School Events, Part 1

Here are some pictures and videos of school events in the month of May. I think of May as December #2 since it is so busy! Busy, but fun...cramming everything in before break!

I found this of Elisa in an email from the school

May 8

Elisa's band concert, her last one ever. Erik had a good enough view to get some videos of her.

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Some pictures of Ian I found, probably in an email sent to me by the school that I stole. He sure had a great 4th grade experience, judging by these pictures!

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May

I stopped by Ian's school for a few minutes to see his math project, they were studying area and made cool stuff out of boxes.

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https://youtube.com/shorts/k_3_6SftU5g?feature=share

May 20

Ian's morning and afternoon performances in the school talent show. He performed Want You Gone from Portal 2, a video game. He worked really hard on this song and did a great job! I didn't force him to be in the talent show this year, I let him choose and he chose to be in it again! I went to both performances, morning and afternoon. Some of the acts were okay and some were cringy. Most of the talent show seems to be made up of the same kids from previous years.

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May 21

Pretty girl's last day of 8th grade!

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May 22

Ian's last day of 4th grade, and Gabe's last day of his Sophmore year!

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Stuff I Made in May

After finally, finally finishing my quilt, I was anxious to get on with other (smaller!) projects. 

The first project I wanted to get done was the pillow kit I had purchased at the quilting fair back in January. This pillow required lots of hand embroidery, an area that I'm only semi-familiar with and therefore only semi-good at. Some of the stiches that the pattern asked for I had to look up on YouTube for directions on how to do. It took a while but of course nothing takes as long as a quilt. It's not perfect, but I always tell myself done is better than perfect! All in all, though, I do like the way it turned out and, it now resides in my front room on the couch. 

 

Finished May 14

Then I got the painting bug and had to squash it:

Finished May 16

I bought some black canvas at Walmart and wanted to try it out. Its fun, but I have to underpaint white first, so the colors pop out.

Finished May 17

Another 2-hour Sunday painting. I like it...it's aight.

Finished May 15

I saw a print on Amazon and though meh...I can make that. So I did. Mine is on the left and the original is on the right. I think I did a good enough job, except my buttes in the background are too peach/not pink enough. I'm happy with it though. At least my version has texture to it--the Amazon version would have been a flat print. I put this painting in place of an ugly print of a red plant that I got for free; it was nice to be able to reuse the frame.

Mother's Day Celebrations 2025

Another fun Mother's Day! After church, the women were given cinnamon rolls. They let Elisa have one too. Erik bought me red carnations and smoked some ribs for dinner. Elisa made me a sweet card, and Gabe did nothing. Ian did mostly nothing, but I put his name on a gift that I bought for myself on Ebay. Elisa made me a cute card. Here are the pictures:

Smoked ribs for dinner. Yum!

Pretty flowers

The piano figurine I ordered for myself that was "from Ian". It was "from Ian" because the little boy on the bench represents Ian and I'm the woman teaching him. Her hair was originally blonde, but I painted it a dark brown to match mine. I love it! Its from the 1970's.

Elisa's cute card. I still need to use it!

Erik got me this cool piano kit from Amazon (it was on my wish list). It was fun but tricky to put together. The keyboard is slightly ripply but it works! Its probably one of my more awesome/interesting pianos

While I was in Utah, I bought my mom a few things at TJMaxx for Mother's Day and left them on the counter for her. The kitties are so cute; I knew she would like them when I spotted them.

Elisa's 14th Birthday Celebrations/Trip to Utah

In lieu of a birthday party this year (not that Elisa even wanted one) I decided to take her on a weekend surprise trip up to South Jordan, Utah to see her cousin Aaliyah! It was hard to stay quiet about it since I was excited. The flight to SLC left Friday at 4pm. I picked Elisa up a little bit early from school in order to make sure we made the flight on time. Unfortunately, just as I was checking her out, I got an email informing me that the flight was delayed on hour. So, then I played it as I was just picking her up early to take her out...which I did. We went the shops at Norterra and she picked out a cookie at Crumbl and some makeup at Sephora--she even got a couple freebies since it was her birthday. At this point, Elisa had no clue that I was taking her anywhere else. I had her backpack with her clothes in the back seat (I took Erik's Lexus because he needed the van to take the boys to the fathers and sons campout), but she didn't see it. She started to get suspicious and wanted to know where we were going when I was driving on the freeway towards the airport. By the time we arrived at the airport, she thought I was picking up Aailyah to stay with her for her birthday. Good guess, but not quite! When I parked in the airport parking, she mostly had it figured out. That stupid flight got delayed even longer so we sat for quite some time. Darn Frontier. 50/50 chance if the flight is on time or not. While we were waiting for the flight, I let her open one of her physical gifts-purple Bluetooth earbuds. I also bought her a fruit drink at Starbucks since she was thirsty. We didn't even get to sit together on the flight, but its only an hour so it was no big deal.

Elisa and her birthday pancake. I sent her to school afterwards with no hints as to what I had planned!

Elisa chose a strawberry shortcake cookie at Crumbl. Still no clue as to her upcoming adventure!

She knew where we were going by now! She was excited.

Lisa picked us up, and surprise! Tootsie was in the car. She hung out with Lisa and me that evening. For the rest of the weekend, Elisa had fun with her cousin Aaliyh. I'm not exactly sure all that they did together, but I was having fun myself. My mom and Michael were out on their mega-visitation trip, so I mostly hung out with Lisa. We even got to go out for dinner with Tootsie, Mark, and my Dad. We also did lots of shopping. What a short but fun weekend! I'm glad we got to go.

The cousins were excited to see each other, can you tell? 

Having fun in the tree

Elisa loves going to Cupbop

Eating at Sol Agave. I shared a meal with Tootsie. Mark, my dad, and Lisa also all came. We had a good time.

3 out of the 4 of my mom's kitties. You can kind of see Dolores's (the black cat) messed up leg. Poor kitty. She has to drag it around since it doesn't work anymore--one of the vet technicians pulled her leg out of it socket. The vet himself tried to fix it, but it was an unsuccessful surgery. Despite all this, Dolores gets around all right and even manages to run away when it is her pill time.

We picked this cake out for Elisa at Sam's Club. Elisa was grouchy and overly tired, so she refused to come down and let us sing happy birthday to her. Lisa and I dug into the cake anyway.

Poor Elisa got almost no sleep the night before, you can see it in the picture. I gave her a slice of cake with no singing--as requested. I also gave her a few gifts (Strawberry Shortcake cups and gummies) that I found at TJMaxx.

Aaliyah saying her last-minute goodbyes to Elisa right before she left. The flight home was on time (yay). She got dropped off at school when we got back to Phoenix, so she didn't have to miss so much school.

Later that Monday evening, we had a little family "party" to celebrate her birthday. I made her a strawberry pie and gave her a few more gifts. I didn't buy her a whole lot since the trip was her gift, but I couldn't resist buying her the Kendra Scott Elisa necklace. Yep, Elisa is its name! It was perfect for her; I got her the rose quartz since that's her favorite gem. Her friend Jayde also gave her a basket of gifts.

Strawberry pie for Elisa!

Opening her necklace

The Elisa necklace for Elisa!

Jayde's gifts to Elisa. She's a nice friend for Elisa to have.

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May 23. As part of yet another celebration of Elisa turning 14, I put together a little outing to a tea house in Cave Creek, The English Rose tearoom. Originally, I was going to have the brunch Elisa's birthday weekend, but since I decided to go to Utah that weekend instead, I changed the tearoom date for May 23, a day or two after school let out. I had been to this tea house before a couple of times. I thought it would be fun to invite a small group of shared friends plus an ex-Young Women's leader (Ms. Shelly) that Elisa and her friends really liked. It was fun, if a little pricey, and the girls got showered with gifts from Ms. Shelly. We all had a good time, and maybe we will try another tea house sometime.

 

The group from both sides of the table.

Opening their gifts

Elisa was given a cupcake for her birthday

Happy Happy 14th birthday to Elisa!