Good Books

As a family we finished Stuart Little. It is a great book filled with imagination and humor. We all loved it and enjoyed the special treat that it was a rather short book (sometimes we need a quick one). After finishing that book, I absolutely fell in love with E.B. White and we are now in the middle of Charlotte's Web. I don't know how, but the author completely captures what an animal is probably thinking and saying. We will move on to The Trumpet of the Swan next. I love the relaxed style to Whites writing and the ease and comfort my kids and I feel while we listen to the words he has written. I find myself smiling all the time we read.- Definitely recommend this book to families.

I just finished reading These is My Words, by Nancy E. Turner. We read it for book group for the month of May. I enjoyed the book and loved visualizing life as a pioneer woman in the Arizona territories. It was well written and an easy read, I think I read it in three days.

My personal highlight of books for the month has to be The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale. I absolutely looooooove this book. I will buy it and have my girls read it, it's so good and inspiring and uplifting. I love books that transport me to another time and place and make me think about the characters as though they are my own friends. The Goose Girl is now on my favorites list. It is very thought provoking and reminded me to be grateful for my trials, and to remember who I truly am. It is the first book in the Bayern series, and I would love to read the rest of the series. This morning I started another book by the same author, called Princess Academy. It is more of a juvenile book, but I feel like I need books like that sometimes. So far it is a delightful book.

Birthday Girl!

My Jayda is now 6!

In celebration of the blessed event, we made a balloon banner to hang across the front porch. I've decided it will be a new tradition, it's super easy, cheap, and so cute and fun! For the instructions on how to make it click here

Little Lady also got herself a new bike. A few weeks ago she decided she was ready to try the whole two-wheeler thing and within about 2 minutes, she was pedaling around the block, the park, and wherever else she could go. The other bike was a really cheap little thing and was hard to go up hills, so we grabbed this mini mountain bike with gears. She has been smiling ever since, and first thing in the morning, every morning, she wants to go ride the bike or her new roller blades.

We let our kids have birthday parties every other year, so the big ones: baptism, young womens, drivers license, adulthood, all get a big party. She was adorable trying to think of her "wish". She picked everything for her party: individual homemade pizzas, pinata, my famous lemon bundt cake (which each kid had at least seconds or thirds- big hit!) and musical chairs.

It was a great day.

Jayda is one of the most thoughtful, kind, loving children I have ever met. She is always thinking of others and even when she is offered something, she wants to get extras for her brother and sister. She is always singing or skipping or dancing, and she makes my life happier and more full every day. Love that girl!

Ballet Diva

Little Miss Jayda had a big day. She had a big performance at the Covey Arts Center in Provo of Alice in Wonderland. She had two dances, one as a flower and the other as a flamingo. She had a matinee performance and an evening performance. I got to go to both shows and spend some time alone with this little character. We went on a "date" to dinner and walked around the mall and had a few treats. She had to wear full makeup for both shows, and for some reason it made her act a bit sassy.

She did a great job at both performances and it was so fun to have some Jayda time all to myself.

Horses, horses, horses...

While I was growing up, some of my favorite memories were spent on the back of a horse. My kids adore them and we take every opportunity to jump on them when we can. We had a nice sunny Saturday a few weeks ago and zipped over to Nana's house to ride a bit. She has a young colt who is very green, but it's good to have him ridden with the older horses in a mellow environment. So we put the kids on the tamer horses and my mom and I took turns on the colt, Senator.

Olivia has been riding for a few years on her own, but Jayda has just started riding by herself. It's fun to see the confidence she has and how strong she can be with stubborn old Shadow.

Hopefully, we will have a summer full of horse adventures.

Closure

Grandma Beth's funeral was lovely. The service was beautiful and it was a sunny (and freezing)day.

We all placed flowers on the casket at the cemetery , and my mom brought along a few lemons for our family to place on there as well. It was appropriate because her maiden name was Lemon. There is a poem that says "You can squeeze a lemon, but you can only squash a peach".

Here is a rare photo of my parents and all of the kids together in one place. We all love and miss Grandma, but know she is in a better place.