May 11 - May 17

Sunday, May 11: I had a really nice Mother’s Day this year, with cute written letters from Tyler and Jamie, and a new Willow Tree figure from McKay.

My favorite part is "If I could give my mom anything, I'd give her crayons."

The Willow Tree is super excited; it reflects one semester of nursing school down :) (Side note, this one is musical; it sings Ode to Joy :) )

 Sacrament was awesome. Melissa Fowler spoke and she listed all these amazing yet unorthodox women from the Old Testament as examples of womanhood, like Deborah, Shiphrah and Puah, and Jael. At the end, she gave Heavenly Mother a shout out, and you guys, it was amazing. I taught the YW lesson later that day, and I felt brave enough to do my own Heavenly Mother shout out too. I would feel a little weird putting it out on here, but it was a pretty cool discussion of symbolism. As part of my lesson, I also had put together picture frames for the girls to celebrate the women in their lives. Each frame had three openings, one for the girl, one for the mother, and one for the grandmother. I had a really fun few weeks working with the girls’ moms to collect pictures and hear some really fun family stories! I even made one for myself:

McKay made a killer Tres Leches cake to take up to Plano where we had dinner at Kevin and Cindy’s.

Some roses for Cindy we got at Kroger that ended up blooming much more beautifully than we had hoped!
 

Monday, May 12: We sadly said goodbye to McKay's rental car and dropped back down to one car, lighting a fire in us to actually start looking for a new car :)

Goodbye, XM radio!

Jamie and Tyler helped me paint Jamie’s toy chest, which was pretty darn exciting! I made some yummy fish tacos and mango salsa for dinner.

Tuesday, May 13: McKay and I dropped Jamie off at with Cindy for a fun Grandma day while we searched high and low for a new car. At least, we thought we’d be searching high and low. The third place we stopped was in West Plano to meet a lady who was selling her Hyundai Elantra, and we fell in love with this car. McKay took it to a mechanic to get it thoroughly inspected, and everything looked great! This car has been really well maintained. The lady pulled out a packet with records of every service she’s ever had done on it, including every oil change. We were in serious awe of her record keeping. While McKay was getting the car inspected, I made dinner at Kevin and Cindy’s. I let Tyler pick out what we would make because he had gotten another green at school, so of course it was Sweet Potato Gnocchi. He downed about three bowls of it, and Grandma and Grandpa got to see what all the gnocchi fuss was about (Tyler talks it up quite a bit).

Wednesday, May 14: Jamie and I spent the morning clearing out our front planters, and then trooped over to Grand Prairie to pick up our insurance check from Progressive. There was a big hullaballoo over whether they could let me sign over the title because the title read “Katherine OR Kevin Hinckley”. The Progressive peeps finally decided it was okay (90 minutes later!) and then with some help from Cindy, we picked up the new car in Plano. I’ve always bought cars from dealers, never from individual owners, so I was a little nervous and called everyone for advice. Everything went as smoothly as it could, and I am so glad to have a second car again. Also, the sunroof is amazing. 

Thursday, May 15: I invited a bunch of friends over for a playgroup at our house, and it was a ton of fun. Jamie had fun too, and didn’t barricade herself in my room with her favorite toys until the very end ;) After our friend left, we picked up a bunch of SunPatiens at Lowe’s and planted them in our cleared out planters. This is the year our flowers survive!

Friday, May 16: Jamie had an evaluation for a Pre-K class at a private school near Tyler’s charter school. While the parents waited in the lobby (this is sort of a fancy school), the little Pre-K’s-to-be played games, sang songs, and did puzzles together with a teacher. From what I understand, this is to see if they are school-ready, not to test their current knowledge of letters, colors, shapes, etc. I feel like it went pretty well! She made a lot of new friends in her evaluation group, and I am hopeful that they will be her classmates in the fall!

Saturday, May 17: Tyler and Jamie worked super hard all morning to get their rooms clean, and I treated them with an afternoon at LegoLand. The new Star Wars room was open, and it was pretty awesome.

Tyler is doing his best impression of the Lego guy on the sign behind him :) 

Lego Factory Tour

Singing Let It Go in her best Bob Dylan voice. This is how my sweet little daughter sings, guys. "Let it gAH-ohhh! Let it gAH-ohhh!"

Jamie isn't tall enough to play in the jungle gym with the older kids yet, so while Tyler dashes in there to play for a bit without us, Jamie and I go grab something yummy from the snack bar. Sometimes being the little sister is okay :) 

I really have no idea what these Lego creations are supposed to be; my Star Wars knowledge basically maxes out at the droids. But it looked really, really cool, and this one had a spacecraft that flew out when you steered it out with the control panel.

4D movie!

After we got back home, we made birdseed ornaments to hang in the backyard. No birds have bitten yet, but Bronx has eaten everything that lands on the ground. Silly dog :)

 Funnies (there are quite a few this week because my family is hilarious):

1. Tyler and Jamie have been pointing out the last of the bluebonnets. As we drive along, they shout out “Blue-bommits!”
2. Jamie loves, loves, loves to sing in the car, especially to this children’s music CD. To our infinite amusement, we have discovered that she sings like Bob Dylan.
3. Jamie: “Ariel is a “Worm-maid.”
4. I have been making the kids listen to Elvis, and I am thrilled to report that they are catching on. Their most requested tracks are “Hunka hunka” and “look like an angel”. (Burning Love and Devil in Disguise. Go listen. You won’t regret it.)
5. A recent text conversation with McKay: Jamie is like a Chihuahua on caffeine. And bath salts.
6. Jamie stole McKay’s sunglasses one day in the car, and very coolly beckoned to us, saying “Come on kids” in a perfect, detached, cool-Mom voice. It was hilarious.
   
7. Tyler keeps telling people that our new car is so shiny that it looks like a car in a car commercial at night. Ms. Hobson and Ms. Fritz died laughing when he told them this in the carline.
8. Tyler and Jamie found my giant stash of Costco paper towels in the pantry, and amused themselves accordingly:
   
   
   
   
9. Jamie and Tyler like to sing the Willaby Wallaby song while we’re in the car. Instead of saying the rhyming word, Jamie likes to add quiet little comments while gazing out the window, and it drives Tyler up the wall:

Mom: “Willaby Wallaby Wyler, an elephant sat on…"
Tyler: “Tyler!”
Jamie: “…my bruddah...”

Mom: “Willaby, wallaby wane, an elephant sat on….?”
Tyler: “A plane!”
Jamie: “…that flies…”

Mom: “Willaby, wallaby wuzz, an elephant sat on….?”
Tyler: “Fuzz!”
Jamie: “…ohhh he’s a grumpy kitty...”