Hi...

The champion knight got to pick one person out of the audience to be the "Queen of Love and Beauty". And...he picked Tessa. My friend Ariel, who has a small obsession with Medieval Times or, more specifically, the knights in Medieval Times said, "Of course he picked her, that girl is magical." There was a bit of jealousy there. :)  

Occasionally Max will notice the yarn in the linen cupboard and soon the living room will become filled with ziplines large and small. Playmobil pirates and knights make the perfect heroes in this game.

Around the middle of June Maddi came to visit for a week. The kids, and Mitzie, were in heaven having her here. There was snuggling, and baseball games, and running (but only a few times so as to not overtax ourselves), and making messes (not Maddi, just the kids), and swimming at a city pool and getting bored really fast and being grateful that thunder ended our time early, and Dallas World Aquarium, and Hurricane Harbor (and lots of anticipation for our Hurricane Harbor day), and talking about eating healthy but not eating healthy at all, and shopping (while placating the kids with the little quarter rides), and just being happy that my sister was here for an entire week! And here are some of the pictures taken, put in no particular order. 

I saw this delightful scene outside and knew I had to get a picture of it. Should I use my phone camera or my Rebel? I chose the phone. Poor choice, Cass, poor choice. But my kids' choices for rain gear--well, that was right on. 

Last year around this time I started to have a few too many emotional breakdowns. I finally figured out that most of my freak-outs were due to the fact that Max would be starting kindergarten. Max was perfectly fine, but I certainly was not. Of course all my worry proved unnecessary and Max had a great experience (but we sure missed him at home). He loved his teacher, Mr. Jenks, made lots of great friends, and sailed through academically. A friend of Max was talking to his mom and said, "Max is such a good kid. He ALWAYS does the right thing." Seriously, could there be a better compliment?

Here are a few of the End-of-Year events:

MOHAWK K-3 TALENT SHOW

Initially Max said he didn't want to play his cello in his school's talent show. As it came closer Max heard that a bunch of kids in his class were performing and he began to think that maybe he should. He talked to Mr. Jenks about it and Mr. Jenks told him that he would love to hear him play at the talent show. So Max got a permission slip for me to sign from Mr. Jenks, walked to his desk, then decided against it and brought the permission slip back to Mr. Jenks. Poor kid, deep down he wanted to play but was just too nervous to commit. With a little encouragement from me, Tyler, and Mr. Jenks he decided to play. He was pretty calm about it, but did get a little shy and tried to hide his face in his cello which caused a few wrong notes as his face pushed against the strings. I also forgot his endpin stop and ended up awkwardly holding it for him. But Max was great, and word spread through the school about the kindergartner who was amazing at the cello. The best part of the whole thing was when his friend stood up with his fists raised in the air to cheer after Max was done. It was EXACTLY what Tyler told Max would happen.  

KINDERGARTEN PICNIC

Had I been thinking I would have taken of picture of Max with Mr. Jenks or at least some of his little buddies. I was in a rush to get Max to his cello lessons though. (Wow, I could not be more lame if I tried!)  Luckily, Mr. Jenks sent a picture home with him and Max. I'm just too lazy to scan it at the moment. 

Thanks to babysitting by Deb and financial compensation by the National Guard, Tyler and I were able  to go on a quick vacation to San Diego for the annual AAPD meeting where Tyler learned many useful tools to better his pediatric career did not go to one meeting. 

Our trip started out on a good note as Ella threw up gallons as we were driving to the airport. I was feeling more than a little guilty as Tyler and I hopped out of the car and we left Deb to navigate her way home to take care of a sick little toddler and clean up puke that covered the carseat and car. I knew Ella was in great hands with Deb, but I felt awful leaving Ella when she was sick. 

Flying without kids was so incredibly easy. I realized that it was the first time I had flown without a child since Max was born. I almost didn't know what to do with myself when I only had to take off my shoes at airport security!

And now I feel like I need to wrap things up so I'll condense the rest of what I want to remember to bullet points:

Oh how I love SMID. My heart broke a little thinking that this was the second to last SMID Final Concert. Max and Tessa were little champions. No problems getting up on stage for them. 

I only wanted breakfast in bed and a nice picture of my children on Mother's Day. And although Tyler was in Austin for National Guard Duty, my kids didn't let me down.

I'm here to inform everyone that my children are absolutely the worst egg hunters...ever. This year Max had to be in the big kid group so that made it even worse. Of course, as long as my kids aren't in tears over their lack of Easter Eggs (they weren't) I am perfectly fine with going home with less eggs and candy than I arrived with. 

A few weeks ago tornados went on a rampage through the DFW area. Ella randomly turned on the TV and I heard the weather man saying something about how the worse case scenario of tornados headed directly downtown was very likely going to occur. Scary since Tyler was...directly downtown. That didn't happen and we were safe and sound, but many other areas weren't unfortunately. Max did experience a real-life tornado drill where he had to kneel next to his locker with his arms covering his head. He told me he had to stay like that for a SUPER long time and it really started to hurt his knees. But with the crazy weather that day someone on the Pedo faculty decided they didn't want to use their tickets to the Stars game and gave them to Tyler. Max had a blast, chose peanuts over cotton candy, and ended up with a bobble head of one of the players. So what started as a kind of scary day ended up as a pretty great one.