Finishing Up May

We’ve been silly, and we’ve had fun! Take a look. - Dayton did - with the glasses Jordan made for him.

One morning my dad, the kids, and I had breakfast on the balcony. This is what I get for only taking one picture: a picture where all three people in it are closing their eyes! But breakfast was great!

Book time :-)

Dayton was rocking the chef hat and Claire’s sunglasses.

We had homemade, grilled pizza one night! I made the pizza dough, Jordan assembled the pizzas,

and Dad grilled them for a few moments on the grill.

Delicious!

While I was gone one day, I got this text. (Jordan tells me it was Claire’s idea, but I’m not so sure...)

 So I decided to send one back to them!

I love my fun, funny, amusing family! 

We also had a great time on Memorial Day. We swam, played baseball, ate some amazing brisket, and enjoyed being together with the entire family. 

Lynnlei May

Before I got my Mother’s Day pedicure, I stopped by the hospital to meet my new niece, Lynnlei May. She’s a sweet girl! Kelly is doing great, too!

Big brother, Taylor

Mother’s Day

On Mother’s Day, we were driving home from Midland. So we had a nice lunch with Stephen, Mel, and their boys before we left town. But Claire really wanted to do some other things for me, so my Mother’s Day was the next Saturday. I got to sleep in. (Hallelujah!) When I woke up, I texted Jordan, and then the kids brought me breakfast in bed. The menu was Claire’s idea: eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice. While I was eating, Claire wanted to do a chore for me. So they cleaned the bathroom. Score! Then Claire and Dayton sang me a sweet Mother’s Day song and gave me lots of pictures they had made. This one’s my favorite:

Then I was able to go get a pedicure all by myself. Wonderful.

I’m so thankful for my sweet kids and for Jordan helping them put Claire's plan into action.

Fun at the Zoo

I went with Claire and her class to the zoo, and we had a great time! I was thinking (for some unknown reason), that I might have around 6 kids to chaperone in my group. The morning of the field trip, though, I found out my group only had two kids: Claire and her friend. AND her friend’s dad was going to meet us at the zoo. So Claire, her friend, her friend’s dad, and I walked around the zoo together. It was quite an easy day of chaperoning! We had a lot of fun. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hot, (although the girls were definitely hot by the end, but it could have been 20 degrees hotter, so I wasn’t complaining!) They wanted to stop at every statue they saw for a picture.

Claire really wanted to see the penguins. I think they were the second animal we saw!

Claire also was very interested in holding the map. She didn’t want to let it go.

We saw elephants!

And warthogs.

And Claire and her friend got to feed the giraffes. I was a bit skeptical about spending $5 on lettuce leaves when maybe the giraffes had already eaten enough, but one came right over to Claire and her friend, and the giraffe ate up all the leaves. It really was neat!

Gorillas

Crocodile (too bad this one wasn’t a saltwater croc!)

We ate our lunch in the shade.

Snakes

When asked about the best part of her day at dinner that night, Claire said that eating ice cream at the zoo was the best part. I guess eating ice cream overrides feeding a giraffe and seeing lots of animals. :-)

Final Four

Dad got tickets to the NCAA Final Four games, and Jordan and I got to go to two of them! We went to the Saturday games - the semifinals.

Our seats were WAY up high, but that didn’t matter to me!

We saw Villanova cream OU, and we saw North Carolina beat Syracuse.

We had a fantastic time!

I’m glad Stephen could come, too!

My parents, Marshall, and Peter went to the championship game on Monday night. They saw a great game - Villanova beat North Carolina 77-74. Marshall texted me during the championship game and apologized that he was getting to see such a great game. Funny guy. 

We had a blast! I’m so thankful for the opportunity to go to some Final Four games!

And I was especially happy because I needed North Carolina to lose so that I would win in the Cooper family bracket challenge! Sweet!

My Hair Pike Up

That’s Dayton’s new phrase: “My hair pike up.” He loves telling everyone over and over that his hair is spiked up.

Here he is right after his haircut.

And here he is later on.

He loves his spiky hair.

Jordan’s Birthday

Jordan started off his birthday in a way he’s never started off any day before. He competed in a triathlon! He finished the swimming part in 7 minutes, and then he had to bike - uphill - in a very strong headwind. (Doesn’t sound like fun to me!) And when he was finished with that, he had to run. Actually, he had to deal with rubber legs (from biking for so long) while running. He said his legs finally felt back to normal after almost a mile of running. Matt did the triathlon, too. Jordan beat Matt by less than two minutes, I believe. Way to go to both of them!

Later on in the day, we had a delicious lasagna for dinner, and then we gave Jordan his presents. I love how kids are so excited about anyone opening presents! And I love the looks on Claire and Dayton’s faces in some of these pictures. :-) They were so excited to give Dad some cool socks with sharks and crabs on them.

Claire took a picture of us. :-)

Then it was cake time, and guess who was ready! 

I made a delicious peanut butter cup cheesecake. It was so yummy!

Happy birthday, Bando! We love you!