May 2020: a recap

May ended up being kind of a doozy for me, personally. I had my first experience with kidney stones (followed by discovering a few other kidney things that have to be dealt with later), and that experience largely colored my month. I'll write about that in a separate post, but much of the fun that the girls had (as well as many of the pictures from May) were courtesy of Brad and Barbara. 

They didn't suffer from a lack of good times.

Here's a little peek of triple bunk bed that is now in the girls' room. Now (in July) Brynn has transitioned to sleeping on the bottom bunk, as we're trying to get her fully settled into her big girl bed before the baby comes.

But before that happened, we used the bottom bunk as a book nook.

The book nook was very popular, and the girls were sad when it morphed into Brynn's bed (including Brynn, I think).

LOTS of fun was had playing with boxes.

Dress ups

Lily donned my slippers and got comfy to read an issue of Real Simple.

Claire wrote this sweet note to Brad, and I will be framing and keeping it forever.

Barbara and I did a puzzle that was bonkers bananas crazy hard. The whole picture is a pretty watercolor of the White House. But half of it looked like this (and a large section was just as hard but of grass). It was was a massive feat of endurance. And stubbornness.

The girls made good use of our bubble stash and our water table, as the weather began to warm up. UPDATE: we bought them a new water table this summer. The one pictured here has been around since we moved into this house and was just on it's very last leg.

She was mad about something here...

We have a collection of three of those plastic pools that our neighbors passed along when their grandkids outgrew them. They don't look decorative on the porch, but we use them regularly, so...it works.

Ready to go splash!

We did lots of Zooming on Mother's Day with our family members scattered far and wide:

Kenya, Alabama, North Carolina

Minnesota, Tennessee, Washington DC, North Carolina, and Georgia

I pulled out all of the girls' sunglasses, and we had an impromptu photo shoot to show them off:

While Barbara was with us, we (well, Brad, Barbara, and the girls...diabetes wouldn't let me participate) got into a little habit of frequenting our local popsicle shop. Here are some pictures of the first time the girls tagged along to pick up the goods- and their first time wearing their masks. Hands in pockets so they wouldn't be tempted to touch things.

Water play AND popsicles!

Before it became oppressively hot, Brad took the big girls to a nearby trail for some outdoor time in a beautiful spot (this trail is near-ish Duke).

We still make a point to get dressed up-ish on Sundays (at least Brad and the girls do. I wear whatever currently fits.). Even if it's just for half an hour of church activities before switching to play clothes, it's one of those small weekly markers that we have chosen to keep constant (and we still get their picture every week---or at least we try to).

Watching the Sunday school lesson

Barbara was headed back to TN for a few days (she then came back to continue helping- I was still fairly out of commission from my kidney stone).

Doesn't Claire look adorable here??

We pulled out all of our festive, patriotic-wear to commemorate Memorial Day (well, they did; I was still stuck in bed, fighting off my kidney stone). Brad and Barbara very sweetly got them dressed up in their red, white, and blue and took pictures for me, because they know me well.

Could Lily be any cuter here?? No, she could not.

And here's our monthly Brynnie Round-up:

Watching Sunday school one week

Stretching with Brad before one of his runs

We made it through May! And many of us had fun along the way. :)