May

 Our backyard neighbor had a large tree cut down this spring and it was the highlight of the week. We cancelled school for the day to watch the whole process out our windows. Then, as the huge branches were cut off and started falling down the kids were getting more and more upset because none of them were landing in our yard and they thought the branches would be SUPER useful for their forts etc...
So, I had to go outside and yell up at the tree man that he could let some branches fall in our yard... he didn't have to maneuver them around the tree and make them drop in our neighbor's yard.
He probably rolled his eyes at me and then let a couple branches fall in our yard. The kids were ecstatic. But then the tree man went back to dropping them in our neighbor's yard.
Sooooo... the kids grabbed our wagon, hauled it down the street and around the corner to our neighbors and asked the tree cutting company for branches. Not kidding.
Then after 2 loads of branches they went back for a bunch of stumps.

 It took us 4 weeks of trash/compost bin pickup to finally get rid of all those branches after the kids were done playing with them.
Worth it

 My little helper at Costco returning items back to the shelves

 Quinn at her track meet. See her? Digging up the turf on the field? She clawed her fingers through the turf for about 10 minutes and made a HUGE pile of artificial grass. I had to race to the side of the fence and try to get her to stop before someone noticed the human gopher hard at work.

 My 14 year old kept herself busy with old boxes and free Home Depot carpet samples. She made stuffed animal houses for all her siblings and herself. She even embroidered pictures for the walls of the houses. Love her.

 Spencer picked up his new car and then brought it home and then I told him there was a big sale on garden mulch... new car officially christened.

 

 Science experiment explosions

 Griffin is the king who forgives a debtor in our family scripture reenactment. I guess we use garbage as costumes for our plays.

 Piano recital with all 4 this year. Griffin just said "oh my gosh my hair looks so weird I look like a totally different person" haha. This was when we were briefly growing his hair out and he liked to "do" it. Quinn played "Take me out the the Ballgame", Griffin played "You're a Grand Old Flag", Campbell played "Did You Think to Pray" (an arrangement of the hymn) and Emery was the recital's grand finale with "Phantom of the Opera".

 Griffin earned the privilege of wearing all the fireman's stuff because he showed up at cub scouts wearing the most complete cub scout uniform out of all the boys. woo hoo

 Griffin's spring Select soccer team. He's #22... 4th from the right

I love when my friend Marilynn throws big parties cuz I get to hang out at her house cleaning dishes and being an official taste-tester while watching her make massive quantities of delicious food. It's super impressive.