May miscellany

Max Owen & Gavin after their teams played against each other

No, this picture isn't upside down.  It was my view from the bottom of the stairs as Blake was standing on Matt's shoulders to scrub the SPIT streaks OFF THE WALLS!!!!! (from spitting down the stairs) Sometimes boys don't seem to have brains.

Craig & Trenda Poulter were in town so we invited them over for dinner!

When we started optometry school, Brooklyn and Blake were 19 months old
and their oldest was a newborn. Look at all the kids we have now!

Riding in a cool cart at the grocery store and enjoying a free cookie from the bakery!

Kinder mommy makeovers for Mother's Day!  Preston did a pretty good job on my makeup, dontcha think?!

We had the missionaries over for dinner and fed them breakfast!
I figure it's probably been awhile since they've had waffles and bacon.

The boys were at Father's & Sons so we snatched Brooklyn from school and took her to lunch! 

I practically spent the whole day at the school- Brooklyn performed in the school talent show with one of her dance friends, Blake and Gavin had their RISE (gifted) cardboard arcade and Preston's class did a performance of The Mixed Up Chameleon.

Maddie graduated!!  QCHS Class of 2015

Greensboro Grasshoppers place second in the Rookie division championship!

We have SO much fun in Singing Time!!  This may be my favorite calling of all time!
(learning I Will Be Valiant with superhero actions)

Swimming lessons for Hayden

It's that time of the year again!  

We had Coach Sean last year, this year Hayden's lessons were with Miss Suzy!  I signed her up for private lessons, which are only 10 minutes, 4 days a week.  A lot of people are skeptical about how much progress can be made with only 10 minute lessons, but really it's more undivided attention than you'd get in a class setting and 10 minutes is the perfect amount of time before their little bodies are spent!

Hayden was a crazy little fishy last year so imagine my surprise when she was hesitant to even get IN the water at first!!  Then she insisted that she "couldn't do it," and needed Suzy to hold onto her.  Each lesson, Hayden got more and more comfortable and I was completely blown away how quickly she was catching on!   

Floating all by herself!!

Preston took one session of lessons for a refresher course.  He did awesome!

Suzy always used Preston as an example to the other kids in the class.

Monkey, star, soldier! {elementary backstroke}

This video shows the amazing things that have happened in JUST two weeks!

First session complete!

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Second session of swimming lessons, I started Hayden out in a group class with other 2-3 year olds.  Even after one session of private lessons, she was MILES ahead of the other kids so I switched her back into private lessons.  It's worth the cost for the one-on-one time!

Diving in to get the ring~

Big monster arms to Miss Suzy then rolling over to back float!

We love Suzy and Sean for teaching our little ones how to be water safe!

Second session complete!!  She's back to her little fishy self!

exploreAZ

Apparently Matt had taken today off, anticipating that we might have taken a trip somewhere over Memorial Day weekend, which we didn't.  We couldn't let that go to waste so we make quick plans for a day trip just north of Payson to the Tonto Natural Bridge.  We've driven past it one thousand times on our way to and from the cabin, it was about time we found out what it was all about!  It was a pretty quick, easy little hike for the kiddos and Hayden did great with a little help from daddy!

It's amazing that this was formed by water eroding the travertine away! 

A couple of the kids were brave enough to dip their feet in the freezing cold water!

Sweetness. ❥❥❥

He's so mean..... "Here, want a drink?" *squiiiiiiiirrrrt*

It was the perfect family adventure!  This is the part of having older kids that I'm really liking!  This got us realizing that there is much more of Arizona that we need to be exploring!  I've lived here my whole life and I've been missing out on all these cool places right in my backyard!