May Madness

December has nothin' on May.

May is always nuts.

But this year it seemed even more nuts than usual.

I'm so behind in all of my editing & blogging from everything that's been going on that I'm tempted to self-soothe with Haagen Daz Chocolate Peanut Butter and online shopping.

Here's a recap of the past month......

Let's start with baseball.  It's always fun, but I'm glad it's over.

Brian, during a moment of temporary energetic insanity, signed up to coach Zane's team.  He really should do it more often.  He's such a great coach & they had a great season.  Zane played against his will, but he ended up really liking it.

I took a bunch of pictures at one of the games, but I must have deleted them off my memory card without getting them downloaded. Hate it when that happens.

Max played baseball too.  And he improved alot through-out the season, especially once he got his glasses & could actually see the ball.  That's always helpful.

He's some kind of ball magnet.  He was always getting beamed!

Max's cute team, the Thunder.

The guys went on the Father's & Son's Campout!!!  Woo hoooo!

Marlee & Max had their end-of-year orchestra concerts.

Brian turned 42.

Marlee went to Prom.

Cousin Jessie married Greg Heap.

They had a super-fun reception.

Caroline loved the lights.

Max enjoyed the open bar.

And all the boys were gettin' down poolside.

They were cracking me up.  Crappy pictures, I know.  No flash.

Caroline turned one.

Much more on that later.

Jake continued to morph into a man-child right before our very eyes.

Mars & her friends painted Gus and took him to the MV guys volleyball state game as some sort of pet mascot.  I didn't go, but I heard he was quite popular at the game.  He got pictures taken with the team (who won), and he would stand up & dance & cheer, and then go help himself to the players' refreshment table.  And I mean, who's going to stop him?  Look at him!

So funny!  I wish I had gone.

Jake & Max had their end-of-year piano recital.

Marlee finished up her track season.

Then she mangled the side of the Suburban pulling into a parking space.

We finished up Scouts for the summer.

This happened most nights.

Zane had his 2nd grade play/musical. 

He pretended to be mad that I was taking pictures of him, but he actually really liked  it.

So stinkin' cute.

Then I took the four youngest to the beach for a few days.

We stayed with Rebecca in her Oceanside rental she gets every year.

More on that later.

We hiked the Grand Canyon.

Gus had his last day of Preschool.

They had a parent program where they sang their Presidents of the United States song, and their Continents & Oceans song, and their African countries song (not kidding), and their solar system song, and their world habitats song, among many others.

Gus & his awesome teacher, Mrs. Freebairn.

Is it just me, or is he the gosh darn cutest thing ever?!

Zane, after a busy week of board game day & show & tell day & pizza party day, had his last day of 2nd grade, which was.....movie day!!!

Lots of learning going on that last week of school.

Max had his last day of 5th grade, and was just a little embarrassed about me showing up to take pictures.

Jake was kind of embarrassed too.

I came right in the middle of lunch.

His last day of 7th grade.

He said things like,   "Wow Mom. Are you done yet?"

He'll appreciate me later, right?

Then, without thinking it through, we scheduled to have our entire house re-carpeted the day after school got out.  It felt like we were moving. A much bigger project than I had time for right then, since Mars & I were trying to get ready for our Stake's Pioneer Trek in a couple days.

The night before, we had spaghetti-on-the-carpet night just for fun.

Then we ended the month with the Trek.

I went as our Ward photographer.  It was quite the experience & I'm so glad I went.

Much more on that later.