Memorial Day Weekend.

We went to Idaho Falls for Memorial Day this year. Of course, the weather was crappy, so what we could do was limited. We made the most of it, though. On Saturday afternoon nine (9!!!) of us piled into Dad's truck to go up to the cemetery to place our flowers and to wash the headstones, only to find out once we got there that nobody had brought any cleaning stuff! HAHA.

Sunday we had a family dinner and then a surprise party for my niece Kayla who was going to have a spinal fusion the next week to correct her scoliosis. All the older girls stayed the night at my Dad's. All of us staying there got zero sleep.... oh wait, except for my Dad to escaped to his TRAILER! Genius! It was hilarious to listen to the girls laugh their heads off and at one point, even sing the national anthem at the top of their lungs. Well, ok. Maybe not hilarious until the next day. ;) Everyone gave Kayla presents to help her with recovery and I made the decorations. It was a fun way to show Kayla we love her and support her! It was also Joel's birthday that day and I attempted to make him a surprise birthday cake until Randy TOTALLY blew the surprise. He felt so stupid. It was hilarious and oh so awkward.

Monday we all went to the cemetery for their ceremony at 10 AM. Can I just say that I think it is awesome that my whole family goes to the cemetery on Memorial Day? We were the biggest group there. My Mom made it important to us to go visit my sister's and grandpa's grave growing up, so now it is important to us to visit her and my other grandparents who have now passed.

After the cemetery we all went and got lunch and brought it to my brother's office and ate, then played nerf guns! It was awesome!! Something not many people know is 9 hours later... when we got home and I was unpacking at our house, I bent over to pick something up and heard a "OH...MY...GOSH" from Randy. I freaked out thinking I had a spider on me or something and then he told me to look in my boobs. HAHA. Can you believe that a dart from the nerf war made it undetected all the way back to Utah lodged in my cleavage. I was pretty embarrassed, but that didn't last long. It was too dang funny to be embarrassed over.

Here are the pics! (Not of my bosoms, perv... but of the weekend.)

Coelton goes on his mission.

We're going to back track for a bit. There are a couple of things that I didn't post but want to!

In the beginning of May, my oldest nephew Coelton (whom I am only 7.5 years older than) left for his mission. Since his family was driving to take him to the MTC I offered up my house for them to stay, that way I could say my goodbye to him. I don't know if that was a good idea or not. I don't know why, but I get SO emotional about stuff like that. When my older brother Justin left on his mission I cried for days it seemed like. In a way I kind of wish I would have gone to his farewell a few weeks earlier in Boise and just said "see ya later" there. But when they stayed over, they were literally dropping him off that day, and it just broke my heart. My sister Natalie was having a hard time with saying goodbye to her oldest for 2 years, and I felt like I needed to be there to comfort her.... but honestly, I am the WORST person to comfort. I cry right along with you and feel your pain. I realized Nat was probably missing my mom so much because she was the only other person in our family to have sent a missionary off, and in a way felt like I needed to fill that void. Welp... I'm sure I fell way short, but can't say I didn't try!

They stayed over Tuesday night and we watched The Voice and The Biggest Loser and per Coelton's request... some Sports Center. : ) The next morning I got up and was so excited to try out my new parfait glasses I had scored at a thrift store earlier in the week, I made yogurt parfaits with homemade granola for breakfast. It was pretty yummy, Macey still asks for parfaits in the cool glasses. Natalie and Joel took Coelton to the temple early that morning and I tried to entertain the other kids with whatever I could to take their mind off of what was coming.

When it was time to say goodbye and walk them out, I was already tearing up but was trying hard to stay strong for Natalie. It didn't work. I hugged Coelton and told him I was so proud of him, and cracked some dumb joke/quote from Nacho Libre or something to stop me from crying but that didn't work either. Then it was time to hug Natalie, and I totally broke down. I failed as a comforter. She was strong and didn't cry, though. Just the big bawl baby aunt did.

As I watched them pull out of my driveway, I had a nice long cry thinking about how hard these next couple of days were going to be for both of them. I kept looking at the clock and at noon when it was his "time"for drop off, I said a prayer and cried. Haha. Later, I called Natalie and we both cried while she told me how it was to drop him off at the MTC. The next day I sent Coelton a letter with a dozen Krispie Kreme donuts to help him feel better. What's funny is he was totally fine and was probably like, wow, my aunt is being really weird. : ) I have a hard time with things like that, ok?!

Anyway, here are some pictures...

The crew watching tv

 That's all he was allowed to take!

 Joel teasing Collin, of course.

 Loading up.

 Cute family pic!

 Joel teasing Collin again.

 Yeah, putting him on top of the car didn't go over so well with Collin.

 Using Collin as a distraction so I wouldn't cry!

It's funny now that I look back at it, but man, was I emotional! Coelton is the oldest grandchild and I realized that our family isn't going to be the same. I have another nephew that graduated last month (and totally bawled when I saw pictures on Facebook of it) and will be going on a mission next year. Crazy! Coelton is doing great, almost out of the MTC and itching to get out into the mission field! He is an amazing missionary!

Preschool graduation.

On Wednesday Macey graduated her 2nd year of preschool. We are so proud of her! She is now reading, can write the whole alphabet with uppercase and lower case letters, can count to 50 and in 10's to 100, and is drawing/coloring crazy good! This year of preschool has been so fun. She had 3 teachers, one of them is in our ward. She went with 9 other kids from our neighborhood! The day after she graduated she told me "I'm so so sad that I'm done with preschool because I love my teachers, but I'm so so excited to go to kindergarten!" :0)

I know it's kind of silly to cry over a preschool graduation, but I did. Each stage is so fun with our kids, I love watching them grow and develop and mature.... I just can't believe how fast time flies!

I've been wanting to make a cute little ruffled skirt for Mace for a while, so I used preschool graduation as my deadline. It turned out pretty good, she was SO excited to wear it with the bow I made!

Grandma and Grandpa S came to watch the graduation and took us to lunch afterward. Macey was front and center for the program and took it all very seriously. She knew every word and every motion to every thing!

This picture shows Macey's true colors. I love that little belly!

 Cute story, the boy she is sitting next to is the cutest little boy from our neighborhood! He is also in her church class. The other day she was drawing a picture that had lots of hearts on it and came and asked me how to spell his name. :0) Love it!

 The other little boy next to her didn't want to have anything to do with the program! Haha!

 "J likes to jump like a speckled frog, J likes to jump like a speckled frog"

 Her adorable teachers!

 Can't you just hear the 'tude?

The day after graduation her preschool had reserved a bouncy house place just for their preschool, so we went and had fun. I didn't get any pictures of Macey cause most of the time I didn't know where she was! She was living it up with her friends. Instead I got some cute pictures of Collin going on this GINORMOUS slide! I was so surprised! The boy has no fear.

 What's this?! A SMILE caught on camera?? I was praying that it turned out! His personality is so fun, it drives me bonkers that he shuts it down when I take out the camera!

Easters

Wow, doesn't take much to get behind! While I have a minute (banished the kids outside) I figured I better update now or it may never get done!

This year we went up to Logan and spent Good Friday and Saturday with Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Larry. Randy's sister Lisa and her family came up too and we had a party! We had a yummy Easter dinner followed by an epic traditional egg hunt! Randy remembers he would ask his friend that lived across the street to watch out the window while his parents hid the eggs and then tell him (Randy) where they were. HAHA! I'm so not surprised.

After Saturday's festivities we headed back home.

Saturday night I was up late playing Easter bunny and loving it. I took pictures of what the kids woke up to. Mostly dollar tree crap and Target deals... but the kids of course loved it! Does anyone else remember the egg bubble gum? Oh my favorite!

For church Sunday we went and visited our old Provo ward, for a farewell of one of Randy's old young men. He was one of the youngest when Randy was YM President, so it was SO crazy to go and see how grown up everyone is! We both were a little misty eyed when we left, that ward has a special place in our hearts. We loved serving with the youth and are so grateful that they keep in touch with us. Matthew is going to Anaheim, California and will be an amazing missionary!

When we got back from the farewell we had our own Easter dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, salad and for dessert snowballs that I made into bunnies. Snowballs is a Slade holiday tradition, it's just vanilla ice cream rolled up into balls and then rolled in coconut. SO GOOD. I colored the coconut and made some ears for the 'bunnies'. Macey loved it!

I'm mad the pictures of Macey in her dress and Collin in his cute shirt didn't turn out, so I'll probably do a re-do soon. I loved their outfits!

 Youngest got to go first. Collin has an innate sense of easter egg hunts. He knew exactly what to do.

 Macey spotted her first egg!

 Collin would run up to the egg and would yell "GOTCHA" when he would drop it in the basket.

 Macey showing her prize- the last egg of the hunt.