Helen's Baptism

 Helen was baptized on June 4th.  It was a special day for her, and we were lucky to have family from both near and far celebrate with us.

The Finches and Calls came down from Bristol, my mom and Warren flew all the way from St George, and my brother Nate rode his motorcycle over the mountains from Charlotte.

Every big event needs a big meal, and this day was no exception.

Dyersburg or Bust

Over Memorial Day weekend we went to visit Craig and his family who are on the entire other side of Tennessee. As we are 30 minutes from the Virginia border, they are 30 minutes from the Arkansas border. We discovered that there is a lot of Tennessee in between.

 Above, you can see, the kids working on one of their current favorite outside activities - making clover chains as long as they can. They are getting so good that we measure them in body lengths instead of feet.

 After giving Heidi the slip by sneaking into the reptile room, Craig embraces some snake time. I am just going to mention that my kids do so much better with snakes than dogs. When we see dogs on our walks the youngest two kids climb up to my head using fingernails and sheer grit in 15 seconds flat. Whereas with snakes they are more than willing to touch them. I think it has something to do with size differences and quickness of movement.

Here we are on our boardwalk hike under the cypress trees. What a cool hike!

I'm pretty sure we doubled their branch size all showing up on Sunday.

Here we are remembering soldiers on Memorial Day. Ryan forgot to put the flag in the picture. I don't know why, since it was a giant Confederate flag. Then we took the kids downtown for a Memorial Day service. I wish I could make it through one of those without tearing up. In fact, I didn't even make it through the opening prayer. Oh well, remembering sacrifices can do that to a person. Everyone's favorite part was the, "Can I get an, 'Amen'!" shouted half way through the keynote speaker's address. I think Craig is enjoying his time in the South.

Helen agreed to ice cream for her birthday. It's so good to turn 8 on vacation. Although to say she  doubted she could even be happy away from home on her big day does not even begin to capture her trepidation/angst/sadness. She really did manage to have a great birthday.

Remodeling Fun

This winter and spring we finished up two bedrooms and a bathroom. I really wanted to take off these dark colors and put up some lighter wallpaper.

 I made great blackout fabric for the kids bedroom window so the kids have an easier time falling asleep in the summer. We also learned that even though the wallpaper on the bottom looks random, it is not, and required great eyesight to line up the pattern.

We were a little worried to only have a half bathroom upstairs. To say nothing of the sketchy carpet patterned with all kinds of mysterious stains. One day while sitting up there I realized that if we took the closet wall out there would be plenty of room for a shower. In fact, it would be much bigger than many of the bathrooms we've used around the world. Luckily in Tennessee building codes are mere suggestions and we ran with it. 

We had a great contractor who came in an helped us take care of everything except for the wallpaper. This was the hardest room to wallpaper to date. Something about only having one night to get the job done (Ryan assured our contractor that we could do it in a few hours) and a sloped ceiling.

I am particularly proud of the slanted shower curtain I sewed up. That's a bendable curtain rod that can be used for bay windows. We just attached it upside down and it works great. In fact, this bathroom is so nice that Ryan and I started using it and let the kids use the downstairs one. It's kind of like going to the spa.

We finished redoing our last upstairs bathroom last month. Choosing the wallpaper was more tricky because they had to match my curtains. I made these black out curtains for our last home and by some modern sewing miracle they fit perfectly in this room.

Alice would rather take wallpaper off the wall than anything else during quiet time. Probably because it gives her a chance to use a squirt bottle and chat my ear off. And just in case you were wondering we painted over the mysterious letters and didn't put new ones up. Although it would be fun for the next homeowner to find a bunch of Ms and As.

 Our last room upstairs got a new closet with the bathroom remodel. We are really happy with it and the inside is slanted to match all the other closets upstairs. 

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Note the wallpaper in the hall that's safe for the time being. It will be coming off, but not until after summer and fall are over. It's hard to find time to wallpaper with a garden and yard to tend to.

Happy Birthday Jane!

Jane turned 6 this spring. We were having really warm weather, but favorite foods must be honored. Hence we enjoyed hearty bowls of chili whilst wiping the sweat from our brows. A shout goes out to Hannah for making a triple layer purple velvet cake with purple flowers. Just what she wanted!

The whole gang made it!

The other day we had a double rainbow out our front porch. Although beautiful, it is merely a backdrop to show the differences between the girls and boy in our family. Let's be totally honest, it could be age related. 

Which reminds me of a funny story. Ryan had gone up to wake up Carl from his name and asked Carl if he wanted to go shopping with him. Carl agreed and came downstairs and with sleep still heavy in his eyes he said, "Dad needs a new tool." Ryan swears he didn't suggest that, but I'm suspicious. 

Friday was the last day of school. I am not sure who is the most sad, we just all love school (even the two who aren't in school). I got to teach nutrition to the kids classes this year and that was a fun change of routine. The girls were tickled pink to call me Mrs. Hackett (giggle, giggle) and give me a hug (giggle, giggle).

Taking Washington DC by Storm

Here is Great Grandma Wright with a whole heap of grandkids and great-grandkids. Luckily we had let them bounce first so they would sit still for the picture. 

I'm not sure why we didn't get any awesome pictures at the zoo. Maybe it was too crowded to separate our crowd easily from the rest. Next time we should perhaps all wear hunter orange.

Here we are at the Washington DC temple. We loved the visitor center.

Grandma had a brilliant idea that we eat pizza in her garage. The kids loved it and the adults loved that none of Grandma's things were broken.

Were all 52 flavors of chalk incorporated into these stunning designs? Yes. Were they all worn to the nubs over two days? Yes again.

So I found out what is more fun than taking your family on public transportation -- it is taking another family on public transportation! We got to use all our favorite phrases like, "mind the gap," "stay in one seat," "don't touch the stop button," and "everyone get out briskly, this is our stop."

Who loves the National Mall?

Here we are contemplating the size of Abe Lincoln's foot in comparison to our bodies.

We tried something new for our cherry blossom picture this year. Clearly we needed shorter trees or taller kids.

I included this picture just so you could grasp how many benches the Finch's and Hackett's need in order for everyone to get along while eating.

You've seen one Air and Space Museum, you've seen them all.

Here we are living it up at Grandma's church in a game of dodgeball with all sorts of aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and other relations. We've decided that the Hackett kids need more experience with contact sports, as they each dissolved in tears if they we even grazed by the ball.

Springtime

We've had some overcast months and I don't really feel like taking pictures when I don't see the sun. Luckily, the weather need not stand in the way of a good Luau. Carl was in charge of throwing confetti at appropriate moments.

 Carl has learned a new trick - climbing our apple tree. He loves it. Up and down and around and around. 

 Where he would have learned such a trick is a mystery is a mystery to me. 

On a warm day we went on a great hike. 

 It's always fun to see the two year old taking care of the one year old. 

 Our "pet" bird Betsy had two babies this spring. The kids have loved running to the front window and watching her feeding them. This is the best kind of pet ever! She feeds herself, cleans herself, makes her own nests and has babies. 

Here are the kids pretending to be birds in our pruning material.

Winter Weather

A couple of weeks ago we had some really nice winter weather. I just love snow and how clean everything looks. Including the kids snowsuits. Sadly the snow only lasted a few days in town.

When we are not playing outside, there is serious demolition (see lower left) or wallpaper to be done. The kids like demolition the very best. Ryan got me a new wallpapering belt clip. All my needs fit right into that handy carrying case. I am pretty sure that the phone is even in there too on speaker so I can keep working while chatting. I have really come into my own. Don't worry the curtain you see is not going in that room when we are done.

  This weekend Grandma Bee came for a visit and we had a great time playing, reading and doing puzzles. One of the highlights was the trip to the Dinosaur park. What is more scary, the dinosaur or us? I'm pretty sure that we take the cake.