Maycember and other Moments

May is always a crazy month as the school year winds down with the concerts, talent shows and graduations to attend. This month was no different.

Started out with unusual cold weather, had to turn the furnace on. :/  On Friday, May 10, I came home from work and wanted to go do something with Eric and/or the kids. No one wanted to do anything outside because it was too cold and nasty outside. I didn't want to default to sitting on the bed and watching a redbox, so someone, I can't remember who because I'm writing this a month late, suggested we make a fort in the livingroom and watch a movie there. That I could get behind. It was a typical and involved everyone's participation.

Eric with the first blanket installation

Our mattress placed for viewing comfort 

Popcorn, pillows and pup hanging out in the fort

We ended up watching a second movie and then having a family fort sleepover. We left the fort up all day Saturday and into the evening on Sunday so some friends could see it. We had our Come Follow Me study in the fort on Sunday as well with the added incentive of swedish fish. Cousins had come up from Tennessee for Mother's day so they were able to enjoy it temporarily as well. 

May 11 - The weather was kind of drippy and because cousins were in town, we didn't go do the service project we had planned. There was some family visiting (although cousins weren't allowed to come into our house) and so I tinkered in the garden. We have a wooden bed frame that we took out of the house because the dog had chewed it up and it had been sitting in the backyard for over a month. I thought it would be fun to make a flower bed out of it, so with everyone kind of doing their own thing, I decided I would move the bed to where I wanted it and then play with excessive amount of 2x4s we had laying in the old garden spot to fill in the gap from the frame to the ground. It wouldn't look pretty, but at least the dirt I would put in it would stay in the bed.

Eric came out, saw what I was doing and then called the Nate and Neta over. He got out the chop saw, Neta and I started pulling out nails and Eric and Nate started cutting slats and screwing them to the frame. 

They placed the slats all around the frame and then we dumped the four construction bags of leaves that had been sitting in our garden dump area into the frame. Then Karen mentioned how she had a 55 gallon barrel of compost dirt she wanted to get rid of by their garage. Eric and the kids wheeled that around and we dumped it. The bed was a perfect Mother's Day gift - everyone helped, it didn't cost anything but time and it was/is useful. I loved it (and didn't get a completed project picture).

I bought two cheap bags of dirt to even out the bed and then planted some cucumbers and marigolds in it.I'm excited to see how things turn out in regards to harvest. I've also planted some corn in three lines around the bed, kind of like walls of a room. We'll see how they grow, especially with all the rain we've had and the not great dirt they were put in. Maybe next year I can find another bed frame and we'll add to our literal raised bed garden. :)

May 18 - just a picture of posterity of my eldest son.

Graigry's favorite thing to do with his hair
when he gets hot and sweaty

May 18 - We haven't got the pool up and running due to lack of funds (that's an excuse for many things in our life) so after a hot day of mowing, I pulled out the slip-n-slide from last year. It allows the kids to get wet, although it is not as fun as the pool.

  

Graigry then brought out a squirt gun.

May 19 - Our dear friends, Logan and Amber Ault, used to live two doors down (where Karen and Scotty now live) and we hadn't seen them for a while, so after church, we drove to Greenwood to say hello. They have three young kids, ages 6 thru 3. We love playing with the kids and vice versa and visiting with the parents. Graigry decided to play with Ronin by doing push ups with him on his back. 

At one point, Graigry had Marek, Gemma and Ronin on his back playing horsey. I wish Graigry was as good with his siblings as he was with other children.

AURORA'S GRADUATION

May 22 - Aurora has been itching for this day for several months now; she was so excited to be done and move on with her life. We headed down to the Murat Theater, also known as the Old National Centre around 5:30 as doors opened at 6 and it was not reserved seating. Here are pictures from that evening's event.

Two events going on that night

Aurora with friend and neighbor Jose Wong

Waiting for graduation to start...so bored!

Aurora with Mr Riley, her choir teacher for 4 years

 

I asked Scotty for a family picture...not as successful as I'd like

With her best friend Xander

With our friends the Wilkinsons

Gage is just a little weird, but we love him

 

Ro and Donnie

Ro with the "Wall of Tall"

 Hard to believe we have two out the door n ow. She's not 18 yet, so she's still living at home, but that is the next look forward step for her - get out of the house! Two months from that date, move to Ball State University for her first year of college. Thankfully, she applied for the 21st Century Scholarship program in 8th grade, and met all the requirements, so tuition is paid. She got an additional scholarship and with her Pell Grant she doesn't have to come up with much money, unless she spends too frivolously between now and then. We'll see....

May 23 - Temple Trip. Finally found a day that all kids at home and parents were available to do baptisms. It was going to happen on the 24th and I had a reservation but then something changed with Ro's schedule so I called to bump out time and then when I got home, Eric was off helping someone and didn't get home until it was almost time for us to be there. We made it, late, but were able to participate in the ordinance for others and enjoy sometime together.

Gotta have a funny pose, even at the temple

If you look close, there is a dark spot on Moroni.
Yep...He got struck by lightning. 

May 25 - This Saturday was a little off. Boys were at a campout and Ro was working. Neta and I were going to go mow with Eric but then he and I had some differing of opinion on something which frustrated him and he went off by himself. I wanted to load mowers in the minivan and meet him where we knew he's be, but then Neta reminded me that often results in Eric getting mad and telling us to go away. To avoid that situation, because Neta has been wanting to swimming for weeks, I took her to the Ellenberger Park Pool.

It was a little cool to go swimming, but that didn't stop Neta. She jumped in and had fun. It took me awhile to convince myself to submerge myself, but I eventually did. As long as I was doing laps or treading water, I kept my heart rate up enough to make the cool water more bearable. She/we swam about an hour and then headed home.

"Come on, Mom! It's fine!"

Going under

My smiling fish

So there is May. Aurora had her last choir concert and Nate and Neta participated in Paramount's talent show, but I obviously didn't take any pictures of those events. They all did a good job and I'm proud that they are willing to share their talents. June will slow down as far as events and then July picks back up with youth camps, conferences, trip to Denver and wedding prep. :)

April Announcements & Adventures

April, as most months, has gone by too quickly. As I searched my photos, I realized I hadn't taken as many pcitures as I usually do, especially considering the visitors we had this month. Xela and Trevor came out April 12-15.

We were excited to meet Trevor, the boy who will be our son-in-law before the year's out, assuming all things go as Xela, and Trevor, would like it to.  ;) They flew into Indy around 2:30 and I walked in from work to an empty living room with noise coming from the kitchen. As I stepped into the kitchen, Trevor got up and came to give me a hug while Xela dried her hands from doing dishes (she knows what I like done in the kitchen).

The objective of the trip was to meet the family and for Trevor to ask Eric for Xela's hand in marriage. They were to fly out Monday afternoon and it took until Sunday evening to find the right time to sit and talk with Eric.

Saturday was spent painting one of our rentals, Trevor being a good sport and helping out to get things done and encouraging the kids to finish the project when they were ready to quit. We had a cookout with the Dunahees, the family that Xela was most desperate to see and to whom for Trevor to meet. We hadn't had a cookout with them in a year, so it was good to have them, just a small group.

Sunday we went to church and Bishop called out Xela's friend from the pulpit when he gave her the Young Women's medallion which she'd earned before leaving for school. Trevor tagged along with us to Neta's setting apart for her Beehive calling, Graigry's setting apart for Teacher's Quorum and then went to Elder's Quorum. Xela and I then went to Relief Society (which was a joke). She and I whispered the whole time about how to find a time for Trevor to talk to Eric.

Bishop Youth Council was after church so Xela and Trevor came home with us. We worked together to prepare an early Easter dinner. I very much enjoyed watching Xela and Trevor interact as they prepared carrots and potatoes. Xela found a way to get Eric into the living room to chat so that he, in theory, would realize or be told about how she and Trevor had been thinking through things as regards getting married at a young age. I could see the stress on Trevor's face as he knew what needed to happen before leaving for Idaho and not knowing how that would all play out. I enjoyed talking to him, getting to know him a little better and explain a little about our family. Kids came home before Trevor and Eric had an opportunity to chat.

Long story short, after getting kids in their bedrooms Sunday night (Graigry and Aurora were in the living room) and I was upstairs to read scriptures with Neta, the three important parties ended up in the kitchen. I hear Nate say, "Mom, they're having the talk." Huh? "They're having the talk." OH!!! I went to the stairs and eavesdropped for several minutes, Aurora joining me for a bit and then I stopped - WAIT, I'm a parent! I can go downstairs! And down I went.

Basically, Eric's said to them, and he had been thinking about this over the last few days knowing this conversation was the purpose of the trip, that if they had pondered and prayed about it and felt that their marriage was something they should do, who was he to say no. Then we talked logistics of the wedding. There was no ring, but I had an engaged daughter. Wow!

So, with that major event now in the "Scott history book," let's put some pictures out here for April.

After Easter Sunday, we all hung outside for a few hours. It was SO BEAUTIFUL outside, sunshine for the first day in what seemed like weeks. We wanted to absorb the Vitamin D and some of us, including myself, got the first sunburn of the season. While the absorption took place, Aurora decided that Eric needed his toes painted. Eric was a good sport about the whole thing, laying in his gravity chair letting his daughters (Neta got in on it) give him a pedicure. He asked us to cut his toenails, but that no one wanted to do. We used little twigs between his toes instead of those cushioning things. It was a good time.

And, because I'm writing about this in June instead of April, I can tell you that as of a few days ago, there was still paint on his big toenail. :) Eric is a good sport.

On April 26 the boys were on a campout and Aurora was working so Eric and I decided to take Neta to the temple to do baptisms for the first time. She had been waiting to go since January when President Nelson said the age for temple attendance was lowered to those turning 12 in the current year. She finally received her worthiness interview, Eric renewed his temple recommend and we went. I love being in the temple with my family.

The temple grounds are so beautiful

Can't wait to go with all the kids. April was the last month of regular school schedule and routine. May is the month of wind-down, tests, programs and school burn-out. This also means more pictures than April! :)