May Madness

May was no doubt the busiest month we've had in a long while! Every single weekend (and many weekdays) were packed full of activities which I loved, but it made for a few chaotic and exhausting weeks!

I love surprises and I pulled off a pretty good one the first weekend of May! Our neighborhood was hosting a Mother's Day brunch at the clubhouse and I invited my Mom and Matthew's mom to join us. Living so far away I didn't expect that either of them would be able to attend but to my surprise Matthew's Mom was able to make arrangements to be here. We decided not to tell Kyndall but rather let it be a total surprise. So, after school I took her to get yogurt and she had no idea her Nonie would be sitting in the yogurt shop when she walked in. For a kid who is usually oblivious to the details around her, I was surprised how quickly she noticed. And, it made me laugh that she needed to go back and wipe the water off her shoes before walking across the clean floor. Yay for good manners!

Saturday May 5--On our way to brunch at the clubhouse

Everything looked SO beautiful!

Pretty excited to drink from a "fancy" glass!

"Cheers!"

When you give a 7 year old a straw and stemware....

Sweet little neighborhood friends

Our neighbor and Kyndall's "adopted" Grandmother Mrs. Lindsey joined us at the brunch as well. We love her!

After brunch each of us was given an envelope with real live butterflies inside that we were to release on the lawn of the clubhouse. The butterflies were shipped on ice from Florida and were asleep in the coolers but woke up once we brought them out into the sunshine. We've never done anything like this but it was SO neat!

Here are a couple of videos of Kyndall releasing her butterflies....

We spent the rest of the weekend enjoying our time with Nonie which included a trip to the outlet mall in Allen

No trip to Texas is complete without a visit to Buc-ee's

Mother's Day was less than a week away and Matthew and Kyndall treated me to these beautiful tulips

Back in their happy place

Kyndall has continued with her new found love for the game of golf. Matthew took her to try out a set of junior clubs....

Practice makes perfect...

Kyndall and her best friend Ashlyn feeding the neighborhood ducks

We loved taking advantage of the early evening temperatures by going on bike rides and walks around the neighborhood after dinner

When your Mom is on the PTO board and in charge of the chocolate fountain clean up during teacher appreciation week, you might get to sample the goods!

Our neighborhood hosted a Mother's Day craft one afternoon after school. Kyndall made me the sweetest little flower pot with her handprint on it!

On Friday nights during the summer the city of Forney hosts a free movie night at the local park. We met up with some of our friends from church for the first movie night of the summer. We packed our own popcorn and drinks plus picked up dinner on the way and had a picnic. It was great!

Kyndall and Bailee

We were very proud of Kynall for being chosen as one of only two first graders in her school to have her artwork displayed at the Forney Independent School District's annual art show. She is so gifted in the arts and we are thankful that her teachers recognize and foster that talent and encourage her to pursue her passion.

A replica of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night

Her sweet art teacher was there to support her and Kyndall LOVES Mrs. McCuistion!

Guess who the other first grader that was chosen happened to be?? Her best friend Ashlyn!

Kyndall wore her necklace that was given to her in memory of her very first art teacher Mrs. Carrie who unexpectedly passed away last summer. Kyndall still talks about her and misses her so much but we know that Mrs. Carrie is smiling down on her and is SO proud of Kyndall.

Mrs. Rader, the girls' school principal also came to show her support

And so did the assistant principal, Mrs. Tilton

The night before Mother's Day we had our friends Josh and Ashlie over to grill out and as always Kyndall loved playing with the adorable Maley Elaine.

Ashlie and I share the same name, the same birthday and if you've heard our story before then you already know that we also both had liver transplants and both moved to Dallas from Jackon, Tennessee around the same time. It still blows my mind when I think about the way God orchestrated our friendship! We can't wait to meet sweet baby girl #2 in July!

Maley Elaine did not love the fish but she did love the stale bread! Ha!

She could do this all day long

My 8th Mother's Day!

One year apart and she has changed SO much!

It was Mother's Day exactly 7 years ago that we dedicated Kyndall to the Lord, promising to raise her to love and obey Him and praying that someday she would come to know Him as her personal Lord and Savior. On Mother's Day this year Kyndall stood before the church and professed that she had asked Jesus into her heart and wanted to be baptized. Nothing will ever compare to the joy Matthew and I felt that day, knowing that our greatest prayer has been answered. Nothing she will ever achieve or accomplish in life could make us more proud than we are in knowing that she has accepted Jesus. Our life verse for her has always been 1 Samuel 1:17 which says "For this child we have prayed and the Lord has given us the desires of our hearts." Truly, He has done  that and I couldn't think of a better Mother's Day gift than this! My heart was so full!

Just like me, she loves to write and she was excited to write about her salvation in her journal

Her photo was on the screens in church the following Sunday during announcements

After church we continued our Mother's Day tradition of having a picnic at the park. This is how we've always celebrated Mother's Day and I love it! Our friends the McDermotts joined us this year which made it extra fun!

Kyndall and Bree

For weeks Kyndall had been up in her craft room working on goodies for me for Mother's Day. She was SO excited to finally give them all to me.

My favorite gift of all was this painting that she did

My 3 kids

Mother's Day bike ride

A great way to end a wonderful day!

Our town is known for being home to lots and lots of rabbits. Our neighborhood seems to be particularly full of them and we were lucky enough to have a family of baby bunnies living in our front yard flower bed. 

Kyndall is the biggest animal lover you will ever meet so she was over the moon excited about these sweet little babies.

She was concerned about this one because he seemed to have a hurt back leg. He didn't move as fast as the others which made him much easier to catch but it also really concerned her that he may have been hurt.

We brought him inside to check him out a little more

She couldn't wait to jump out of bed each morning and check on the bunnies before leaving for school. As soon as she got home each afternoon she went straight to their nest to see about them. We decided to mark the hurt bunny by placing a pink dot on its head so that we could tell it apart from its siblings so that we'd know where it was all the time. Kyndall nick named it "slow poke" and it was definitely her favorite!

A few days later the bunnies slowly started disappearing as they got older and more brave, venturing further and further from their little nest in our front yard. Even slow poke eventually regained his strength and also made his way out into the world. Each time we see a bunny now we look closely at its head to see if we can find that pink mark. Hopefully we'll get to see slow poke again someday!

Side note--As I mentioned, Kyndall is a lover of ALL living creatures and here's proof. She told me that one day recently a cricket made its way into their classroom and her teacher told her to run and go step on it. She couldn't handle the thought of killing an innocent cricket so she acted like she was stepping on it but said she was secretly letting the cricket run away while acting like she couldn't catch up to it. So sweet!

We followed through on our promise for a bigger, newer bike when she learned to ride without training wheels!

We've been talking about extending our back patio for over a year now and we finally made it happen, just in time for summer!

Kyndall was excited to leave her mark in the wet concrete

Before....

After....

First order of business was getting a picnic table and an umbrella so that we could enjoy family dinners outdoors this summer!

Cam seemed to like the shade that the new umbrella provided

Matthew and Kyndall gave me this swing for Mother's Day four years ago but I invested in some cute new cushions and it looks like an entirely new piece of furniture.

I've always wanted these little lights on our back porch 

First dinner on the new patio!

We finally got some decent patio furniture and I created a cute little sitting area on the back porch

As the school year was winding down so was Wednesday night Level Up at church. On the last night they had a fun night, complete with bouncy slides. Kyndall and Bree had a great time together.

Every Friday I have lunch with Kyndall and this was our last one for the first grade year. I hope she'll always love for me to eat with her at school!

Dairy Queen treat after school one day, just because!

Our neighborhood pool opened in mid-May and these two had their inaugural swim, despite the chilly temperatures...

At last, the final week of school arrived and with it came special permission from the principal for NO UNIFORMS! Her class chose a theme for each day and Monday was "beach day".

Tuesday was "camping day"

We had two early release days during the last week of school and we ended up at the neighborhood pool on both of those afternoons.

First grade awards day at Crosby Elementary

Kyndall received the "Really Respectful" award, along with her friend Sophia

She also received an award for straight A honor roll

And lastly she was one of only a few chosen to receive the Art award

Matthew and I are SO proud of her and all of her hard work during first grade!

Kyndall's teacher, Mrs. Tarrant

The BEST elementary school guidance counselor in all of Texas! We adore Mrs. Sarten! She has been so good to Kyndall!

Can't believe we're about to have a SECOND grader! I feel like we just started kindergarten! 

Daddy took the rest of the afternoon off and we celebrated at Sweet Frog's

Another afternoon spent at the pool

Friday May 25th was officially the last day of school!

What a difference 9 months has made!

The first graders had a picnic on the last day of school so I joined them and then checked Kyndall out a little bit early.

Kyndall and Ashlyn, best friends (most of the time! Ha!)

Sweet girls!

On the first day of summer break Kyndall slept until 11:00 and then woke up to eat donuts on the back porch. Now that's how you enjoy your summer!

The first weekend of summer break also happened to be Memorial Day weekend and our sweet neighbor told us to use her pool while she was out of town, so we did!

The problem is....now we want one too!

This should scare the boys away this summer! This is actually a new snorkel/mask combo that we bought for Kyndall to use when we go snorkeling on our cruise this summer. She always has a hard time getting the hang of keeping the snorkel in her mouth so this should make it much easier. She tried it out in the pool for the first time.

Kyndall's friend Aubree had her birthday party at the splash pad over the holiday weekend

"Dirt and Worms" at Freddy's is her favorite treat

Making bracelets on the back porch while the sun goes down

We don't always coordinate outfits for church but when we do it's usually because it's a holiday and usually because I forced them to. And usually one of them protests with squinty eyes....

Back to the pool on Sunday afternoon

Bailee and her Mom joined us

Pizza on the back porch for dinner

Followed by some fishing

Bailee caught her very first fish!

Memorial day....

We made our very first visit to Ham Orchards on Memorial day. Nothing is more American than homemade peach ice cream on a hot Texas day.

On Tuesday Maley Elaine came over to play while her mommy had a doctor's appointment. I got brave and decided to take both girls up to the pool which was a lot of fun but I forgot what it was like to have a toddler who requires your eyes 100% of the time, versus a 7 year old fish who doesn't need much supervision. 

May was a great month but I'm glad it's over because that means summer break is now in full swing and Kyndall and I are ready to set off on our first summer road trip! She and I will be driving to Tallahassee on Friday to spend two weeks with our family and although we will miss Matthew, I cannot wait to have some fun! Happy summer!