Madelyn & Luke

Remember when I took pictures of this cutie Grayson a month ago? Luke (who has never been able to resist a blanket spread out on the floor) laid down and I was able to get some cute shots of him, too.

Well of course he had to get his gangsta pose out of the way first.

 

Good land, Grayson only took up 1/2 of that blanket. I can't believe my baby is going to be FOUR in a few months.

Ah! ♥ I just love those two pictures!! What a handsome boy!

I told him to give me kissy lips.

A few days later, I had Madelyn pose for some, too. She's a little bit harder to photograph these days (it's harder to get a natural expression from her, I should say). Plus her eyes do weird things when she doesn't have her glasses on.

 

Little Miss will be 8 1/2 in a few weeks. I need my kids to stop growing this instant. 

I just love the bright orange and red in the photos. A couple of these will probably end up on the soon-to-be collage wall in my dining area, which I've been dreaming about for the past four years and is GOING TO HAPPEN this summer if it kills me. Now that I've told you about it, I'm accountable, so perhaps that will be the kick in the pants that I need.

Goings on

 Luke has a grand old time no matter what.

Well, it's spring cleaning time over here. I hate it (but then I love when it's done).

 We overhauled the entire garage a couple of Fridays ago. That's always fun.

That was before I was done switching out the winter/summer clothes and sorting through what the kids had outgrown. It was a mess. With that going on and the garage kerfuffle, I had bins all over my house for a week, and piles to donate to DI, a ton of junk to be thrown away, a pile of stuff for storage, the attic, and another pile to give away. I HATE PILES.

 And then Mark and Madelyn repainted her bed with some tough, glossy exterior paint because the original stuff wasn't holding up too well. We also sneakily repainted the white walls in her room while she was at school (she wants the white to be green and yellow instead......) because when I'd tried to touch up her walls last fall, the color I used didn't match and so she had these grayish splotches everywhere. It looks a lot better now. I went with Polar Bear by Behr in satin for the white walls, and the paint for the bed was Behr exterior gloss in Pure White, straight out of the can.

 Madelyn hadn't combed her hair that day, so her flyaways got covered in paint.....

 Which she then tried washing out herself....and then I had to spend 30 minutes scrubbing out. Good times!

 We haven't put the curtains back up yet, I'm not sure if we're going to or not. I sort of like the spare, modern look. Although if you went in there right now, you wouldn't even be able to walk across the floor from all the toys. (The 14 hours of housework we just did notwithstanding.) On my to-do list today is to go through the kids' toys and haul some out to the storage unit. Then I will feel done with my spring cleaning and can move on to the other 50 projects I have.

In other news, Mark and I finally upgraded our phones and both got an iPhone 4. We're with Verizon and it was free to get these phones (well, not including the $120 upgrade fee...). I hadn't even had a chance to look at mine before *YOINK* Madelyn took over and started fiddling with it. Mark had an iPhone back in ABQ and I guess she remembers how fun it was.

 

 Mark has put a few games and apps on his, but I haven't put any on mine because I'd prefer not to have the kids playing on it all day.

Mark has his own little game he plays with his buddies, of course. He has to be constantly entertained.

 

 Madelyn finally finished school and spent the last week doing fun stuff like Field Day and the 2nd grade camp out (on the lawn during the last hour and a half at school). Mark brought one of our tents and set it up for her and then her friends got to hang out and eat snacks and play games. At least that's how it should have gone, but from what I've heard they also spent a large amount of time screaming at the boys who were trying to join them...

 I had her sit for this picture right before she went to the bus for her last day of school on Friday.

Then I went and compared it with the one I took on the first day of school and started bawling. I can't believe how much she changed during second grade!! It was a very challenging year with health issues and struggles with math. I was relieved when she got the official letter saying she passed and would be moving on to third grade next year.

She did extremely well in all her subjects (besides math) and got a special award for reading achievement. Her teacher sent an email to me with Madelyn's reading scores:

DIBELS – Oral Reading Fluency

Beginning of the Year – 63 Words Per Minute

End of the Year – 130 Words Per Minute

RLA – Reading Level Assessment

August – 2.2 (End of 2^nd grade)

May –  4D (End of 4^th grade)

I'm so proud of her!

 

 So far, we haven't had any structured summer activities for her, which is totally fine by me.

 (Who doesn't love a good pair of heels?)

 But starting next week, she'll be taking ballet lessons again every Tuesday! She's been begging me to put her back in lessons, and so she'll be doing that through August and then will start up gymnastics again in September. She is so excited that my old toe shoes (those were my first pair I got when I was 11) almost fit her now.

Well, I'm off to go see what toys I can clear out of here while Luke is napping. Wish me luck....

Gary's blessing

 

 Emery

This past Sunday, we went to Hurricane to attend the blessing of my nephew Gary Reed Murset. After the church service, we went to Kevin and Lori's place for some homemade chips, salsa, dip and cookies.Yum! :)

Maria, baby Nora and Kevin. I still think it's weird that my siblings are parents now, and responsible adults after all. Haha

Shay, Emery, Mark, Rich, Tyler, Kevin

 

 Luke and Jack

Hattie (Gary's big sister), age 5

Kevin showed pictures from his recent trip to Germany and gave us some German chocolate (I need more, Kev).

When Gary woke up from his nap, I scooted him off to take some pictures. We really should have taken some family pictures as well, but that didn't happen. But we're already getting together again this Sunday for Nora's blessing, so we'll probably take some then. 

Gary was one day shy of being 3 months old. He is so cute and looks so different from when we saw him as a newborn!

(Brace for a lot of pictures)

Big brother Jack, 20 months

 

 He's such a cute, happy kid!

Oh yeah, interesting tidbit: Sheri Dew was at his blessing! Not sure why she was there, but afterwards we looked around and there she was talking to a bunch of people. Kind of fun to have a {church} celebrity there.

 After that, we went to Mark's parent's house and there ended up being a lot of family there. His brother Paul, wife Nikki and son Cove, our niece Amber, niece and nephew Sheila and Scott, their boy and Mark's aunt and uncle Naomi and Hal.

Sheila and Scott's foster son "G" was there and he and Luke had fun running around together. Amber's roommate Carissa brought her hamster and the kids were enthralled.

 It was a busy, fun day and we're glad we got to see so much of our family!