Finally Summer Break!

 Nick's rock

 A day's work

 Park in Bode, IA

 Dad's turn

Monkey see, monkey do

I can't believe it has already been a month again since my last post.  We have kept pretty busy.  Mother's Day weekend Nick's mom brought up some plants and flowers to do some landscaping, so we spent a day doing that.  That same day, Nick went down to her house to bring back his giant rock that he dug out with their tractor.  We had to use the flat bed to get it here.  It was a very productive day and the front of the house looks much better than it did before.  Since then, Nick has also finished the steps on the front porch. 

During May, the kids and I also made a trip up to Manchester to see Nick's sister and her kids.  It was a fun day for all the kids and we got a lot accomplished for Mary's wedding.  We made mints and chocolates and got to talk about some of the details.  While we were there, Nick got some stuff done at home.  He went to get posts for fence and brought those home.  Now all he needs to do is dig the holes and put them in.  (I think that might be the harder part, though.)

Last weekend I helped our neighbor plant a garden and we had plenty of graduation open houses to go to.  The garden project is a first for both of us, so we are hoping that we have something to show for the work.  Nick and I also took our kids up to Spencer for his cousin's graduation from high school.  It was good to see everyone on the Britton side of the family.  We drove through Ogden and stopped in Bode at a park on the way up to show the kids where Mom and Dad grew up.  Owen slept through the park in Bode, but Gracie had fun playing.

Last weekend, Owen also had two more teeth come through.  He was kind of crabby on Saturday until we figured it out and gave him some Ibuprofen to help him out a little bit.  He is talking all the time, but we can't understand a lot of what he is saying.  It's kind of a guessing game right now.  When we get it right, though, he definitely lets us know.  He loves being outside and can finally peddle the little pink hotweels trike that Gracie had a couple years ago.  He loves playing on that!  He also still likes going for walks in his stroller.  Thank goodness he still likes playing in the bath tub; otherwise we would never get him to come in at night.  He does pretty well at bed time and will go to sleep on his own most nights.  We can hear him talking and singing to himself in his crib until he finally falls asleep.  Owen is doing pretty well in school.  He loves being outside there, too.  His teachers have told us that he struggles with letting other kids having turns and accepting "no."  He also likes being first to do everything.  He is otherwise very happy at school and is no longer trying to wrestle other kids.  It probably helps that we aren't going to wrestling meets twice a week anymore.

We just had Gracie's end of the year conference and preschool orientation.  She is doing great and will be in the 4-year-old preschool program next fall.  She is pretty excited to move up to the next room.  When she was going to bed the other night, I asked her if she would stay little forever.  Her response, as she giggled, "No, mom.  I'm growing."  Duh, mom.  She sees the bus pick up our neighbors every morning and says that when she is 5 she will get to ride the bus, too.  She is very good about helping around the house.  She loves helping Owen do things and we have to remind her that Owen needs to learn to do things by himself, too.  Her teachers also complemented her on how she is so caring toward other kids in her classroom and how helpful she likes to be.  She knows all of the uppercase letters of the alphabet and can count to 28.  I don't know why she stops there.  She recognizes some written names of other kids in her class.  She is very excited because this was the first week that they got to use their swimsuits at school.  They fill up a little pool and play in the water once a week during their recess time.  She loves that.

I'm not sure what our plans are for the holiday weekend.  Nick is hoping to get the tent out and let the kids sleep in it at least one night.  We are also hoping to get down to his mom's and maybe use their boat for a day.  There is a BBQ at one of our friends' on Monday and a pool party on Sunday.  So we should have plenty to do over the weekend.  Today is my last day of work until I start summer school!  I'm so excited!