Dear friend,
May was delightful! I love Mother's Day.
Joy is so sweet and gives me lots of little gifts and even made me breakfast! She is learning and growing is so many ways. She has a good group of girlfriends and had a blast at the Hindley Happening for hours. It was so much fun to watch her at field day. She is strong and beautiful. She is so excited for her birthday. The entire week leading up to it came with requests like, "This is the last Saturday I will ever be seven, can we watch a show?...This is the last Tuesday that I will be seven, can we celebrate with a treat?" She is an incredible big sister; she is so patient with Rose.
Summer is a beauty and a delight. I couldn't ask for a more delightful middle-schooler. It has been a lonely year at school but she has taken it in stride and we have all be grateful for her good friend groups at swim and church. She loves the church youth activities and enjoys serving as class president. Every once in a while nature takes a swing and we see some hormones flair, but I'm glad she has fire inside her. She bought caterpillars this month and we all enjoyed watching them transition into butterflies. I am so proud that she is overcoming her fear of bees. She helped me multiple times this month (there is something about about being fully covered that makes her a little braver). She continues to love art, reading, and singing.
Smith has really come into his own this year. I love this sweet boy. I took a three hour nap on Mother's Day and he brought me up some nachos that he made so we could eat them together. He loves spending time in the woods. He will often go off to Baker Woods by himself and return two hours later. Once he came back with a nasty case of poison ivy. It was a painful two-week recovery. His friend group at school is kind of fickle but he has really connected with a boy named Grayson at church; they adventure in the woods when they can together and he loves chatting with his cousin Peter on the phone. He has enjoyed robotic club and has really excelled at the trumpet.
Rose has shown so much growth at school this year. She still hasn't show much interest in riding a two-wheeler but she continues to ask to pet every dog she sees. If we are in the car or if the dog is too far to pet, she will yell, "that's a cute dog you've got there!" I took her to the library desk one day to ask the librarian a question, Rose paused a moment, looked at the librarian and said, "I inspected you to be bigger."
She absolutely loved her one-on-one time with Elias at the Hindley Happening while everyone else was with their friends and I was working the ticket booth all day. She feels things so deeply. Watching a movie with Rose is an experience because she reacts so intensely to every scene. There is usually always dancing, tears, yelling, and cuddles. There has been so much pollen outside lately and I thought her little pollen footprints were so cute. Elias recovered the driveway the following week and her little footprints from that weren't as cute.
May was a very busy month for me. I'm grateful to say I have a found a few good friends here. I was over Hindley Happening ticket sales for the second year in a row. I'm thrilled to report I now have two functioning beehives. I was over the youth camp fundraiser for church. We'll do a few things differently next year but I think it was a success and it is so moving to see the support and generosity of ward members. We celebrated Vivian's birthday and I made my raspberry cheesecake; I think it's delicious if I do say so myself. I was asked to speak at a MOPS meeting about their annual theme "Say Yes". I don't know how good it was but I put a lot of work into it so I attached my handout and speech notes. My friend and I also hosted a fundraising luncheon for an Afghanistan refugee named Mursal. She is such a kind and brave woman and I have very much enjoyed getting to know her.
And then of course, my dreamboat. Elias is my favorite. He has gotten really into his sourdough. What's funny is that he doesn't really care about the rules, it's kind of quantity over quality. He somehow always makes 4-6 loaves at a time. Funnier still is that sourdough bread gives him a stomach ache, and yet he has led the family in consuming loaf upon loaf this month. He gave me a wonderful Mother's Day, complete with a hike, a three-hour nap and homemade dinner of steak and potatoes. He took the boys with him on a YM campout this month (the girls and I had a campout in the attic and watched "Ever After" and talked in the dark cuddled up in bed until almost midnight.) His college friend Rob Staples came to visit with his family from California for a day. Even though it poured the entire time they were here, we all had a lot of fun! We are so grateful for their friendship.
I love this little family of ours. The tradition of Friday library visits continues (nearly 11 years now) and it is still as wonderful as ever. It always makes for a good weekend.
Love you all,
Brittany et al.
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