Jake's Kindergarten Graduation

 Jacob graduated from Kindergarten on Friday May 17th. My mom told him she wouldn't be able to come (because of my little brother Ben's back surgery) and Jake was devastated! After learning how upset Jake was, my mom found a way to sneak out to Tooele at 9 in the morning! It was a wonderful surprise. Jake was so happy that she was there. 

Here is my mom holding matching Alyssa at the program. Those two tend to match more often than not. Kinda funny.

 Jake singing the Northlake Knight fight song. It is his favorite.

 My mom gave Jake a candy gram as a graduation gift. He thought this was amazing! All those candy bars just for him! He was in heaven.

Happy Graduation buddy! We are proud of you.

Ballet recital

Lily had her spring ballet recital about a month ago. I took entirely too many pictures, but that's my right as a mommy right?

The funny/not so funny thing about the recital was that Lily had two dances to perform. One was a peter pan dance titled "I will never grow up" and they were dressed as little lost boys. They looked adorable to me, but Lily did not like the "Ugly" costume. It was brown cutoff pants with a brown and green sash. She refused to dance while wearing that outfit. It was the first dance of the two. 

When the program started Miss Swan came out to welcome everyone to the recital and I groaned a little on the inside to see that she was holding my Lily bean. This is kinda how it went:

Miss Melissa: "Welcome everyone to our Spring dance recital for Swan Studios! This is Lily." she lifts up Lily a little bit. Lily lays on her shoulder and holds her a little tighter
"Lily is 3 years old! and she is going to dance for us tonight."
 Lily: indignantly "NO I'M FOUR!"
Melissa: " Really? when did that happen?"
Lily: She grins as she proclaims "I HAD A BIRTHDAY!"

Everyone laughed and it was adorable; albeit slightly embarrassing for me. When the time came for her "never grow up dance," she refused to perform. Miss Melissa forced her to do the actions like a little puppet, but Lily wasn't having any of it. 

The funny thing is, that Lily isn't scared of being on stage and she surely isn't shy like her Momma. When the time came for her second dance, in her preferred outfit all decked out in pink and sparkles all over, she danced just fine! Who knew she wouldn't dance because of a costume?! That is crazy.

I did get lots of pictures of her dancing the second dance, but missed the first one. 

Lily waiting to go onstage before her dance. She isn't so good at staying behind the curtain. She likes to be where the action is.

 Sweet ballerina

 Lily and her best friend Gracen smiling AT THE SAME TIME!

 Lily says that her favorite part was bowing at the end.

 I think she liked eating the M&M's grandma brought for her! Isn't her hair cute by the way?

 I love my fickle little ballerina!

Lily's very first Haircut!

It took some talking into, but I finally convinced Lily to get a haircut. We both preferred to keep her hair long, but it has been getting pretty unmanageable lately. She was a little aftraid that if it got cut it would turn brown and never grow again (Just like Rapunzel's in Tangled). I assured her it would continue to grow and the color would not change. 

She was excited but a little nervous

 I forgot to take a before picture, so this is right before she cut it.

 My friend Brooke (who also cuts my hair). Shhh don't tell her I took this. She told me to make sure I didn't get her in any of the pictures.

 Blowing it dry. This was also a first for Lily

 Gorgeous girl, gorgeous hair!

 After we got home, she made me take a picture of her haircut. Nobody but her and I could even tell it was cut. She cut maybe an inch at the most. Lily had a great expirience though and you could tell she was on cloud nine. She felt so beautiful. She kept telling Jake all day that she looked "beautiful with my new hair."

What a sweetheart.

 

While I'm talking about her hair, I'll throw in this picture of the "skeleton" braid I did the other day. It was kinda cool, but I think she has too much hair for this particular style. 

Kids at breakfast

I snapped a picture of my little ones at breakfast the other day. They were all so happy eating their chocolate cereal I couldn't resist. They are getting to be so big! On a side note, Lily and Jake fight over who gets to sit by Alyssa at EVERY meal. So, as you can see, this is our usual compromise. All of them get to sit like three little ducks in a row. Tyler, on the other hand, prefers to sit by himself. He also prefers not to have pictures taken of him. :-)

Alyssa the Pianist

 This little girl likes the piano. I mean, she REALLY likes it. If she is crying and I sit her on the bench (or the much safer sitting situation I have going on here with the highchair) she will immediately stop crying and play until I take her down. I wonder if we have a little pianist on our hands?

New House

It looks like we are moving to Bountiful! As of today, we are under contract for this house! It is wonderful. We are so excited. More info to come...

Change

We put our house up for sale on April 5th (ten days ago). We felt it was the right time for our family to make a change. We have been looking for houses in the North Salt Lake/ Bountiful area. It is closer to Randy's work and a nice area to live. Not to mention, my awesome parents would be close by.

We have had 7 showings in the last week or so and no offers so far. Our price is slightly high, but we wanted to see what would happen. Everyone who comes through has good things to say. But the lack of a garage is a big deal for a lot of people (why you would go look at a house without a garage and then complain it doesn't have one, is beyond me, but whatever.) So, we are patiently waiting and trying to make grown up decisions about where we should go from here.

I took entirely too many photos (mostly for myself)

 

Jake in our "climbable" tree

 

our garden

 

front room

 

Kitchen

 Master bedroom

  

Upstairs bedroom

 upstairs hall closet

 

Upstairs bath

 

 

downstairs bedroom

 downstairs bedroom

  

Downstairs family room

 

 storage/laundry room

 I just like how organized it is right now so I took a bunch of photos

 

 downstairs hall

 downstairs bath

On the plus side, it is always nice to have documentation of my clean, organized house right? We are confident that everything is going to turn out great in our new adventure!