A little trip to California...

We started of summer with a trip to California!  Merril went down for work and we tagged along.  We spent the first day at Knott's Berry Farm.  I've never been and I thought it was clean and fun.  I went on the carousel the whole day and that was it.  Being pregnant and amusement parks don't exactly go together.

This was the big ride that Merril took the kids on.  Jack and Julie were SUPER excited!

Mikayla was less excited and fell asleep instead.

Mikayla was pretty good all day and rode in her stroller nicely.

The other kids were good and we hardly had a meltdown all day.

We got there are 11 a.m. and stayed until the park closed.

The next day we went to the beach.  It was the warmest beach weather for months but I'm always amazed at how cool it is there.  At least I brought a jacket.

 Merril taught Maxine to surf a little.  She never stood up but practiced a lot.

It was a fun little vacation for us and I'm glad we went before I got too pregnant.  :)

The tile has begun!

Yeah, after days of grinding, Francisco started laying the tile!  Eeee!  I'm so excited for the work to roll along!  I feel  like it's taken years to get to this point of finally working on the basement again!

End of school madness...

Wow!  School is almost over and the kids have had a bunch of assemblies and things to attend.  Maxine won an award for the CRT test in Science, scoring 98%.  She rocked Math and Language Arts and got 100% on both CRT tests in those categories.  Why she didn't get medals for those, I'll never know.  I've tried to have teachers explain how the awards are figured and I can never seem to get a straight answer.  She did great and we're proud of her.

Jack competed in his class spelling bee and did so well that he advanced to the whole 1st grade spelling bee, along with 15 other kids.  He went round after round, 12 or 13 I think, but edged out everyone in the end.  He bagged 1st place and was given a trophy, 3 kid meal certificates, crayons, markers, and colored pencils and a cool garbage can.  Wow, he did a great job!

Juliet had fun during her Kindergarten graduation program.  They sang some cute songs and she smiled her cute smile.

She received her diploma and I think she'll do better in first grade.  She's often said that she's bored in Kindergarten but her reading has improved a lot this year.

I can't believe that school is about out!  We are looking forward to some summer fun!

A new baby=work on the basement...

Since Mikayla currently sleeps in my walk-in closet, we figured we better finish some rooms in the basement to shift around the kids before the new baby comes.  One room is finished downstairs and it serves as the office.  So Merril and I decided that another bedroom, bathroom, and family room should be finished.  We're also going to get the air conditioning going as well.  Then the office will move upstairs, making 2 bedrooms in the basement and Maxine and Jack will move downstairs.  Juliet will stay in her room and Mikayla will move in with her. 

Tile is the first step and that requires scrubbing and mopping!  The concrete still has a lot of overspray from the drywall.  Juliet and Mikayla have been "helping" as much as they could.  Mikayla mostly just played in the bucket water.  Now my job is finished and I can hear grinding on the floor because it's not totally level.  Tile should be going down next week!  Eeeee!

Mommy & Me Tea Party...

There was a Mommy and Me Tea Party for Juliet's class. I was informed that Mikayla was not allowed to attend.  I don't think that was a hard and fast rule but I could tell that Juliet really wanted it to just include the two of us.  On my arrival I was given a corsage that Juliet made and told to sit.  Juliet served us cookies and the teacher brought around juice.  It seems like Juliet and I run errands or watch tv when it's just the two of us so it was fun to do something special together.  She was seriously beaming when I walked in the door with a handful of other mothers.  We had a good time.  :)

Baby #5....yep....

I'm tired and haven't been able to hardly get anything done because we are going to have another baby.  Baby #5.  O-Mi-Good-Ness!!!!! I'm pregnant again and due November 2nd, 2013.  This was a shock, a HUGE shock!  We were done having kids and ready for permanent procedures but one sneaked in there.  I'm 14 weeks.  Merril has been amazing and my rock, I've been a crying mess.  I had some other plans for the year, being pregnant was not one of them.  Mikayla and baby #5, which we're hoping is a boy, will be about 20 months apart.  Heavenly Father has always looked out for me so I'm just going to trust that everything will be okay.  But man, it's 5 and that's a lot for me to wrap my head around.

But the upcoming baby has jump started some basement work.  We're currently prepping for tile and have looked at some carpet swatches.  My hope is to finish another bedroom (making 2 downstairs), a bathroom, HV/AC and the large family room before summer is over so we can rearrange the kids' bedroom situations.  It's going to be a lot of work but I'm still excited.

Oh and one last thing: I was pregnant when I bungee jumped in Boise.  Woops.  I was unaware at the time.  We found out the week after we came home.  But what's done is done and it hasn't seemed to make the baby want to jump ship so I guess it's a keeper.

Mikayla Moo...

Mikayla is standing in the middle of the room by herself and has taken a few steps.  She stills crawls a lot but I'm sure in a few more weeks, she'll be running around everywhere!

And she loves the sand at the beach.  LoVeS iT!!!