May is OVER!

Boy being a goofball during a meal.

I think Dancy looks kind of like Lisa in this picture. That may or may not be her middle finger.

Katie was so proud of walking her back up this tree!

Ruth and her boyfriend Coltyn came to visit. Coltyn is the new favorite male in the family. Everyone pales in comparison, or at least that's how it is if you ask Katie.

I love when Sam has cute bedhead!

Thora's piggy tails!

While walking around town with Ruth and Coltyn, we were suddenly stopped and asked if we could help set up for and attend a surprise birthday party happening any minute. It was over an hour later and we missed lunch, but our Thora was stoked that she got a cupcake! That much sugar on an empty stomach is NOT a good idea though. I don't recommend it ;)

New Four-year-old in Town!

Dancy turned 4 at the end of May. We partied all day long! 

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.

Her crashed balloon tower.

Opening presents in pajamas.

{Thora, Tommy, Dancy, Katie}

Shad took an hour off for lunch to take this girl on a date to Dairy Queen.

She happily told everyone that she was there to have lunch with her dad because it's her birthday and she is FOUR!

Okay, when I say we partied all day, I mean we did all that fun stuff and then I let the kids have free time. Sometimes that's how it goes.

Mud!

We rearranged our kids in beds in the little people room! Dancy moved to the top "bunk," we tried Thora in an open bed again (bottom "bunk" aka, mattress on the floor), and moved Samson from the pack 'n' play to Thora's crib. To help Thora want to stay in bed instead of run amok, we built a tent! She loved sleeping in her bed! We kept it up for several weeks until Dancy declared that "Four-year-olds wear underwear to bed." We figured we wanted it to be easier for her to get out as needed.

Bed tents are AWESOME!

After the death of the white dresser, we moved this low brown one in from our guest room. And guess what! Our kids now have access to looking out a window. We love it!

May was a pretty rainy month and Samson and Katie took full advantage of it!

This boy with his soggy bottoms and scuffed nose! So happy!

Bestest little buddy.

Mud is only her favorite thing in the world. Even more than princesses. Thankfully!

Mud buddies!

Thora is now on a big Sofia the First kick. For months she's been wearing her 2 purple dresses as much as she possibly can (and I've been trying to keep them washed for her to re-wear them). "Mom, I'm Sofia!"

Cute Princess pose!

Camping With Tommy

"Go camping," they said. "It'll be relaxing," they said.

Not with a six-year-old boy overjoyed and jazzed up to be camping for the first time.

This is the same boy who loves just sitting by ponds and lakes because it's relaxing. Why did I ever conceive that we might do just that? We didn't. And the one time we did, he kept asking me if I was bored and that he'd hurry and finish his drawing so we could go have fun. It was only five minutes.

But here we go, boy playing energetically with our fire instead of sitting and letting it hypnotize him. This fire was hard worked for because of the dang Kansas wind. We actually gave up on roasting hot dogs, went to the Mexican restaurant for dinner and returned to try again for smores. We won the second time.

Do I look like I'm smiling through frustration and exhaustion? I feel like I look tired.

Chilling at the pond?

No. Rambunctiously throwing in rocks.

Ahhh! That five minutes of peaceful water reflection.

And then shooting BBs and playing shuttlecock.

We had loads of fun, but I think next time I'll teach him how to relax with camping.

May

Tommy took this picture of Samson because he "awww"ed over his cuddly baby brother.

Thora rocked pigtails for something like 5 months straight.

Would you believe it, I did this braid!!! And it actually looks good! Tommy came up right as I finished and asked Katie who did her hair, while complimenting the good looking braid. I proudly answered that I did. We're pretty excited that my braiding skills are improving.

You know, because he did this one day while I was reading aloud to them.

Out at Sebelius Reservoir watching the waterfowl.

Pelicans at Prairie Dog State Park

This was one of the saddest days ever. We have had the same sparrow pair in our birdhouse for 6 years and for 6 years we've enjoyed watching them with their new babies each spring. We've defended their residency as each spring a different breed of birds tries to conquest the real estate. We added the block of wood one May for Mother's Day after I observed the exhausting fluttering of the mother hovering to feed her babies. And then one day in May there was a ruckus. One of the babies died. The mom and dad were so distressed! Dad was trying to haul the body out, but was struggling to get it out of the hole. Mom kept swooping in on Dad and beating him with her wings to leave her baby alone. Oh, how we cried for our birds! And there was nothing we could do to help without being human interference. So we took the pinecones that we have in buckets in my office (yeah, that's a thing), pasted them up with peanut butter (after verifying that it's safe for birds) and rolling them in the bird seed I bought last spring. It was the best offering we could make to hang those pinecone feeders for our mourning bird family as we mourned with them.

Momma defending her baby's body from Dad.

And then the next day they moved out and new birds immediately moved in. We miss our birds, but understand them moving. We haven't gotten to know the new residents yet.

Happier times: Lego Club! Tommy and his friend Marcus built Gringotts Bank. Note the piles of gold, marble walls and structures, and Hagrid with goblin.

Ah, yes! And there's Harry...threatening the goblin with his wand?

Katie built the Gateway Arch.

Norton Cemetery

I started a big project back in March, I think it was. I love findagrave.com! They and their community of contributors have provided a wealth of information to me in genealogy research. I can't even put a number to the list of names I have generated from the help of people who have photographed and cataloged key small town Nebraska cemeteries where my family is concentrated. And so, when my LDS Family Search website went on the fritz, I decided to abandon research and photo document the entire Norton cemetery, which had previously been only 53% photographed, a large portion of which were grainy and unreadable. The laws of Karma dictate that if I want to continue to receive help from the universe, I must give back. It has been a long, hard project. I mean, who'd have thought that simply taking headstone pictures would be so difficult, but here's a little of the challenges I faced.

In April, the peony bushes grew up. And then were flattened by our spring snowstorm with insanely heavy snow. This picture of the Marshall family plot actually has 5 headstones covered by the bushes. I carried a walking stick to help shove the bushes out of the way.

This photo of the Hills includes 2 buried headstones to the left and right of the main marker. The Norton cemetery has many buried headstones in it, but they aren't allowed to be dug up and preserved. Once someone buys a plot, they own that land and the only caretaking allowed is mowing.

The kids were a great support team for me! They loved going to walk around the stones and bushes, watch the airplanes at the airport across the street (private and cropdusters), or read headstones and learn how to make inferences based on names, dates and symbols.

And then when the heat kicked in and I told them we'd hit Sonic Happy Hour after a photo session, they started asking if we could please go to the cemetery.

The cemetery is probably 90% in direct sunlight (like the state of Kansas), so things got pretty brutal when the best time of day to go was 11 am - 1 pm. That was the best time to avoid shadows over the headstones. I pushed to finish all the photos in May before a heat wave came, and the lilies grew in June. It was an intense, long day of four 1-hour sessions. And then I spent all of June uploading the pictures.

Sonic Happy Hour!

And note the outfit. I had to wear a hat, not sunglasses, to shield my eyes from the sunglare so I could see my phone screen to know if a picture had actually taken or not. Thank goodness for the neck cooler I was given by my "ma" and "pa" on the youth Pioneer Trek I went on 12 years ago! Pants were best for comfort against the awful Kansas grasses, but too hot, so I wore shorts, but they had to have pockets for my gear. Running shoes on my feet to protect against said awful grasses. Cemetery uniform: hat, neck cooler, shorts with pockets, running shoes. Now gear. Heavy duty walking stick for shoving peonies out of the way. Hedge clippers for trimming evergreen bushes growing over headstones. White chalk for tracing engravings that are too faint to show up in a picture. Spray bottle to wash off the chalk. And spray self and kids for a cool-down.

Digression aside, Samson loved the cold treat!

Pretty sure that day was something like 95% and a mild 30% humidity. We all earned our Sonic after 2 hours of that. And that's also why everyone comments on my tan kids!

So good!

Remember how hedge clippers were on my gear list? Do you see the headstone in the bush?

This was on my last day in the cemetery, pushing to finish that night, struggling against sun glare on headstones, and this moonrise made it all worth it.

This is one of my favorites from March.

Now, remember how the cemetery was 53% photographed when I started? It was 92% when I finished it. I was so upset! I knew that I'd miss headstones here and there, but not that many out of 6400! But when I went back to find some of the ones I missed, most of them weren't there. Simply not in the plot with their families. Either buried or missing headstones. And that is absolutely aggravating to me! I can't stand that people can be lost like that. But I have to let it go because there's nothing I can do about it. 

Here is the link for the Norton Cemetery at Find a Grave, if you want to see some of my work:

Norton Cemetery

My Find a Grave member stats are:

148 memorials added and managed

4,625 photos

92 volunteer photos taken (specific photos requested)

Member for 6 months, 22 days

I love this new world of service and community I've found and look forward to continuing it in cooler weather!