Nature Park in Syracuse

No fear of water or heights, at least for the children,

mom does worry!

Tyler Roe, Serena, Carter, Wyatt Jensen,

Hannah Roe, Caleb Moulding

We had the chance to get together at Lora Moulding's home in Syracuse. It was great to see many of our friends from the Summerfield Ward that have moved or that we don't see as often anymore.

Lora is close to a nice nature park that has a pond and trails and a waterfall that the children loved throwing rocks into.

Social Work Conference

I have to attend Social Work conferences occasionally to earn continuing education credits (CEU) to maintain my LCSW. I attended a day workshop on "Creative Approaches to Dealing with Psychosomatic Symptoms." It was nice to focus my brain on things besides children, but the creative approaches were really things I do everyday with kids; art, singing, dancing, writing, drama.


I took Aleeya with me and she was fabulous, as usual. She was welcomed by all of the class and during one of the projects they used her hands and feet to make prints. The look on her face was hilarious when the paint was put on her, usually stuff is being wiped off of her hands, now it was being wiped on!

Taylor took the day off work and stayed home with Carter and Serena. He did a great job and even kept the house clean. We got Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner, so it really was a complete day off from mom duties!

Play School Graduation

Carter and Serena have been participating in a neighborhood play school. There are seven children and each of the mom's have taken turns teaching. We have met once a week since September 2008. We rotated homes and the babies and younger siblings played in one area with most of the moms and then the "teacher" for the week did a lesson with the preschool children.

Each lesson had a theme and a letter was highlighted. There was usually singing, books, activities, a craft and always a snack! We also went on field trips to a pumpkin patch, Great Harvest Bread, Krispy Kreme Donuts, Hogle Zoo, and the Layton Fire station.

To end for the summer, we had a graduation night at the church. We had a potluck dinner with the Dads and showcased the children's singing and dancing. Megan Wiseman made a video of the activities from the whole year and the kids loved watching themselves. They laughed at every picture!

Part of the festivities was the children doing interpretive dance. Carter was stealing the show with his dance moves. Serena was not so much into dancing, but would occasionally go up to Carter and then she sat on the side and clapped.

Carter rocks at T-Ball!

Carter has started T-ball and he is loving it. He excels much more at baseball than soccer, probably because this is more of an individual sport. He is by far the best hitter on the team and he does really well at the catching. He loves to throw the ball really hard, so when he is playing catch he has to be reminded to aim for the mitt of the other player. It makes a mother proud to hear him get lots of compliments and questions about how old he is because he is so good!

I do have to take some credit , I have pitched the ball to him for more hours than I care to recall! During the winter when we would play at the church in the cultural hall I would pitch a soft ball to him and one time he hit the ball consecutively twenty times without missing!

Friday night at the Drive-In Movie

Cool drive-in seats in the van, yummy pizza dinner!

Serena fell asleep on the way there, but was awake for the movie.

Taylor has converted me to the fun of going to a drive-in movie. We go one or two times every year. It is great for families because you don't have to keep the kids to quiet and you can bring your own food. We saw the movie UP! and it was really cute.

I love pictures of sleeping babies

So sweet!

I thought how she had her arms and legs was so cute!

Are accidents contagious?

Serena was jumping on the bed last night (5/27) and fell off and bumped her head on the nightstand (feel free to sing about no more monkeys on the bed!). We went to the doctor and spent an hour and a half as they iced it, then put a gel on to stop the bleeding and then finally put on Dermabond. I guess she is destined to have bangs, since this is the second time she has cut her forehead!

It feels as though we might have an accident virus in our home...5/25, I missed the last stair going into the living room and twisted my ankle, it was swollen and painful for two days. 5/26, Aleeya climbs up one stair and then rolls back down. 5/28, I was walking upstairs and fell up the stairs (this has been a life long problem for me), I was carrying Aleeya so I fell on my knee since I couldn't use my arms. Then Carter falls down half of the stairs to the basement and I cut my finger with the apple slicer.

But we must have angels watching over us, because after I came home from the doctor with Serena and everyone got into bed it was late and I was kneeling down by the bed saying my prayers, when one of the screws came out of Aleeya's bassinet and it fell off of the bars that hold it up.

I must admit that I don't always kneel for my prayers, so I am thankful that I was right there and heard the bassinet fall and quickly got Aleeya out so there was no harm done. She is now sleeping in the pack-n-play and we REALLY will go and get a bed for Serena this weekend and then Aleeya can have the crib (this has been on the list of things to do for over a month).