The rest of May (busy life?!?!)

We're back! Well, we really haven't "gone" anywhere, just been so busy and too tired to post! The crew has been sick a lot this month with the dreaded viral infections a.k.a. no medicine will cure, just "ride it out". This of course, along with coughs which lasted for 3-4 weeks?!?!

I sound like a broken record but life is crazy busy! I'm going to recap the rest of May so I can get caught up and move on to June. It seems we had something going on every weekend and have been enjoying our long evenings in the backyard. Our backyard has gone from minimalist to extreme in a few short weeks. We've added several new kid-friendly things such as: water table (HUGE hit!), kids table with umbrella, putt putt golf game and a house, among other things.

Here are a few pictures of our past few weeks. First, we celebrated my birthday with a wonderful cake made by Kyle and Ms. Cheryl. It was as good as it looked :-) It was a "big birthday" with a low key celebration.

Prior to Mother's Day, Kyle's preschool had a mother's day tea. Brooke and I went to school for the celebration and had a great time. Kyle made a plate for me with his hand print which I LOVE and use often! As you'll see from the picture, Brooke enjoyed herself so much that she was the last to give up her plate :-) Kyle loved showing Brooke his class and presenting me with my gifts. What a lucky mommy I am!

Kyle and Brooke also had a play date together at my parents. As you can see from the pictures, they had a great day! Kyle was so excited because he got to plant pumpkins, corn and several other things in Papa's garden. Grandma bought Kyle his own special shovel for the occasion. They also played in the sprinkler and were spoiled, as always, by grandma and papa. Note Brookie's bikini...do you think she'll kill me in about 15 years for posting this? That belly and those knees are just scrumptious :-)

We had a great Memorial Day weekend in Illinois. The drive was a LONG one, mostly due to all the crying/fussing. The drive is normally 5.5-6 hours and this trip was the same, however, all the "noise" made it feel like 12 hours! It's not that any one child is the culprit, it's just when you have four of them together, they must conspire ahead of time to determine who's going to cry when so it will be continuous. Elmo videos can only help for so long :-) We stayed with Ed's family and Kyle and the babies had a wonderful time playing with their cousin, Logan. We had an exciting weekend with lots of activities: Uncle Mark gave the kids a tour of the farm/tractors (another post to come soon!), we went to the pool and everyone had a blast (video to come soon!) and lots of fun with grandpa Logan, Uncle Sam, Aunt Kris/Uncle Mark, Aunt Jill and Logan. We can't wait to go back over July 4th!

As we did with Kyle, we're taking Harmony & Me music class with the triplets. My parents have been going with us (thank GOD!) and everyone is enjoying it. They sometimes get distracted and want to get up and run around but they seem to really enjoy it. Our friends, the Ziegler's, are in the class too so that makes it even more fun! We can't wait to start up again in the Fall when Kyle will start soccer.

We had another triplet play date (plus Kyle!) last month too. We went to the Dood's house this time and everyone had a blast! We stayed into the Dood dinner hour and they made us (well, not really!) stay for dinner. As you can see from the picture, we had an awesome group dinner! So much fun...great hosts!

Kyle also got a new bike this month! We're trying to get him to ride it. He's not a big fan of using the pedals. ..he hasn't wanted to use the pedals on his big wheel but thought the bike might inspire him. The triplets might be riding a bike before Kyle does! Here's another cute picture of the kids "stopping to smell the flowers". They don't really stop too much for anything!

And a few other fun things we've done this month!

One of my best girlfriends from elementary school was in town as her son plays lacrosse and had a tournament close by. Kyle, Jack and I went to see him play and had a lot of fun! Unfortunately, Joey's team lost but it was great to see Laura and her family. Another BFF, Kerri came with two of her four kids too. Lots o' fun. As you can see, Jack was a natural with the stick!

A triplet mom started a monthly "Momma's Night Out" group. Here's a pic of the group (all live relatively close!) and collectively, have 43 kids between us! It's a great group of mom's...I enjoy our nights out as we have so much to talk about!

Ok, I think I'm caught up on what I can remember from the month! I'm overdue for an update on the kids and will do so soon!