Paradise...

We're in PARADISE...

...and we may never..

 

...COME HOME!!!

Hawaii!!

Does anyone have better parents than I have???

I don't think so... because thanks to them we did things like this today...

These three took surfing lessons with my Daddy's friend Todd...

And we all chillaxed and played in the warm Hawaiin water.

 Or snuggled with cute little babies like her!

And ate extra yummy food...

And are staying in this little place...

With views like this...

And are thoroughly enjoying ourselves!!!

We can never thank them enough!!

May catchup...

It's time to play catch up for May...

Tayler and Saige had their last dance competitions this month!! They both did great, and each had 2 perfoming numbers...

Here's one of Tay's...

And one of Saige's...

Kenna's Soccer Season came to an end...

Yep that's our girl about 2 seconds away from scoring a goal!! She rocks!!

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Lydia had her first cereal...

We think she liked it!

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Jadyn learned to drive a car... not very smoothly I might add... This picture was taken immediately before she rammed both her and Josh into a pole.

The best part about this picture is that this was Josh's car (Josh is our awesome neighbor). His parents Lisa and Joe pulled this car out to be used by Jadyn... who sometimes wishes that she could switch families so she could play with them all day! But now that I think about it, they have a somewhat unfair advantage... because they have a car for her... and we don't! I think that's bribery!! :)

(totally random thought here... but is anyone missing a sweater exactly like the one in the above picture in a size 10??? Somehow one ended up at our house. I probably picked it up somewhere thinking it was Jady's... and now I have a friend out there who doesn't want to be my friend anymore because they think I am a klepto! Is it you??)

And I'll add here since Josh is practically family anyway... he received his mission call to Mozambique Africa this month!!

Congrats Josh!! You'll do awesome! And our family will miss you like crazy!

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I took the ADVANCED photography class this month. I think I have improved some, but would still not call myself "an ADVANCED" photographer. :)

These were from a homework assignment...

We went to Tayler's Choir Concert... and just realized I deleted all picture from said event off my camera... GRRRRR

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Also went to Tayler's "Breakfast of Champions" for Honor Roll Students. That was at 6:30 in the morning... I didn't even think about taking my camera to that early event!

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We celebrated Mother's Day... I had all intentions of writing about how wonderful my mother is... and then didn't do it... but believe me she is pretty Great!

I Love you Mom!

And I'm a lucky Mom to have these beautiful, healthy, fun girls!

I found out in one of my cute "fill in the blank" things from Jadyn that, My favorite place to take Jadyn is to "Texas Roadhouse." That her Daddy and I met @ "Texas Roadhouse." And what I say to her is... "Let's go to Texas Roadhouse."

Can you see a theme here??? Jadyn likes Texas Roadhouse... pretty much asks if we can go there every night! Although we don't even order her anything... she just eats the rolls and peanuts... and she can put them down! She isn't afraid AT ALL to hand the basket to the waitress and tell her we need more rolls.

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We got excited that the sun actually came out for a few days in May!!

Jadyn got a few stories in with her Daddy.

Kenna had her first grade program.

And we made a rockin' bus for her school's 1st grade "Drive-in-movie".

Lydia spent some time playing in her exersaucer...

And she grew a month older... which makes me wish that the month of May hadn't gone by quite so fast!!

Jadyn's Dance Review...

Last weekend Jadyn had her very first dance review.

She was a cutie...  a total cutie!!

Pretty much we were all excited that she actually did it...  there were moments throughout the year that we weren't sure our "sometimes" shy little thing would even get up on the stage...  Let alone dance...

But she rocked it!!

Amazing that this is our 10th preschool review...

I remember the 1st year with Tayler...  Shane leaned over to me and jokingly whispered... "So how much did this cost us."  Apparently he wasn't highly impressed with her talent at that age.  I told him something about it not being about the money because she was just so dang cute...

Now with 4 girls in dance... he doesn't... even... ask... how much it cost us.  Because it's not really very humorous anymore!

And we are all better off having him not know... :)

Good Job Jady - we think you did great... and of course were the cutest one up there!

one green crayon...

Nothing makes for a better day... than finding a melted green crayon in the dryer... after it's worked it's magic in a white load...  an extra large white load!! 

GRRRRRRRR!!

Washington DC...

Last week Shane and I were "TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE" and jetted off for a few days to Washington DC... with our little Lydia...  The other 4 girls were left behind to be utterly spoiled. loved and well-cared for by our great neighbors... Lisa, Joe and Josh.  The girls had no reason to miss us at all...  a major party for all of them!  They now consider them their "other parents" and Josh is now their "big brother".  (We laughed when we found their "family pictures" around the house in random spots!!)

But this really all came about when my brother Jeff (who is going to dental school in Pittsuburgh) called and in a semi-joking way asked us if we wanted to join them in DC...  Jeff had a 3-bedroom "Presidential Suite Room" at the Wyndham in National Harbor that he had rented with timeshare points and they had PLENTY of room for us...  I said it sounded fun... but we were going to Oregon... had a trip to Hawaii scheduled for the end of May and thought it might be a stretch.  I casually mentioned it to Shane after I had checked to see that we would be able to use Sky Miles for the tickets... and he said it sounded fun...  SOOOOO I booked the flight!!  Then since their was a 3rd room Jeff invited our parents to join us as well!  And we had a FANTASTIC time!!

After a delayed flight in Salt Lake, and an hour wait on the tarmac we were off to Chicago... for a connection that was long gone when we arrived at 11 PM... we waited in line with the rest of our plane to get a new flight and receive our "discounted hotel pricing".  We ended up at a pretty "swanky" hotel for our $59 fee...  our check-in guy was really nice and thought that we might be "more comfortable" in an executive suite with the baby...  um.... hello "more comfortable" it was POSH!!  I can't even find that particular room on their website to check the rate but the back of the door said, "Rate not to exceed $3,000 per night"...??????  Too bad we were only there for 4 hours!!!  We caught our 6 am flight, rented a car and went to pick up my parents at their hotel.  Then we were off to see the sites!!

There sure was a lot to see!!

Shane had never been to DC and I have only been once... way back in 7th grade... so it was fun to see it all again... but this time for me I looked at it with more "appreciative eyes" recognizing the sacrifices that were made to make this country what it is today.  At the Korean War Memorial there was a profound quote inscribed in the wall that read...
"FREEDOM ISN'T FREE"
... how true that is.. 

Later that day we met up with Jeff and Kimi and their new baby Trey!!  We were so excited to see all of them and to meet our new nephew... but we were also pretty excited to have Lydia and Trey meet for the first time...

They are buddies forever now!!!  We couldn't believe that Lydia who was almost 4 months was out weighed AND out lengthed by her little 6 week old cousin!!

(She is a little more curled up in this picture than him... but he is definitely bigger!)

We had tons of fun together...  It was fun to see Jeff and Kimi as parents...  Since they live about 4 hrs from DC they had both seen most of the "sites" recently....  So they spent more time relaxing in the room...  while the rest of us walked our tails off!!  Truly I was totally pumped to be out walking and "hopefully" burning off some of that 20 pound leftover from baby #5 :)  (I had even got me some new "Fit-Flops" that are supposed to, "tone your legs and rear".)  I loved feeling the burn at the end of the day... thinking I would surely see results when I got home...  (Imagine my surprise when I GAINED weight!  It must have been muscle... right????)
My poor parents are still recovering from all of our walking though...  Sorry guys!!

We took it all in... the American History Smithsonian, Natural History Smithsonian, the Lincoln Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, Arlington Cemetary and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, The Korean War Memorial, WW1 & II Memorials, the Holocaust Museum, the Washington Monument, the Capital, the National Archives and the American Indian Museum.

I think the most impressive to me was the Holocaust Museum...  not something you can say you "liked", but something everyone should see (although not at my girls ages!!)  Very powerful experience... the most "powerful" part for me was walking into a completely bare room... except for piles and piles of shoes... in all different sizes...  that were actually worn by just a small portion of those killed...  that made it "real" to me!  Shane was impressed by lots of things, but said he, "thought the metro system was pretty high on his list of cool things."  ???  That really didn't top my favorites...  we definetly looked like tourists trying to navigate that whole system.  We didn't have any problems with the trains...  just paying to get on them.  We were always short on our passes and somehow those machines knew we were new at the whole thing and seemed to take advantage of us, but...  it is an amazing system!!

We were lucky to get a tour of the Capital Building from one of Jeff's friends who is interning for Sen. Bennett. 

 this was as close to a "whole group" shot as we got!  We kept "planning" on getting one, but one baby was always asleep when we were all-together!!  I'm guessing that Lydia's memories of DC will be rather vague since she took a 5 hr nap each day in her stroller!! 

Poppa was jealous!  He wished we had a stroller for him too!

The time went by far too fast...  We had fun playing games together each night and had lots of good laughs and great times!!

Thanks Jeff and Kimi for inviting us to join you!!  Can't wait to see you in June!

And thanks Joe and Lisa for taking such good care of our girls!!  We have the best friends in the whole world and we will forever count you as part of our family!!