mark of our social media friendship!
And moving on to our possibly alarming conversation topics. But I figure this blog is a better official record that fb messenger - so let it be said, Chuck is speaking at Dan's eventual, far in the distant future funeral haha.
Oh, and Dan came out on facebook!
I loved this. Such a good reminder to speak up and say those kind things inside our heads.
Clyde's school choir headed to a festival performance/evaluation and I got to chaperone, which was suuuuper fun. I was mostly nice on the bus, mostly mean in the auditorium (including making Raquel sit alone with me and then take a selfie haha) and then nice again on the bus home, when we played a pretty epic game of Encore, front seats vs. back seats haha.
And then the choir had their end of the year concert! Miss Cangie has had such a great influence on Clyde this year and helped him grow so much musically; we love her!
Speaking of musical growth and teachers we couldn't live without, the boys had a piano recital in May and we loved celebrating another year of lessons with the incredible Ashlee Christensen.
Both boys did great; it was fun to hear the same songs we've heard ONE MILLION TIMES in our own house be played in a more formal setting. It was also sooo hard - especially when our Clyde Monster hit a rough patch on his second song and couldn't finish. Not being able to protect your kids from everything is brutal! (see emotional next post haha). Piano lessons and piano playing have been such an amazing investment and activity in our home, and we're so excited for the boys to continue and for Jack and Carma to eventually join them.
This insta caption technically went with a different picture of my four little ones, but I loved this mashup of May sibling moments so I figured I'd include it here:
I’ve been in a weird place emotionally the last few days and I’m still not sure why (as always, #prayersforChuck 😅) and tonight as I’m processing some highs/lows I’m feeling so proud of my kids and simultaneously grateful that they’re mine and guilty that I get to be a mom to four healthy kids and other women don’t. And then I resolve to be better and more patient, all while knowing I’ll fall short by breakfast tomorrow. Maybe sooner, depending on how many kids crawl in with us tonight 👀🛏🔜🛌😭. Moral of the story: I love my kids, it kills me that I can’t protect them from every hurt/risk/sadness/pain, I also want to sell them to the circus on the daily 😳😬🙃✌🏼, and I’m going to be more appreciative of being a mom while still not having to cook, aka my childhood dream. Happy late Mother’s Day, does anyone else vote for me to go to sleep and cease emotional ramblings on social media? 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️😂😘🙌🏼
I sneaked out of the house one evening to attend Heather's high school graduation, which was amazing - Heather danced AND spoke and I loved cheering for her much more loudly than she liked, I'm sure ;).
Such a bittersweet night since it was goodbye to the whole Otto family as they set off to their new adventures back East. So grateful to count each of them as friends.
I try not to focus on 'what might have been' D.I. purchases, but I still have regret at not buying this amazing sign haha. Until we meet again, this picture will have to suffice ;).
Peace. Love. 'Merica. Fave sunglasses.
Simon Holland for the win once again:
I feel like I share this fb memory every year, but it's just that good.
Jack and Joy and Jana! Three amigos.
Ohhhhh I miss this little Will. Good thing the current version is almost as sweet and appreciative ;).
Insta caption:
Received this string of texts last week and I’m choosing to believe they’re romantic sentiments in code as opposed to (the truth) Carma texting me from Chuck’s phone.
1. I love you more than football, shooting things, and bikes.
2. My love for you is like a song that not even a trio of brass, lyrics, and piano could match. Which is probably good because I’m not sure that’s a stellar musical combination.
3. Wherever you go, I will follow - in a car, or a moving van, or possibly a helicopter? despite the fact that I don’t necessarily love small aircrafts.
4. Without you, my life would be as painful as volcano lava, as lonely as a desert island, and as boring as a stable home in the suburbs... wait a second...
5. My life before you is as obsolete as old school phones, CDs, and flashlights that never have working batteries.
6. Please continue spending all my money while I do all the meal prep and handyman work around the house. Nothing brings me more joy.
Seriously, isn’t Chuck the sweetest? Thinking of putting this on a canvas in our room somewhere... 💕
Chuck sent me this picture - we always look forward to our first day lily of the year!! Sooo pretty.
I love how you can't see Clyde unless you look close and count bodies. Formation!
Tnaya got hitched, hooray! Date nights to receptions are lovely and this one was no exception, especially when you throw in the donuts and how beautiful and happy Tnaya and Josh were and getting to see Likhi too. BioLife is the best place to make friends haha.
