This Year So Far

 Recent life has included many varied experiences including sending my oldest off to the other side of the country, spending days working with a physical therapist to improve my ankle, a birthday, a day at the park, family day at the mall and many other moments of both joy and sadness.
The picture here on the left is of Wyatt playing at physical therapy. He became quite a little superstar there and was always welcomed by name. He got familiar with all the equipment and "helped" me do my exercises for 6 weeks until I completed my therapy. I'm not back to normal yet but I'm on my way!

Above right is the night we said goodbye to Nathan when he left for his DC trip. It was stressful to let him board that bus for places unknown for 6 days but I was so thrilled he was blessed with the opportunity to go. He had a great time!
Here are Jillian and I at the mall on our mommy/daughter day. She's holding a sign that describes her and she picked one for me too. :) We had lots of fun together. 

 Jillian turned 10 on March 15th. Chloe and I made her cake and totally scored with a HelloKitty cake pan that was accidently returned to Walmart's store instead of online.  She loved it!

Wyatt loves his trains. One morning, while the biggies were at school, Wyatt and I got out a lot of his train pieces, most that came from Christmas, and built a huge train track. We had lots of fun playing together and just lounging around. He has such a great imagination; I just love listening to what his little mind creates and how his little brain works. He is such a joy and I feel so blessed to be able to spend time with him!
In addition to trains, he's recently begun expressing his love for music by dancing to his favorite songs. We've gotten a couple of his dance sessions on film and I adore them! I can't wait to use them against him when he gets older! :)


 Because they had Friday off school and their mom had to work, there was a day my surrogate daughters came over to spend time with us. We went to Goodwill and then to the local golf course to feed the ducks where we discovered ducks that were afraid of people. So, now that Wyatt was intent on feeding ducks, we loaded up and went to Friendship Park in Goodyear to find ducks were knew were friendly. Armed with a cheap loaf of bread and 6 children between the ages of 16 and 3, we set off. The girls are great and I love spending time with them. I've also taken them to the playground right near our house where they played on the equipment, dug in the sand at the volleyball courts and played football.

Upcoming events include Jillian's field trip to the Grand Canyon; Nathan, Chloe and Wyatt's birthdays; school getting out; my job moving locations; Lowell having a couple days off; another camping trip; lots and lots of swimming and more general chaos. Next week the kids have standardized testing, this year called AZMerit. At least it means no homework this week. Right this minute, Wyatt and Nathan are riding around the back yard - Wyatt on his Jeep and Nathan on his dirt bike. They both look so happy! Looks like lots of good times ahead!