May 2011

It really, truly, finally happened!!!! CONGRATULATIONS HONEY!!! On May 7, 2011 (which is also my dad and Sam's brother's birthdays) Sam walked for his first time in a graduation ceremony to receive his MASTER'S degree!!! YAY SAM! We are so glad that we will no longer be living the student life in so many ways. But we are REALLY going to miss the summer, fall, winter, and Spring breaks. There certainly are pros and cons to having a full-time job. Sam will officially be a full-time, benefited employee of Thubrikar Aortic Valve, Inc. beginning in July. For the past 6 months he's just been a consultant for the company, working a maximum of 30 hours per week. We are excited for this new little phase of our lives.

We also have continued to enjoy as much time at the park as we can get. The weather has been a little schizophrenic here this year, as it seems to have been everywhere, so we are quite happy when we can enjoy the sunshine. And OH SO GRATEFUL that we are not experiencing any of the extreme weather and natural disasters that have been occurring around the country.

We attended our stake temple days one weekend up in Bismarck, ND. LucyMae looks forward to our temple trips because it means she gets to jump on the bed as much as she wants:)

Samantha idolizes her big sister. She wants to be and do everything just like LucyMae. If LucyMae hurts her leg, Samantha thinks she must have hurt her leg too, and will start whining and complaining about it the same way LucyMae is. If LucyMae jumps, Samantha has to jump. If LucyMae laughs, Samantha laughs. Often times Samantha tries to keep up with whatever LucyMae is doing and I think Samantha won't be able to, or isn't big enough, or whatever, but she usually surprises me and does it. She is growing up way too fast!

I learned from this temple trip a few things: 1) we really need to live closer to the temple - in other words, we need a temple in Rapid City. 2) We will NOT attend the temple in Bismarck again unless we get another family to come with us and trade off kids while each couple does a session. 3) It is foolish to even dream of getting sleep when all 3 of my kids are sleeping in the same room as I am. 4) Minivans ROCK - it was so nice to be able to sit in the back, in a comfortable captains' chair and reach all the kiddos to keep them all happy. 5) Benjamin is an AWESOME traveler....seriously, he was a little saint! 6)Sam is 2 for 2 on passing on his carsick gene to our kids. Samantha threw up twice - VERY large amounts. We weren't even on windy roads. But we were watching a movie on Sam's computer. As soon as we put the computer away, and she was looking out the windows again, she was fine...go figure! Thank heavens for the laundry facility in our hotel. 7) I already knew this, but I LOVE THE TEMPLE!!!! I need it in my life more. It is so hard to get to the temple in our lives right now, but it is something that I need. I felt such a reassuring love from Heavenly Father while I was there. 8) Heavenly Father is truly aware of me, my desires, my heart, my weaknesses, my strengths, my efforts, my struggles, everything. He knows me and loves me! I needed that!

In an effort to stop my own negativity and try to do more deliberate parenting, with POSITIVE reinforcement, I created this chart for LucyMae (actually I used to use this poster with my violin students...I just taped the Job Chart part over the top). She has SIMPLE daily jobs (things she was already doing - but we were running into a lot of resistance/whining with a lot of them), gets stickers for them, and when the chart is full of stickers she gets a reward. For this first completion she got her new bike (which was actually her birthday present....but she earned it too!) Most of the time when she completes this thing I will just take her to the dollar store and let her pick something:)

Every year, the weekend before Memorial Day weekend Custer State Park has a FREE weekend - free entrance to the park, free fishing (no license required), free pony rides, free wagon rides, free pancake breakfast, etc. We went up with some friends and had a GREAT time. Even the rain couldn't stop this crowd. The sun shone for the pony-rides, which was nice. But other than that all our activities were in the rain....but still SO fun. And we caught plenty of fish for a delicious lunch!

The McCormick family just moved to Rapid City this past winter. We've really enjoyed hanging out with them and getting to know them. They're awesome!

Part of the Porter family, who are our good friends here. They moved here just 1 week before we did, so we hit it off right away. We've had a great time hanging out with them over the past couple years. And they are amazing!!! They adopted 4 kids - siblings - out of the foster-care system, and have dealt with more than I could ever imagine as a parent. And they've since had one of their own and are about to have another. So, they've gone from NO kids to 6 kids in about 3.5 years....CRAZY!!! Love them.

This guy was our spectacular entertainment. He's pretty good, and he made our ride around the wildlife loop fun, even though we didn't see any wildlife:(

These 2 girls were ECSTATIC to ride horses again. I think Samantha actually remembers riding horses at the cabin last summer. And LucyMae certainly does. She LOVES riding horses. And I think she was fully expecting to see her friends Decker and McKinley there. Last year when we were up there, it was with Decker and McKinley's family, and the last time LucyMae rode horses was with them. They came up to Sam's cabin last summer when we were out there. I think she was a little disappointed when they weren't there this day. We miss you Baum family!!!

Our fishing adventures produced great rewards:) And the kids all had a GREAT time!

We drove the wildlife loop again on our way home in hopes of seeing some buffalo....but our first taste of wildlife for the day were these wild donkeys. I've never seen wild donkeys before. When I suggested that they were, in fact, "wild donkeys" Sam laughed at me....but turns out I was right and such a thing does exist!

And we did finally get to see our buffalo....LOTS of them. They are pretty amazing creatures. HUGE creatures!

Just look at the size of this guys noggin!

Two cute sisters loving their little brother. Both of these girls are smitten with Benjamin. He gets showered with hugs and kisses all day. He also gets smothered with Samantha's entire body weight sometimes, but he's a good sport and just smiles and laughs. HE loves HER, and LucyMae. Seriously, when he hears their voices you can see the look of excitement in his eyes. And LucyMae is SUCH a good little helper with him. If he starts crying, or just making noise when he wakes up, LucyMae runs right into his room to say hi and try to make him smile and laugh. I wish I could perfectly capture all the little moments that are so tender. I need to get the video camera out more often. But just in case I never get it on film, the way Samantha comes over and leans her head into Ben and says "hhhhhiii!" is priceless. She just does it over and over again. And I really need to be better at taking pictures of Ben. He is such a little stud. He is HUGE, he still spits up AMAZING amounts, he's super happy most of the time, but when he wants to let you know he's not happy - man, is he vocal about it! SO LOUD, such a screamer, so high-pitched. He's also a little talker...always trying to say something. I love how he tries to eat my shoulder when I am burping him. I love how he gets so distracted when he's eating, just to smile at me, over and over again! He is SUCH A JOY in our little family right now.

And the BIGGEST event of the month of May was LUCYMAE'S 3rd BIRTHDAY!!!! My little baby is 3 already. It really has flown by SOOOO fast. I am really starting to understand what they mean about how time speeds up when you have kids.....the big picture at least. There are certainly days that seem endless, but luckily they do eventually end, and then all of a sudden your baby is 3!!!! We woke her up in the morning with a rousing "Happy Birthday" song. She is smiling in that picture if you look closely:)

I made her a dinky little happy birthday crown thing that she wore all day. We went to several different stores and she got lots of happy birthday wishes.

She got to choose a little toy from the dollar section at Target. She chose bubbles and a big bubble blower thing. She really liked it, until she wasted all the bubbles....I was getting dinner ready, and they wanted to go outside...so I let them out the door....and literally 2 minutes later I went to check on them and this is what I found.....

What better purpose for bubbles than to wash your sister's hair....and arms and toes.....?

Looks like maybe she started out on her own hair, and then thought better of it and went to town on her sister instead eh?

 
They proceeded to get rather dirty out there, so that is why the next picture is in her actual birthday suit:) She seemed kind of fascinated with the idea that she actually was wearing her birthday suit by being naked...

Gramma Clair sent a great little package in the mail, with these awesome birthday glasses. I will be wearing those on my birthday too, thank you very much! Isn't she a hoot? Gramma Michelle also sent a great birthday package, with some cute matching summer dresses for them and other stuff....THANKS GRAMMAS!!!

We had a combined little birthday party with Meg McCormick. I was hoping to do the slip 'n slide thing again like last year, but the stupid weather never got warm enough, so we just played in their backyard. It was fun anyway. But I didn't get very many good pictures of it:( Just this one....

LucyMae is LOVING her new bike that she got for her birthday! It's the cheap Wal-Mart version of the Stryder bikes. She is getting really good at gliding along, and pretty fast too. And she knows that she ALWAYS has to have her helmet on when riding her bike outside! She is very diligent about that, thank heavens.

We're even getting Samantha in the habit of always having her helmet on when riding a bike:) Isn't she freakin' adorable?

Memorial Day was spent fishing with the McCormicks. We hit the window of sunshine PERFECTLY!! It was raining when we left our house, and raining when we got back, but we never felt a drop while we were at the lake. We went up to Horsethief lake and caught some pretty yummy fish....and a little frog!

These girls are SOOOO fun, and have so much fun together. And they LOVE being outside...which I am extremely grateful for. Let's just hope it keeps up, b/c honestly, with Sam and me as parents, they don't have much choice....our kids WILL enjoy the outdoors!:)

I also have some cute videos to share....I'll try to remember to upload them when I am on the other computer soon!

And here are some extra pictures I found on my phone from this month: