Memorial Day Weekend

On Saturday we went down to the Hogle Zoo with some friends. It started out sunny and warm, then in the middle it started to rain and it got cold. It went back and forth quite a bit. A lot of the exhibits are closed because they are building new areas and they had to shut down the old ones. The zoo always seemed so much bigger to me when I was a kid.

Of course Halle fell asleep on the way down. Not a long nap = super ornery Halle. That was fun.

Our car is already a pig sty. We really should just eat all 3 meals and snacks in the car, it already looks like we do. We will DEFINITELY get our money's worth when we get it detailed.

The girls got new hats.

Why is every kid fascinated with that big ball in water right when you go in? Weird.

They have a dinosaur exhibit going on right now. Some of the dinosaurs spit water out at you. The kids loved that.

I remember this drinking fountain from way back when I was a youngster, going to the zoo.

You gotta love Nate in the background taunting Halle.

These pants ARE for girls. I know she kind of looks like a boy in this outfit. It doesn't help that she won't let me do anything with her hair. Josh loves this combination.

Chloee with her real mother.

On Sunday, we went up to my parents' house for dinner and to go visit Micheal's grave for Memorial Day. We wanted to be back home on Monday to do yard work. That didn't end up panning out, the weather was horrible and rainy the whole day. My parents woke up with SNOW!!!

Josh made this flag with the girls when we got back from church. I laid down upstairs to try and get my headache to go away. They cut out the pieces of construction paper and then wrote all the of the things they are grateful for. Chloee did the stars.

We all wrote a message on the back to Micheal. When we got to my parents' house, I laminated it with packing tape. It looked so good. We didn't get up to Micheal's grave until 11 pm, on our way back home. We didn't get home until midnight. We just can't stop talking when we get together as a family.

Here Josh is putting the flag in by Micheal's grave.

I am so grateful for the freedoms that we enjoy. I am so grateful for those who have given their lives. I am so grateful for the families of the loved ones who have passed on, for their sacrifice as well. I love Micheal and I have a deeper appreciation for what the men and women of our Armed Forces do and for the sacrifices they make every single day.

I miss Micheal. I know that is written a lot on my blog but it is so heart wrenchingly painful sometimes. I saw a man in Walmart the other day. I was behind him and he had on khaki cargo shorts a black hoodie, Chaco sandals and short hair. The man had the same build as Micheal, he even walked like Micheal. I stood there and for a split second I honestly thought it was him. He turned around and as he did, I thought to myself, "Ok, there is no way his face looks like Micheal's, I'll feel better." Sure enough, he did look like Micheal with a few different features.

I stood there, frozen. My heart skipped a few beats as I wanted to race up to him and hug him. Tears streamed down my face as I stood there thinking I was staring at a ghost. It was uncontrollable. I couldn't stop staring at him. It was like I was dreaming. The man soon realized that I was staring at him and crying. He grabbed his wife, they both looked back at me and I still couldn't stop looking at him. He kept looking back at me as he was scurrying to get away from the crazy freak show who was crying and staring at him. I stood there and felt as though God had just played a very mean joke on me.

I will never be same. I can never look at the flag the same way. I cannot sing the nation anthem and not be moved by the pain of loss. I cannot sing 'My Country Tis of Thee' in church and not feel stinging tears well up in my eyes. I will never think of Independence Day as just a holiday. I am forever changed in ways that I cannot express. I am forever changed because of what happened in my life after Micheal died.

I am proud to be an American.

I bleed Red, White and Blue.

Preschool Graduation

Chloee had preschool graduation on May 25th. Josh took the day off work. Working an hour away kind of hinders you from going back and forth from home. We had a good time. Chloee and I decided to do matching flowers in our hair.

We took a few pictures outside before we left, which she was just thrilled about. She was so worried that we were going to be late.

Dad and his girls. Always a cute picture, especially if Chloee was smiling.

Chloee's class sitting waiting for the last kid to get there. I have LOVED Chloee's teacher. She does small classes of 10 kids at the most. She has a long waiting list. I already put Halle on her list, it was starting to get full and it isn't even for 2.5 years. She is incredible!

They all stood up and recited the pledge of allegiance.

They did some fun things to show off what they learned this year. They sang the songs and did some demonstrations. It was really nice, small, simple and perfect.

When Miss Vicki called each child up to give them their diploma, she whispered into their ears what she loves most about them and how much she'll miss them.

To say the least, Chloee loves Miss Vicki and started to cry when I told her this was the last day she was going to see her teacher.

Chloee, oh so proudly holding her diploma.

Who am I kidding? I started to cry realizing that I wasn't going to get to see her anymore. This woman has given me so many words of wisdom about raising children and hard times and so forth. Oddly enough, the first day of school, her and I shared some pretty personal things with each other. I instantly loved her. She has been a great blessing in my life and in Chloee's as well.

Congrats, Chloee! We are so proud of you.

I don't know what I'm going to do for the summer. I really need to set up some sort of schedule and do certain things each day to get through the long 3 months of summer. I'm sure we'll figure out something and hopefully we'll be spending more time with Amy and her boys now that school is out.

The Table Just Won't Do...

The table is too boring. The table is a place where we sit and eat our food. So naturally, my children don't want to eat there. Over the last 2 weeks, the girls have decided they needed to eat lunch somewhere cool and adventurous.

"The Fort"

They decided that under the table would be much cooler than at the table. They then decided that it needed to be dark so that no one could see them.

"The Tent in the Woods"

They pretended that there were bears outside of the tent, wanting their food. Notice the first picture of the tent. Yes, it is broken and that one pole is sticking straight up to make it KIND OF stay up correctly.

"The Basket Loungers"

They love to sit in the laundry baskets and pretend that they are on boats and everything around them is hot lava and they can't get out of the boats or the lava will burn them. Chloee pretty much is in control of this one. They ate their lunch in the boats and I was scorched with lava as I brought them their lunch.

"The School Box"

I don't know how or where they come up with these names. This big box came to the doorstep with something I had ordered online in it. The girls instantly set their little eyes on it and asked me if they could play with it. They went and got their crayons and colored the inside and outside and then named it their SCHOOL BOX and that is the only place where they can talk about school and one can be the teacher and one be the student.

Oh yes and they had to have school lunch in there. Once again, Mom (the now lunch lady) brought them their lunch and they ate in peace.

I have found that doing fun things like this, gets my kids to eat more of their lunch and they are in a much better mood (as am I), that is probably because we aren't fighting about who sits where and if they need to eat more.

One less thing to worry and stress about.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

This is normally a statement we make to the girls, snickering as we act as though we are mad. In this case, not the girls' fault. This clothes dryer rack thing has been on its last leg for a few years now. I put some newly washed bathroom mats on it to dry and it snapped like a twig.

Do you see where it is being held together with orange duct tape? Yep, not even the way of the rednecks could keep this thing up. The next morning it was on the ground, broken in more than one place. I swear, we have some things here that if you looked at them cross eyed, they'd break. Clearly, heavy, wet mats worked for this one.

Matching Triplets

A few days ago, we were doing the dishes together, the three of us. Chloee suddenly looked around and said, "Mom, all three of us have the same color of pants on and the same color of shirt on." It wasn't planned, I hadn't even noticed until she said something. She then proceeded to say that we should be in a club.

Chloee's Tap Recital

Chloee had her tap recital on Saturday. The week prior to it, they had a dress rehearsal and they did class pictures. I snagged a few pictures of her while she was home, right before we left for rehearsal. I know there are a lot of pictures below, but I couldn't decide which ones to post about her amazingly long eyelashes. They are beautiful. I put a little bit of makeup on her for the recital and rehearsal. She was so excited.

I would kill for eyelashes that long, dark and thick. Granted, I did have them when I was younger, before I started using mascara and they started to fall out and break off.

THE RECITAL

Chloee's dance partner was Zoee. She had 2 songs they did their dance to, ABC's and Sea Cruise. They looked so cute out there.

She did a fabulous job. It's always so much more fun to watch the younger kids do their dance because they don't really know what's going on and they are giggling out there.

Chloee and her best friend, Taylor.

My parents came down to watch Chloee perform. Chloee and my dad.

She was so happy that they were able to come down. I think she called and invited them 2 months before the recital and then asked me just about every day if they were going to come and if "today" was the recital. It felt like Christmas all over again.

Heaven forbid Halle be okay with a picture being taken with her in it. Needless to say, Halle was not a good child during the recital. She cried and threw a fit most of the time. We did have to wake her up to go to the recital. Lesson learned: Never wake a sleeping, mean 2 year old. :)

I was so proud of her. She's such a sweet little girl.

Wow, Halle not sucker punching Chloee for putting her arm around her for a picture. The picture almost looks like they are glowing, maybe someone was distracting Halle from the other side of the veil.

Chloee was pretty much DONE with pictures at this point but I had to get a family picture.

Thanks for coming, it made Chloee so happy... the only thing that could have made her even more happy was if Jordan could have come. He had to work and Chloee adores him and was still sad when I broke the news to her, once again, for the 5th time, that he wasn't going to be coming. I swear, she never listens to me when I'm talking.

We came home and my dad, Matt and Josh went down to a Bee's game and us girls stayed home with grandma. The girls had a blast with grandma chasing them around and we played Super Mario 3 on the Wii. Mom used to be a pro and that night Chlo was kicking her trash. It was hilarious to watch mom try and play. It was like Luigi was a magnet for all of the holes. If there was a hole, it called to her and she fell right in and died. It was a fun night.

The boys got home a bit late, a little after eleven. They just stayed the night and left early in the morning to go to their church, plus, my dad had two farewells to go to. Thank you so much for coming down for Chloee. I know it meant a lot to her.