MY LITTLE HELPER.

oh and isn't he just so helpful.

and cute?

KERI VS WILDLIFE. AGAIN.

we found a snake in dave's truck.

and then hacked it to bits.

did you know that dave is terrified of snakes?

like, screams like a little girl, terrified.

and i hate them too. so it was pretty funny when we were dragging the seed bags out...one by one, one by one, waiting for this tiny snake to pop out. and at one point a walnut fell from the tree above the truck and made a loud BANG noise. and we both flipped out. it was hysterical in only-funny-after-the-fact sort of way.

ANATOMY OF A BUSY WEEKEND.

it was recital weekend - woo-hoo! (?)

it was long. it was hot. it was a hard weekend.

i'm glad it's over.

hallie says she doesn't want to do dance anymore. we'll take the summer off and see how she feels in the fall. she was the cutest (and smallest!) one out there. so cute.

this little boy is my favorite in a white onsie. but he too had a hard weekend. teething is no joke and when you add a little cold on top, well, he certainly was off his game on saturday. like, way off his game.

he did manage to stay busy by knocking all of the magnets off of the refrigerator and playing some rockin' piano. oh, and he hung out on grandma chronister's lap quite a bit too.

finally, with recitals over we had memorial day to relax on chad and melissa's boat and get majorly sunburned. ouch. big time, ouch.

the girls had so much fun. we all did. it was a great way to end the weekend.

YA'LL READY FOR THIS?

i'm not.

eek! recital weekend. it's exhausting and i don't think hallie loves it anymore.

she told me last night after rehearsal that she didn't think she wanted to do dance next year.

i'm not sure if i force it or let her move on to something else? i am semi-relieved, but semi-sad.

i'm not going to think about it now. because look how cute.

FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS.

we had a garage sale at melissa's on friday. we sold all of the girls' clothes for the past six years. rather, we wanted to sell all of the girls' clothes from the past six years.

and we sold over $200 in clothes - and you can barely tell. it didn't even make a dent. i think if we had more traffic it would have been a huge success. we just didn't have that many lookers!

we were all "oh woe is me, look at all of these clothes," because seriously. look at all of these clothes. it was almost embarrassing the amount of clothes.

that is TWELVE tables of girl clothes, sizes 0-2T.

SHE'S GOT A BIG BRAIN.

and she has an award to prove it.

she got the "big brain" award for the biggest growth on her big map test. she was so proud and so was i. she also got the kiwanis student of the month for may and the red & white citizenship award.

her last day of school was friday. crazy how quickly this year went. she did so well and learned so much and we are so ridiculously proud of her.

KERI VS. WILDLIFE

keri vs the snake

dangit - forgot to take a picture.

i saw a snake slithering across our lane on saturday. so naturally i gunned it and managed to run it over. score! i sped to the house, yelled for hallie to get her shoes on so we could take a look. my mom grabbed henry in the stroller and we ran down to look at the dying snake. EXCITING.

it was writhing around and made me really sad to watch, so mom grabbed the hoe and hacked it in little pieces and flung it on the side of the road. SO GROSS.

score: keri 1, wildlife 0

keri vs the raccoon

i managed to shut a raccoon in our garage. don't ask me how - when i went to shut the garage doors at 7:30pm, i swear it wasn't in there. i heard banging and clanging around 9pm and when i opened the door there it was. and there it went. underneath dave's lawn mower in the corner of the garage AND I COULD NOT GET IT OUT.

at one point i was ready to throw in the towel. there's only so many times you can poke it with a fishing pole, the handle of the garden hoe (that hoe saw a lot of action this weekend!) and a baseball bat. and yet, it remained. under the lawn mower. not. cool.

i even tried to start the mower to move it and let me tell you what - have you ever tried to start a lawn mower knowing that there is a wild animal with possible diseases right underneath you? (probably not) my skin was crawling and my hair was standing on end. luckily it wouldn't start because oh my gosh can you imagine?

finally, at some point, i couldn't see it anymore. whew! it managed to escape. great.

score: keri 2, wildlife 0

WAIT A MINUTE. NOT SO FAST.

let's fast forward not to 1:40am. something is scratching at the door from the garage, like it's trying to turn the door handle. what the HECK? but i knew. RACCOOOOOOON.

sure enough, i crack open the door and it is literally sitting on the steps, looking at me. i screamed and made a shoo-ing motion and it ran away. directly underneath the lawn mower AGAIN. JUST KILL ME NOW.

it took me a half an hour. A HALF OF AN HOUR to get that stupid thing out of the garage. i poked it and poked it and POKED that stupid thing a million times with the end of a fishing pole and it wouldn't budge. i was out for blood by this point and if i had a gun there would have been bullet holes in the walls and dave's lawn mower would have never been the same again.

near the end, it took off like it was going to finally exit the garage. but noooo, at the last minute it changed direction, hopped up on my gardening cart and scaled THE WALL until it was ON TOP OF THE OPEN GARAGE DOOR I KID YOU NOT.

and that is when i ran to grab my camera.

but you really can't tell - but it's up there!

i pushed the button to close the garage door, it fell and ran off with zoey hot on its heels. i hope zoey ripped it to shreds and i don't feel one tiny bit bad about that.

especially when i woke up and realized it had taken a dump in the stroller and also on the bench.

keri 1, wildlife ONE MILLION.

HAPPY MONDAY TO YOU.

enjoy.

and yes, i caught him.

BALLIN'.

here we go, tball!

it's painfully slow at times, but better this year than last year. that was just...brutal. the coach was young and didn't even have a kid on the team.

we were unorganized and hallie learned only that she loved to run the bases.

fast-forward to this year and she has a coach who cares and is good. they do drills and actually learn stuff. but he is so fun that they looooove him too. practice last night was great. she whacked the ball off of the pitching machine and then made an out at second base when she played the field.

plus, she looks really cute.

and henry had a ball feeling the turf in the outfield.

GOOD MORNING FROM HENRY'S HAIR.

DA WEEKEND.

mr. henry got a haircut!

and a new tooth!

he now as four on the top and the bottom! and working on those molars too, dangit.

and hallie got a trim!

we also got a new dog. sort of. we basically run a half-way house for dogs. they show up all hungry, so we feed them and they stay the night. and then usually they are gone again the next day.

not millie. i think she's here to stay and i'm cool with that. and so is hallie.

and...

a happy mother's day to me!

yesterday was...church, a bike ride that ended in tears (for both kids), nap (for one kid), two hours of weeding the garden, a rockin' sunburn, supper at barb's and sorting through 18 million pieces of baby clothes for a garage sale sunday.

it was a good-ish day!

LET'S BACK THINGS UP A BIT.

i am a teensy bit back-logged with my pictures. and since this blog is like one giant photo album for me, i need to get them posted asap.

last week (thursday? wednesday?) we fished.

and got chigger bites, but mostly fished.

the little neighbor came over and they had a great time. it's soooo nice living on a pond. now i just want a dock and a paddle boat and i will be all set :)

real men fish with a spiderman fishing pole.