Kari's Crazes: Tappana Times: MAYbe I'd Better Update

Thinking back about May, it was a busy month. Lots of activities going on with the end of school approaching and the weather warming up.

Kendrick is turning into a character and he loves books. All he ever wants is for someone to read him a book. He doesn't care what I'm doing, I'm just his slave to diaper and dress him while he gets his reading time in.

If he's not reading, he loves to play like a big boy and work on his computer at the table. He sometimes gets caught on the table, and he's learned pretty quickly that Mom is not ok with that.

The bowl and lid on the table next to him are his version of "setting the table," which is his favorite to help out with. Though, the items that I leave available in cupboards for him to reach make for pretty funny table settings at times.

We had a scare with Kendrick one evening as we went for a walk on the trail along the lake. My mom's dogs were attached to the stroller, and as we stopped for a minute, they decided to suddenly take off. This yanked the stroller over on top of Kendrick and he was dragged face first in the gravel and dirt for a bit before I could catch up and grab him. Luckily, after I was able to clear the mouthful of dirt and bark out, he calmed down quickly and no serious injury was found. Those dogs were headed straight for a very steep incline, however, so I was not happy.

Kendrick has continued working on his snobbishness towards other people, and his glare really started to take shape in May.

We had the missionaries over for dinner, and they decided to ask Kendrick if he liked his cheesecake. How dare they.

Side note: These are the chocolate dipped strawberry cheesecakes that pinterest had been tempting me with for ages. I finally had a reason to indulge when the missionaries were coming over, so I attempted my first cheesecake recipe.

Luckily, they were easy and they turned out great (though they look much prettier on the pinterest pictures)! I would definitely make them again. They were delicious!

And Kendrick did love them...you just had to be the right person asking him :)

Kendrick has been exploring all the different places he can get into. I usually don't mind letting him play with the cans in the bottom cupboard, but I recently had to make sure all glass jars were moved higher when he came to me covered in sweet and sour sauce. We learned the hard way that that stuff makes for some pretty tough stains. I don't know how he got the lid off of a brand new jar, but I do know that he managed to get it on the carpet in the living room, on my white rug, all over himself, on me, and spread throughout other various parts of the kitchen.

While I was attempting to clean it up, he also managed to tip a chair over that he was standing on and got a bloody nose. After that was managed, I sent him out back to play so I could finish cleaning, and he dug up my cilantro plant. He's hitting toddlerhood full force.

I know I always have a million pictures of Kendrick, but it is just me and him for half the day. And when they are younger, they hit all the milestones so close together so I have a lot to document. Don't worry, I love my other two children just as much...they are just away from me more often, and more busy and independent.

You can bet they both want to be included in the instagram filters, however.

Ammon recently had his time to shine at the Three Piggy Opera at school.

He loved being in the reenactment of the three little pigs story and he did awesome. He was one cute little piggy!

There are quite a few other kids from our ward at church in Ammon's kindergarten class and we got a picture of them all together.

Lydia's moment to shine was completing her gymnastics course.

She loved her weekly gymnastics class and graduated out of Rec 1. Unfortunately, Rec 2 costs more than we can afford so she has to take a break while we research other options, but Lydia enjoyed getting to try this sport out. She would even practice a daily stretching video to try to improve her splits. I was proud of her hard work and dedication.

Usually, while Lydia was in gymnastics class, I would sit and watch her, but on a day of good weather I decided to walk the path I had noticed behind the gym. I was enjoying the exercise when I noticed a mile marker. I was walking along the Green River! I felt a little spooked.

(For those that don't know the history of the Green River Killer, he was a serial killer that dumped numerous bodies along the Green River, thus his name.)

It kind of gave me the chills, especially since the only other people I had seen on the trail were a couple of homeless people. But I decided to have courage and not let the wimpy side of me take over. I finished my walk and nodded at the homeless man that passed by me before returning to the gym.

While I was waiting for Lydia's class to end, I decided to look into where exactly along the Green River the bodies were found. Now they've found something like 40+ bodies, and he's claimed there's around 80+, so they are spread along the Green River, but I noticed that a large group of them were found RIGHT WHERE I HAD BEEN WALKING.

Suddenly, I felt like a survivor. I felt like I should be on some documentary or something - I was walking where it happened. And I'm pretty dramatic and all that.

Our family spent family night at Flaming Geyser State park, which is only twenty minutes from our house. We ate a picnic dinner and then enjoyed a couple short hikes.

Kendrick was my little buddy while Brigham took the kids up the steep hill to climb on the tree.

My kids are pretty good hikers, and we found out quickly that Kendrick wants to be right there with them. Brigham carried him up the trail, but he insisted on walking back and made it the whole way with his little chubby legs carrying him as fast as he could go. He loved every second of it!

After hiking, we played in the river for a bit and then tossed around a football until it was time to head home. It gave us a taste for summer and all the nights yet to come playing oustide.

For mother's day, my mom was in Hawaii, so I got to fill in for her at my sister's Mom and Tea activity for fifth graders.

If often looks like Kayleen is another one of my kids, and sometimes I'm sure she feels that way. She even wrote the sweetest note to me that said I'm like her second mom. I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to live so close to her and develop a relationship with her that we otherwise wouldn't have. We may be eighteen years apart, but we can still hang together and I love that my kids have her to run around with! I was honored to fill in as mom and we had a great time stuffing our faces with pastries together.

A couple other random happenings in May: I was on my way to volleyball and I saw the brightest rainbow I've ever laid eyes on. The pictures make it look mediocre, but it was so bright and it even turned into a double rainbow.