Wrapping Up May

These past two weeks have flown by. I can't believe that it is June already! I will share the highlights...there are many.

Here is our angel, Emma Leigh Eve. She is officially crawling (see the video below)! Well, scooting/crawling. At any rate, she can get around! You take your eyes off her for a minute and she is across the room!

Emma is still so happy. She may not like to sleep but rarely gets fussy, so I can't complain too much. She is such a sweet girl.

We started this reward system with Bradley about 5 weeks ago. Every day he had the opportunity to earn up to two checks. When he accumulated 50 checks, we went to Toys R Us and bought this Army Man dress up kit. He has been wearing it ever since! Brad is such a great kid. He would have earned this sooner if he didn't make such a ruckus at bedtime (another child who hates sleeping!). He has started another check chart, along with his brother. Ben is earning checks to buy a Cowboy dress up kit. Who knew boys would like dress up so much!

Our little garden is doing great! We have been harvesting our cucumbers the last couple weeks!

Bradley has been very excited about sports lately. He is the only one playing soccer this Fall (Benjamin and Savanna didn't want to). He also wants to play basketball in the Winter and baseball next Spring. Apparently during the Father/Son camp out a bunch of boys were playing baseball. Brad didn't know how to play, so they told him he couldn't play with them. He was really embarrassed and informed James that it was his job to teach him how to play baseball. We are going to play baseball for family home evening several times so he feels really comfortable with it by next year!

We have been trying new ways to get the boys to play in our little yard. They are a little big for this kiddie pool now, but they played for hours making mud pies and squirting each other with water. My vision for the yard is to make half of it a garden, and put a big trampoline in the other half. Add a decent BBQ and some picket fences to keep kids/pets where they are supposed to be, and it will be perfect!

We had our last youth colloquium until we start again in the Fall. The children discussed Jungle Book. We also had an adult colloquium discussing Laddie. I think this is my new favorite book. It even trumps Pride and Prejudice which says a lot. It is just so applicable to my life right now. I could read it over and over and glean new ideas and insights about family, love, loyalty, and self-reliance.

And, I completed my first month of running! I am up to about 2 miles a training session. Today for the first time I got a glimpse at why people love running. There is something so empowering about pushing through the discomfort, and becoming stronger and faster. I think I'm going to like this after all!

Emma Crawling!

And Talking. :)

May 18 - June 1, 2011