Last Day of School

On Calvin's last day of school, he had a music program and got to sing many of the songs they have been singing throughout the year!  It was super cute and he did a great job!  (He is on the bottom row, 2nd from the right)

And here is our boy!  All done with preschool and ready for kindergarten!!!

 

Mina had a music program as well.  Here she is with her class, bottom right corner.

She also had some fun field trips at the end of the year, including going to the zoo, and walking to Dairy Queen for some ice cream!  Calvin, Mayzie, and I crashed the DQ one!

And here she is on her last day of kindergarten, all ready for 1st grade!!!

I was so pleased and impressed with how well Mina and Calvin both handled having to move during the school year.  Each transitioned so well and fit right into their new school and classrooms, and had a really great year.  I am very proud of them!

We love our backyard!

 

When we moved here in November, it wasn't too long before our yard was covered in snow.  We really never got a chance to play in it either.  So this Spring has been fun of surprises - in our backyard!  We had tons of bulbs and perennials begin popping through snow in the beginning of April, and now you can see from the pictures, the amazing flowers and plants that were planted here that we get to enjoy!

More flowers!

Our yard, with plants and flowers all around!

Sweet Mina!

I love Calvin's funny flower smelling face!

All the kids have enjoyed the flowers too and have LOVED our new backyard!  We have lots of kids around the neighborhood too!  Right next door AND behind us are kids that are in Mina's class, and 2 houses down is a family from church with a boy Calvin's age, and another a year older than Mina.  The kids have all enjoyed playing with each other and hopping over the fences to play in other yards. It's going to be a fun summer!

It's like riding a BIKE!

 Our neighbor is in Mina's kindergarten class and he comes over and rides his bike - his 2-wheel bike - by our house and sidewalk.  This was just the motivation Mina needed to get the training wheels off her bike and learn how to ride a 2-wheeler!  Calvin was on board with this idea too.  Almost everyday after work, Joe goes out with the kids and helps them learn.  Mina seems to be getting pretty close, going most of the way down the sidewalk with minimal support.  Now, it's time to get some knee and elbow pads!

 Mayzie, never being one to miss out on the action, had to make some tries too : )

What happens when you stay in the tub too long...

 Mina was having a great time in the tub, so we just let her stay in for... a while.  Needless to say, when she got out, she was a wrinkly prune woman!  We had fun taking some pics of her wrinkles!

Happy Mother's Day!

At Church, the kiddies were taught this song that they would sing in sacrament meeting for Mother's Day.  We wanted to be sure they knew it so they would do a good job singing it on Sunday, so we practiced with them and sung it a lot throughout the week.  Joe took this video of Calvin and Mina, so we could always remember their sweet singing!  I love it!  Happy Mother's Day to our Mothers, Grandmothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends!

Easter in Wyoming

 For Easter this year, we went to visit some good friends in Wyoming!  My roommate from college and birthday twin, Paula, husband Zac, and their 3 kiddos!  It seemed much closer than going home, and we've always wanted to visit them there.  And now, from North Dakota, Wyoming is 3 states closer!  They have a "ranch" there and we were immediately greeting by cows, chickens, and baby chicks! 

 Here are the baby chicks, who were visited frequently by our kids throughout our stay.  Mina LOVED them!  Their kids are really close in age to ours, and they got along great!

 The next day we went to an Easter egg hunt in their town.

 Super fun, and between the 6 kids, we won a bike and a basketball hoop!  We got to take home the hoop!

 Joe liked the chicks too, he's always had a thing for chicks, and it looks like Calvin will too!

 There are mountains all around their house, so we went for a drive into some mountains to do a little hike.

 There was a river that the kids got to throw rocks into, so fun!

And thankfully, the Easter bunny found us in Wyoming!  All the kids got to find their baskets and eggs together.

 I made the girls' dresses, not especially for Easter, but it worked out that way.

 Mina wanted a picture with her buddies, the cows.  She fed them lots of hay!

 Here is their homestead.

 This is Heart Mountain, it's their special mountain for the area.

 One last attempt to get all the kids together in a picture!  Not too bad, huh? 

We had a super fun time and the kids haven't stopped talking about it!  Thanks for having us Paula and Zac!