Loving every minute of spring

  Here's some highlights from recent days:

Jazlyn sporting her "crazy hair" day at school.  Jazlyn recently tried out for the end of the year school talent show and made it, playing the piano!  She is really enjoying piano so much more this year, hooray!  Kelston is actually really loving piano too and will practice without me telling him to lots of times.  He's not even quite 5 yet and picking it up quickly.

  It's so exciting to see your kids love playing an instrument you love, especially after years of patience trying to instill this love in them!!!  All 3 of my big kids played in my recital a couple of weeks ago!  It was Kelston's first time.  

Jazlyn made me a banana cake with homemade cream cheese frosting for Mother's day: Yum!!  There were lots of other special things this weekend too, that I unfortunately didn't get pictures of, but here's the highlights: Wes bought me a dozen red roses, and Matsen and Jazlyn wrote me a few sweet and creative cards.  I love being a mother, it's the best job ever!

Here's Matsen with his kindergarten teacher.  This was her first year teaching and I was very impressed!  She's moving up to first grade in the fall and Matsen is really hoping he gets her again, he really likes her.  This was taken after their end of the year musical program.

On a date a few weeks ago, Wes and I spotted this super cool tree that I knew I needed to take the kids to so they could explore and climb.  It reminded me of my cousin, Cari's blog about a similar sounding and awesome climbing tree.  It definitely didn't disappoint the kids.  

Jazlyn was by far the most adventurous climber.  It actually shocked me, because this was my child who wouldn't climb up a ladder to go up to a slide at the park until she was 4, and that was with a lot of encouragement.  Amazing how children change over the years!

Look at the size of the tree, and you can only see about two-thirds of its width in this picture.  All of the low branches were really fun!  We are very grateful for Jesus making this cool tree for us to enjoy!

This play structure is close by the tree and Matsen was much more adventurous climbing up these ropes than he was the tree.

Aww, boys and their mud.  Our yard is 95% grass, with a small dirt patch where my garden is, plus a little extra space and guess where the boys want to play 90% of the time they go outside?  You guessed it, in the dirt/mud.  They are expert mud pie makers.  

You can't tell too well from this picture, but this was the aftermath of a lot of mud playing, and Jazlyn assigned herself to spray off some of the mess on Kelston with the hose.  It's sure a good thing they had fun.

I got to go on a field trip with Matsen recently to a farmstead/family fun place.  We had a great time and Matsen was relishing the one-on-one time with Mom.  It's always fun to have time with my kids individually.

Us on the bus

Oh yes, the pictures got a little out of order. This was some grass Matsen had grown at school for me as a mother's day gift, with his picture taped inside the cup it was growing in.  He was giving me hints about what he might be growing for me at school for this holiday, it was so cute.

Can you tell who loves their big sister?

Other highlights of late: Shelten is saying all kinds of new words!  He has put two words together a few times too,  including "Daddy home" (have I mentioned he's a daddy's boy?), and "More more chicken" or "more more cancake (pancake).  It's so fun to hear all of these first words!

Stay tuned for some father-son campout pictures