Emma getting music-y...

This post is mostly for grandparents who had to miss one thing or another...or whoever might like to hear the songs that Emma sang with the youth choir a few weeks ago...

And the other one (Nearer My God to Thee) isn't downloading for some reason, but I put it on the youth fb page here.

Then, it was time for the orchestra concert. I am so glad Emma learned to play the violin. She is awesome, and I am jealous. You know who else is pretty cool? Her conductor, because he taught them a nice healthy balance of classical and classic rock. The clip below is super long, but if you put it right to 7:08, you can check out my favorite song of the evening.

The zoo

We took our little friend-preschoolers to the zoo last week. Perfect weather, plenty of animals out and about. Good day.

Look. A lion. Just like her t-shirt.

I haven't been to the zoo in some time. I'd never seen the brush-the-goat area before. The goats were sleepy, but Afton was sure to brush every single one. She did it with a very business-like, duty-filled air. Like, "Brush the goats. Okay, got it. If that's what I'm supposed to do, that's what I'll do."

I love Sundays like this...

The boys had borrowed a things-to-do book from their cousins, and an afternoon was spent with stamp pads, needle and thread, markers and making. That's my favorite.

And so went April...instagram version

If you know me on instagram this is all old news. If not, here we go...

We have a stray cat that comes by every week or so. It's great. The kids get all excited when we see him, we feed him some ham, pet him plenty, invite him to take a nap in our garage, then off he goes to see his next family. The kids named him Sally Gracie Feathertail. Then changed it to Moe. I like calling him Sally best.

Scott's brother Eldon generously gave Emma a guitar he never used anymore. She's been practicing everyday--building up nice calluses and learning lots of songs she likes. On a day home sick from school, she went through a whole set of lessons on the ipad. (go ahead and ignore the nasty couch back there. it's the first one we ever bought as newlyweds. now it's the bonus room couch the kids have full permission to jump/climb/destroy...and they do)

Afton is really good at playing like this. She can spend all morning sometimes all by herself lining up little toys, making them visit each other, inventing their relationships, taking them throughout their days, evolving their stories as she goes. That's how I liked to play at her age. It's my favorite.

Lydia and Afton spent a couple of afternoons doing this. Back and forth in the side yard, over and over. I got a report that Afton rode on her own for about three feet. Not sure I buy that she was really "riding," but maybe some good coasting.

Our dogwood trees bloomed extra big blooms this year!

Emma sang with our stake young women choir at a Knoxville Interfaith Network concert at a Catholic church downtown. They sounded beautiful!

Here's a fun mystery. In one of our garden boxes this year we mixed in the compost we've been brewing since last summer. There was a little bit of yard waste in there, but mostly kitchen scraps. Almost immediately these little plants started popping up all over the place. We have no idea what they are but there are over twenty of them now. Brittany said they look like her zucchini plants. That will be funny if that's what they are. Scott was against planting zucchini because it takes up so much space. Ha!

This was fun

I really just wanted to take some pretty photos of the kids in a picturesque setting. I meant to do it last fall, but you know...never happened. Then the winter decided to stick around forever. Finally we got some welcome warm sunshine and found an evening without any prior obligations (!) so after dinner everyone got polished and combed and off we went. 

All winter I'd been wondering in my subconscious where would be the perfect beautiful setting. Then Julie posted about the commercial Claire shot and I was all, "Where is that?" We went just a little too early in the evening I think, a bit shy of golden hour, but I am satisfied. I have been so thoroughly enjoying learning how to use my camera this past year. I know I've got plenty still to figure out (and lenses to add!), but it's a nice hobby when I have time. 

So, listen, I'm going to go ahead and kind of go nuts with how many shots I'm putting up here, okay? Thank you in advance for your indulgence.

This here is one of my favorites. Look, I even made it the new blog header.

They took plenty of breaks to run around. Lots of cartwheels. Lots of laying in the grass.
Lots of complaining about itchy legs the next day.

In retrospect, Aftons' shirt is really too small for her.
And her pants kept sagging because they are a little too big.
D'oh.

If this were focused better I would really love it.

Love all the spontaneous wrestling that was going on. When we were done none of the kids wanted to go home.
Can I just say that the kids' relationships with one another might be the very best thing about being a parent?

This here is my other favorite. They were pretty much over posing by this point, but Scott made them laugh.
I love that.

Granddaughters

My mom had a very clever idea. She wanted to get some photos taken of her with all of her granddaughters before the oldest heads out to college this summer. (This was easy to arrange since all the girl cousins live in town. There will have to be air travel involved if my dad ever wants to do a big grandson shoot.)
So she called up Brianna (who took these for us last year), and she did a fantastic job. All the girls gathered at Grammy's house and got their smiles on. Check them out. I'm so glad Mom wanted to do this; I love the idea, it seems like a commemoration of sorts of all the fun activities they've done together over the years.

Color Me Wild

Emma's school hosted a 5k color run as a fundraiser for the PTA. Fun! She ran with her friend (and old cross country ally) Caris. Colorful powder covered her hair, invaded her ears, and stained her clothes...but that's the point I suppose. After the race they had lunch and a rock wall for the multi-hued runners.

Did I mention the Costco fieldtrip?

Afton goes to two preschools right now. "Real preschool" (the one that's you know, real) and "friend preschool" (the one we co-op with some cool friends).

Awhile back the friend preschool took a field trip to Costco. When I called to set it up, I told the lady my sister-in-law had lots of good things to say about a Costco field trip they did in Albuquerque. The lady took it as a challenge and made all kinds of promises about how much better ours would be. She must have gotten caught up in the moment, because a lot of the things she mentioned did not come to pass (like $10 memberships for our group), but I'm not here to complain. She did give the kids badges, took us behind the scenes in the bakery, handed out cookies, pushed the kids around on a flat bed cart, and scored us a pizza lunch at the end. We may have to see if Samsclub can step up to the plate next.

(all poorly-lit phone pics, sorry)