The Phalen Family: May

is a crazy month for us. First my birthday on the 5th, then Mother's Day on the 9th, our anniversary on the 19th, Paul's birthday on the 25th and my sister's high school graduation on the 27th! Throw the move in there on the 21st and Memorial Day and it's just one hectic month!
For my birthday I went dumpster diving for moving boxes with Kim in the morning and went home and made myself a double layer chocolate cake. Paul came home with flowers and...a double layer chocolate cake. We had a lot of chocolate cake! It was probably the most laid back (aka boring) birthday I've ever had, but I didn't mind.

On Mother's Day Paul woke up and took care of James and cleaned before I even woke up. I love that man. Of course there were flowers and these cute placemats from Williams and Sonoma :)

I made chocolate dipped strawberries for my mother. I wrapped a shoebox lid in nice wrapping paper, put the strawberries on parchment paper and then covered the whole thing in plastic wrap. I think it turned out well.

For our anniversary we went to Tucanos. We took James with us. We don't often get alone dates anymore. Finding a sitter is difficult, and we don't mind dragging him along.

Anniversary Flowers

Then there was moving day/days. Paul and I loaded up both cars with the fragile stuff and headed to the new place. It took much longer than I would have liked to pick up the keys and get the cars unloaded. We had a slight scare when we walked in that perhaps it was going to be too small for all of our furniture, but it all fits. Then we went to a few places looking for a U-Haul. By then we had to stop off for lunch, so we didn't start loading the U-Haul until probably 1 or 2. Luckily we have some great friends who came along to help us. It was still a very long and tedious process. Can I just say that moving with a little boy is NOT fun. Naps were missed, feedings were constant, screaming ensued from all the commotion and when we finally had the beds set up little James wouldn't sleep. He ended up in our bed, so none of us were well rested. The next morning we went over to pick up the last few things and clean. It turns out that there were a lot of last few things!

My dad brought his truck over and we were able to move everything but the fish. Being quite sick of going back and forth and still not being unpacked, we waited until Sunday to go get the fish. The landlord had said that he would pick up the key from us at our new place, but Sunday night he called and asked that I put them on the counter!! Soooo, Monday I had to go all the way back to Springville to leave the keys. It was so good to be out of there after all of that.

Helping me clean the fridge.

He "Helped" a little too much so we sat him in his stroller while we finished cleaning.

James has gone right back to his normal sleeping schedule and isn't afraid of the new place at all. In fact, I think he likes it better since it has proven difficult to baby-proof. I've finally unpacked everything and we even have our pictures on the wall. I admit that I'm quite homesick for the other place though. Not because there is anything wrong with this one at all, it's just that we lived there for a year and half. That is the longest I have been in one spot for nearly 5 years and we really made that place home. Now to make this place feel the same way!

For Paul's birthday I made chicken pot pie (his favorite) and a carrot cake. It was fairly low-key since James was already asleep.

My sister Rosilynn graduated from high school. She's the 6th child of 7, but the first to actually graduate. We were "homeschooled" as kids so she's the first to actually attend all four years and graduate. I'm so proud of her! It was way past James' bedtime by the time she finally walked, so he was unusually grumpy.

He kept going back for more and then would get super dizzy and laugh hysterically. He's a funny kid.

Then there was Memorial Day weekend!

Paul doesn't have school on Fridays so he got off early and we went to the park. We've recently discovered an awesome park in Orem and I have been spending a lot of time there. After church on Sunday we packed up a lunch and went to the park again. Homework kept Paul pretty busy for most of the weekend, but it was nice to have him home.

He loves bananas.

In the midst of all this I forgot to get the car registration done! So now I have to hope that I don't get pulled over for expired tags on my way to Jiffy Lube. Did I mention that May is crazy for us?
And then there were all the other random adventures of the month: