The Evans End: May 2013

May - what a wonderful month. It comes just in time to rescue me from the despair that would certainly set in if winter and/or the volatile weather of April were to continue much longer. I love the sun and and the warmth of it on my face and body whenever I go outside. I love seeing the new life and beauty of Spring emerge out of the barrenness of winter, and then take hold as flowering trees grow greener and greener every day. And I think I also really love May because it is the month that we received one of our most precious gifts - LucyMae! Man I love this girl! Anyway - these lovely dresses were from their awesome aunt Rennie (and Papa!), who brought them home from Spain for them. Rarely are gifts more appreciated than these dresses were by these girls!

And Ben is just happy to be in a picture! I love this kid - aside from the terrible-twos tantrums, he is generally just a super happy-go-lucky kid. Couldn't care less that his sisters got this new gift...he's all smiles anyway. He's just happy for them. And he is devilishly handsome:)

After a year and a half without seeing my awesome sister, and their beloved aunt, we were all ecstatic to have a visit from Rennie on her way home from Spain (for the 2nd time), where she served her mission.

I thoroughly enjoyed having her here to help me take the kids to the zoo for the first time, since I was uncomfortably pregnant and it was HOT. The Philadelphia Zoo is pretty awesome, and we are trying to take full advantage of actually having a zoo where we live. These kids worked so hard to help us earn the money to pay for a zoo membership.

We have a Job Board with magnets for their daily jobs. Every day they complete their jobs, they get a "done" magnet. And every week that they get all their done magnets they get to put $1 each into the FAMILY FUN JAR! I don't really like the whole "allowance" idea. And I don't like the idea of paying our kids to help out around the house - that's just part of being in a family. But we wanted to start teaching our kids about finances and working to earn money. So we thought this would be a good way to help them learn some responsibility and contribute to the family finances. Now, we just figure out the next fun thing we want to do, and tell the kids how much it will cost and how much of it they have to earn before we can do it, and then let them learn a little delayed gratification as we work together to make it happen. It was fun to watch LucyMae give up the hard-earned money to buy the zoo pass! I hope the message is sinking in:)

Pure fascination on those faces....right?:)

They really do love that aunt Rennie! Come visit again!

After 2 days of having Rennie all to ourselves, Scott (her fiance) joined us for the rest of the fun. It is also SO nice to have enough space (even an extra bedroom) to LOVE having visitors! Anyway, Rennie was our babysitter for a night while Sam and I got to go on a much-needed date (first one since we moved here). We enjoyed a nice little restaurant down in Philly, and then picked Scott up from the airport at about midnight. After Scott got here we decided to have a bit of fun visiting Lancaster County and all the Amish country and Hershey. It was RAINY!!! But we still had fun...

SO incredibly beautiful out here....I could DEFINITELY live in Lancaster County...I think I could even be Amish (aside from the whole religion part of it). If you haven't seen this part of the country in late Spring/early Summer, you haven't seen green!

The little tour/ride at the Hershey factory was a hit! We had to go on it twice just to get another free chocolate at the end:)

Oh, how I love prego pictures of myself....hence, the fact that I am not in a lot of pictures these last few months:)

And we had to splurge and get a little hot chocolate treat while we were there....I'm pretty sure the kids LOVED it!

I love this handsome little man of mine! Such a sweetheart.

And we did a little bit of sight-seeing in Philadelphia...not a lot, but had fun anyway. And of course had to enjoy a Philly Cheese-steak sandwich (Rennie is the #1 fan of Philly Cheese-steaks I think).

We tried out the option of having me drive people up to New York to fly out when they come visit...we did it, but I don't think we will do that again. So if flights are cheaper to fly in and out of New York when you want to come visit us, you will also have to ride the bus (which is cheap and easy) down to Philadelphia where we can pick you up:) It was fun to have the extra time with Rennie and Scott though. These were are our goodbye pictures at the airport. Sad to see them go:( Sure do love my sister! Hate prego pictures though....

Sam took Ben on their first Father's and Sons campout. It was actually just a few miles away from our house, which was nice. They had a great time. Ben was SOOOO excited that he got to go camping with daddy all by himself...I LOVE to see how much Ben idolizes and loves his daddy.

And there was a 100th anniversary celebration of the Fire Department in Blue Bell...which meant a parade right down our street. We got to sit in our driveway and watch the parade go by. It was pretty convenient and awesome. There were also a few garage sales in our neighborhood in April and May (including one this day). We scored some pretty awesome stuff, including: a chariot bike-trailer/ jogging-stroller for $100 (in new condition), a new bike for LucyMae's birthday, a white-board/chalk-board easel, some great kids movies, a kids camping chair, fishing poles, etc. Great stuff. And our backyard neighbor gave us their little slide/swing-set. Now our backyard really is a kids' heaven, along with the great rope swing Sam made.

And then we got to have more fun visitors just a week or two later. Papa (my dad) and his friend Jan came for a few days. They arrived the night before LucyMae's birthday and were there when she woke up in the morning as a nice little birthday present! She also got to open her present from Grandma Clair that morning - a little harp thing (can't remember the real name right now). She was very excited about that one.

But I don't think she was as excited about her awesome pumpkin waffle breakfast...:) She just didn't want to smile for or look at the camera.

But Sam was more than happy to oblige....

We went to the zoo for her birthday and had a great time. 4 adults to 3 kids was definitely the best odds I could imagine for a zoo visit:)

And LucyMae got to try out her new bike (I scored that for $7!)

And she loved her new Belle dress-up (which was a freebie from a ward swap!) and her special request - strawberry birthday cake:)

BUT this was the big item for her birthday. Sam and I (but mostly Sam) took an old night-stand that his brother built in high-school and we turned into a play kitchen for the kids. We were planning on turning one of those top compartments into a microwave...we'll see if it still happens...And I scored a bunch of toy kitchen food and toys off Craigslist. This was the big hit with all the kids.

Memorial Day was fun! We had Papa and Jan here, and Sam had the day off work. We drove up to Doylestown for a pancake breakfast and parade. It was super fun and warm and great.