Hey, by finesse do you mean sputtering out sentence fragments and lighting things on fire?

Spring was in full bloom by May and the weeds were too.  I pruned shrubbery (I HATE shrubbery) pulled weeds and told Jason which trees to get rid of.  These pictures of Luke were taken while I was weeding.  He had asked if he could come outside "with my feets" instead of wearing shoes.  I think he really got a kick out of it because he kept running up and down the sidewalk while I listened to his feets slap against the pavement as he went.

We were getting tired of borrowing a truck to try and haul away the ridiculous amount of branches we had accumulated in our yard.  Most of them were from the trees we cut down last fall.  Lucky for us Jason cut down a big pine tree that I hated (I don't hate all plants, I promise) then pulled up a good part of the root.  This left us with a make-shift fire pit.  The kids helped gather rocks to line the edges then Jason commenced burning was was left of our rubbish pile.

I'm hoping to either dress this pit up a bit or else fill it in and make a garden.

Here is Charlotte showing off her new favorite thing: standing at the window.  She is pleased as punch that she can pull herself up there but seems to be even more excited about watching what's going on outside.  After she has watched for a while she smacks the window in approval.  My problem with this is that she still spits up and if this happens while she is at the window, often times she get her hand in the mess and start to "finger paint" on the window pane. Delicious.
She can now crawl and push herself up to sitting.  Plus she has proven proficient in waving.  I brought her to the hardware store with me (I'm in the process of fixing a running toilet) where she waved to a couple of older ladies.  They practically threw a fit about how cute she was. 

I had Aunt Kristi babysit for me one time and came home to find Charlotte with a new hair do.  Which is good because I'm pretty lame when it comes to dressing up baby hair.

Jason requested that I put up a picture of the room I painted.  The view isn't that great but this is mostly what it looks like.

I found some fabric for curtains I can make.

And here is the fabulous light fixture I have to deal with.  Any suggestions on something new?

In addition to that I have started scraping the wallpaper off in Luke's room so I can paint in there as well.  I'm pretty sure this wallpaper was manufactured by Satan considering the kind of time I'm having getting it off.  Erg.

Oh, and when Mother's Day rolled around I made myself this lovely gift.  I found the frame at ikea for $10.  It has a nice mat board with it that is white on one side and black on the other.  I considered having the kids do white hand prints on the black side but I liked this much better.  My Mother's Day also included sleeping in, breakfast in bed and several beautifully hand crafted cards. 

Adrienne finally lost one of her two front teeth.  She is a little lazy about getting teeth pulled so I gave her homework to wiggle it every night.  One night she found she had twisted it completely backwards and was a bit nervous about the situation.  I offered to turn it back and in the process her tooth fell out in my hand.

One time Adri made and labeled a "ramboe" on our fridge.

Luke attempts to fix our broken bird feeder.  Status:  the bird feeder is still broken.

Adrienne and Juliet had been begging me to let them have a sleep over with their cousins.  I scheduled with Loni and prepared for the evening.  It turned out to be the same evening as our local prom.  There were several fancily dressed people across the street so I pulled out my old sarongs and the girls dressed up as well.  Our Hawaiian prom was a hit and Charlotte and I were even invited to a Hawaiian dance program.  It was all very authentic.

It was a girls only night as Jason had taken Luke with him for our ward's camp out.  Luke was in heaven with all those other boys and having Daddy all to himself.  The best part was that no one brought any ticks home! Once home we helped Luke make the transition from crib to bed.  I got a sham from ikea that was covered in cars and that was all it took to make Luke a believer.  The crib is still in his room but now mostly serves as a jungle gym.

 These videos are Luke's first experience with a Frisbee.  Spoiler:  he's not a natural.

Charlotte has come to love Care Bears about as much as Juliet. 

This bear gets more baby kisses than I ever do.

Sometimes I think I'm the most boring mom in the world.  So one day I decided to consult my old pal, Pintrest, and see if there was anything cool we could do.  We made some volcanoes.  I even had a book about volcanoes and read a little bit from it, making this an educational activity!  Okay, mostly it was just fun to watch it fizz.

Then we figured out how to make us some snake bubbles.  It was pretty simple to do and Juliet had a lot of fun at it.  Adri joined in too when she got home.

Poor Luke.  He found out what happens when you suck the air in as opposed to just blowing it out.  Yeah, you get soap in your mouth.  He was not interested in bubble blowing after that.

Quotes:

Luke:  Look!  It's a hot chocolate truck!  (actually a UPS truck)

(remembering a story from primary)

Adrienne:  Who told Jesus to jump off the building?

Juliet:  I forget his name.

Luke:  It was me!

Luke:  Charlotte's my best friend

later . . .

Luke:  I don't like Charlotte.  Charlotte's looking at me.

Luke:  Mom, be gently to Dad!

Luke:  I wanna motor the lawn.

Luke:  And if I have to got potty then the four kittens say 'chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo!'

Luke:  Mom, I wanna go outside with my feets.  (barefoot)

Luke:  (meets a dog in the park) I think this dog needs to go potty.

Juliet:  Look, Mom!  I made a trafficone (trapezoid)!

Luke:  Stop talking

Annie:  You stop talking.

Luke:  I didn't talking.  I was singing . . . A, B, C, D, E, F, G . . .

Annie:  Hold still.  I need to wipe the blood off your nose.

Luke:  No!  I want to keep my blood!

Juliet:  Are leopards the fastest or cheetahs?

Annie:  Cheetahs.

Luke:  No, cars are the fastest.

(Previous Quote: Dirty Dancing, Winner: Scuba Steve)