May 2014 Part 1

May felt like it flew by. Even though my dad went home at the end of April, my mom stayed in Utah for an additional 2 weeks. It was so much fun to have her at our house for some of it! Ryan was still in school so we weren't able to do anything too ambitious during the day, but we made good use of the longer days and went out just about every evening. One night we went down to Highland Glen pond. Camden got a hold of my sunglasses in the car and kept them on during our walk. It was so cute. How small is that nose?!

My mom strategically planned her trip to overlap with Mother's Day. The boys just adore my mom. I love watching them love her as much as I do.

Zach listed and sold his motorcycle. You may remember we bought this motorcycle before going to Arkansas for Zach's internship at Walmart. It served us well that summer as a commuter vehicle for Zach's internship. It allowed me and the boys to have a car during the day while Zach was at work. Since graduating and buying a minivan, the motorcycle has essentially sat in our garage. Rather than let it lose value in our garage, Zach decided to sell it . It sold pretty quick. All the boys were sad to see it go.

May was filled with t-ball and soccer games. Ryan and Brady had great coaches. I am always grateful to moms and dads who are willing to volunteer to coach. Ryan was on the same t-ball team with a few kids in our neighborhood/ward. It was fun to have other moms I knew on the sidelines to chat with during the practices and games. We even carpooled a time or two during the season.

I tried to get the floors clean one afternoon during Camden's nap. I got the floor all swept and ready to mop just in time for Cadmen to wake up early from his nap! Grrrr. I really wanted to finish what I started so I used the baby backpack and mopped with Camden strapped in. It went surprisingly well. He was happy to just watch me mop and I was able to finish the floor before Ryan got home from school. :)

Before he sold his motorcycle, Zach took the boys on one last (and first) ride. The boys loved it. I don't know why we didn't do it sooner!

We finally had our garage sale. When we found out we were moving last spring, I started pulling aside things for a garage sale. The idea was to have the garage sale in Orem before we moved but we ran out of time and all our garage sale stuff made the move up to Cedar Hills and found a home in our garage. Almost a year later, we finally did it. Zach's parents came into town and saved the day. They helped so much. We couldn't have done it without them! Thank you Pam and Doug!

We have been doing family dinner with Zach's family once a month this year. It has been so much fun to get all the cousins together. In May, it was our turn to host dinner. There were all boys on the Bellows side up until last May when Kristen and Jason had a baby girl! Charlotte is the youngest of the crew. She is sure to be well looked after by her 5 older boy cousins and brother.

Camden really enjoyed dinner one night.

We went to our very first drag races. My friend suggested we bring ear plugs and I'm glad I did! It was loud! The cars were really fun to watch and the boys were engaged the whole time we were there.

Little Camden, who cries whenever I turn on the vacuum or run the blender, was all smiles with no ear plugs during the races. Explain that one to me.

Ryan had his last soccer game. His team has been together since last fall and it was sad to have it all be over. All the kids have improved a lot and it makes me excited for next season.

On Memorial Day, I ran the Run of Remembrance 10K in American Fork. It was the same 10K as the one I ran in 2011. I didn't train at all for it and finished in 56 minutes. Slower than the last time, but still pretty good for no training! After the race they had a free kids' race that Ryan participated in. He ran it on a whim so he didn't have running shorts or running shoes on. In fact I don't think he was wearing socks! He felt pretty cool running in a race though and said he had a good time. As they were waiting to start he asked me about where he needed to go. I told him to just follow the other kids and he responded, "But mom, what if I am the very first one?" I love his confidence!

We went to Tibble Fork reservoir with the Poultons in the afternoon for a picnic and some fishing. Camden couldn't handle the fishing part (he kept trying to get in the water) so Ryan was nice enough to do a little hike with us. I had Camden strapped to my back.

Brady played on a little soccer team in May. He was on the team with four other little boys who are in our ward. It was funny to watch. Most of the games were really cold and windy, but we finally had nice weather for the last game of the season. Our team lost every. game. they played. None of the boys seemed to grasp the concept of the game. They all looked lost on the field.

On the last day of t-ball, Ryan's coach bought the boys pizza to eat after the game. Their game was at 6:45 and didn't end until close to 8pm so, as you can imagine, everyone ate dinner before the game. Since no one was very hungry at the pizza party there was tons of leftovers- enough for Camden to have a slice. It was his first slice of pizza and he ate the whole thing! He is definitely a fan.

There was a baby animal birthday party at the Thanksgiving Point Farm. The older two boys and I went and met my sisters there. Our friends and neighbors, the Andersons, also met us there. They have three boys who line up just perfectly with our boys (their youngest is a year behind Camden). There was cake and games and lots of baby animals. There was also a tractor pulled barrel train. They boys had a great time. Lindsey recaps it and has better pictures on her blog.

Ryan and Lukas

Brady and Fischer

I've been wanting to get a water table for Camden. After looking around and getting fed up with how expensive they are I decided to make one of my own. I went to Walmart and found two bins- a deep one and a shallow one- that stacked together perfectly. Camden is so happy with it and I was happy I didn't spend tons of money!

One night Zach was at work late so Lindsey invited us down to Provo to spend the evening with her and Rick. We got Little Caesar's pizza and had a picnic at the Pirate playground. The boys had a blast and it was a much better evening than we would have had on our own waiting around for Zach to get home.

While my mom was in town she agreed to stay with the kids while Zach and I snuck away for a night. Zach had earned a free nights stay at the Hyatt from all his business trips to California. We left early on Friday morning and went to the temple. After our temple session, we went to lunch at Pei Wei and did some shopping. After checking into our hotel and changing our clothes we went golfing. We did a little more shopping after golf and went back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We went out to dinner at a cute little Mediterranean restaurant in Holiday called Laylas. We went out for ice cream and then called it a night. The next morning we tracked down a food truck called, Saturday's Waffle, that Zach had been interested in for a while. It was delicious! We went to a mid-day showing of Spiderman 2 and went out to lunch. After lunch we felt like we had done just about everything we could think of doing. We shopped the outlets on the way home and ended up coming home in time for dinner. My mom did great with the kids (with a little bit of help from Lindsey). They had a blast while we were gone and we had a blast being gone!

I am quite possibly the worst "Selfie" picture taker in the history of "selfie" pictures. 

My mom fulfilled my Easter dream of getting a family picture. She snuck this one in before church on Mother's Day. I was super happy with it!

The boys wanted to follow up with a trampoline photo shoot.

We enjoyed having a my mom here for Mother's Day. More on that to come!

Written on June 30, 2014