Pyles of Clutter

A trip down Memory Lane

Happy Birthday, Tyson!!

My little boy is all grown up and turning 23(!) today!

But I can still remember when...

he was just a little baby, about 2 months old. He was a pudgy little thing!

when he was a year old, our apartment burned down and my visiting teacher took care of Tyson, telling me that she needed to practice taking care of a baby (she was pregnant at the time).  He loved mud!

 

For a couple of years, it was just me and Tyson.  Life was complicated, but I was always grateful to have him.

He was always a sharped dressed man!

Tyson was a pretty happy child.  I guess he used it all up before he became a teenager. Ugh.

In 1988, he got two new cousins.  (Look at that physique!)

Tyson had a fascination for the ghostbusters in 1989.  He decided that he would be Peter Venkeman, I could be Janine, and AJ had to be, what else, Slimer. 

No life history is complete without his life long friend, Jordan.

 

They played on many soccer, football, basketball, and baseball teams together.  This is the team that I coached in the fall of '92.

Tyson was baptised on his birthday in 1993.  I'm proud of the fact that he honors his priesthood.

The next year, Tyson was sealed to our family, one of the best day's of my life!

He hasn't always liked being a big brother, but he has always felt the responsibility of taking care of his siblings.

Tyson loves the outdoors!

But he doesn't love heights!  (You have no idea what it took to get him to stand there.)

Or having his picture taken.  (Ok, this was after about 20 photo op's.  He was probably rightfully tired of it.)

Happy Birthday, my boy!  We're proud of the man you've become! 

Love, Mom  xoxox

Oh, I'm trying so hard not to complain!

Just a little more about our Memorial Day weekend. 

With Lilly in Jr. Miss, she got to be in the parade.  The court didn't ride on the float this year (!@#$%^), but instead rode in a convertible.  The parade started and along comes the float, with their other "ambassadors", then the band, then Miss Moses Lake, then Mrs. Washington contestants, then... a bunch of other people, and stuff.  And then, stuck in the middle, behind all this other commercial stuff, our little car with the girls in it (!@#$%^).  I ran out in the street trying to get a picture, and this is the picture I got:

Isn't that an awesome picture!  This is the best one of the bunch.  The driver would not quit moving! (!@#$%^) I asked her about four times, Lilly asked her a couple of times, and so did one of the other girls, but no.  We had to keep moving, because there wasn't a big enough gap between them and the people behind them, which was about 30 yards.  (!@#$%^).  I'm hoping that someone else got a shot, and I'm hoping that I can get another one at some other parade.  Bummer. 

Oh my, I'm trying hard not to complain.

Now some fun stuff:

The city does what is called "Chalk on the Block" where a city block is blocked off and sidewalk chalk is provided for the kids to come and draw on the road.  The Jr Miss court comes and helps the little children do their drawing.  It is a lot of fun.  Here is Lilly helping Tess, who drew this:

I wrote her name, but she drew the flowers and Lilly drew the sun.  It is a lot of fun.

Waiting for Lip Sync, Sadie and Zoey...

Megan's first day at work.  She was so embarrassed that I would take a picture. 

 

 

Our friend Nick, doing one of his many poses.

 

 

 

Waiting for the parade.  (Megan and Grandpa)

Glamorous

In our high school, the prom is just for seniors and their guests.  It makes it a smaller dance.  Lilly was fortunate that she was invited to go to Prom.  She had a lot of fun.  Some documentation:

The boys arrived to pick up their dates in this hummer limo.  Whew!  Glad I had a girl this year!  AJ's group rode in a motor home last year.  Much cheaper.

The girls met all together at one person's home, so there was some massive amounts of corsage and boutonniere exchanging together.  It's a fine art, isn't it, pinning a boutonniere on a tux jacket?  Although much easier than doing it on a shirt.  Shirts are a little more personal. 

Lilly and her date, Ryan.  Doesn't it look like she has a flower growing out of her head?  She's going to kill me when she reads this.

The whole group at the restaurant.  A little squished there at the bottom.

Making memories.

Kids Fair

We had our community Kid's Fair this weekend.  The girlies danced at it, as well as Melanie's daughter, Kathryn, with her dance studio.  Tess was very excited to dance because, you see, she has gloves that go to the costume she got to wear on Saturday.  Oh, so funny. 

She loves those gloves.  I'll be excited when I don't have to hide those gloves anymore.  She did a great job, as did Zoey and Lilly. 

Lilly's friend Breanna was at the kids fair too.  She has an interesting job.  She is Cinderella.

A company here in town has Disney Princess parties, with Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, and Sleeping Beauty.  It is a fun gig for the girls, and pretty easy.  This is Breanna with Lilly, Ashley, and Kenzie.

It was also the first parade for the jr miss court.  It was the opening day of baseball and every team decorates a truck and they do a little parade around a couple of blocks.  The girls got to throw out candy to all the little kids waiting to see their siblings.  So funny.

This doesn't have anything to do with Kids Fair, or even Saturday, but I think it is so funny.  Tessa went on a field trip with her preschool class.  They went to the hospital.  They all got to have hats and masks, but they didn't have enough gloves, and footies for each child to have a pair, so they only got one  We put all of Tess' things on her, and then had her show us how it looked.  She had to hold the mask on because it kept slipping down off her head, or slipping up to hide her eyes.  This was on Tuesday, April 29.

An epistle

As you know, I like to get to know the missionaries in our area, as much as I can.  I have them for lunch and I've had them over for dinner on special occasions as it is warranted.  I love the feeling of what goes around, comes around, and someone is taking care of my missionary.  Anyway, that's how I got to know Elder Beck.  He is one of the sharpest missionaries I have met, and also is very fun!  He came to my house with Elder Simonds to have lunch and the first thing he did was comment on our "Lazy Susan" which is on our table. 

Now, I object to that name!  There is no "lazy Susan's" in our house, only a lazy Molly.  Yes, we have changed the name of our.... whatever it is, to Lazy Molly.  He thought that to be hiliarious.  And on went the joke, until we finally ended at it being called a "Highly Efficient Susan".  I told him that I liked that name, and it stuck.

As time goes, Elder Beck knew that his time was coming to be transferred, and he really wanted to have a shirt from the 2-time National Champions Moses Lake Molahiettes.  (Nice plug.)  I, of course, asked him what was I getting out of this, if I gave him my favorite shirt.  He told me he would write me an epistle. 

Which he did.

Here is that Epistle:

• Things started off rough,
• a simple joke about a lazy Susan
• The lady I had heard was so tough
• really was just out cruzin for a bruisin
• A simple joke, a simple fellow
• always trying to keep things mellow.
• A nice lady, always provoking
• sometimes it hurt even though she was joking
• Like a champion show dog she made me jump through hoops with her friendship as a prize
• and then with her viper tongue she would always turn around and make fun of my size
• Ever Persistent, Always Consistent
• Even though I'm not Omniscient
• And now we see we're BFF for life
• through pain, sickness, war, and strife.
• My head is hurting and my eyes are heavy
• so this epistle must end I'm sure you were ready
• Until we see each other again
• You always know I consider you my friend.

Thanks Elder Beck.  I'll miss you and we are friends, forever. 

Promised pictures

A mom and her cat

She did it!!

She made it!!  Jr Miss is over and Lilly won 2nd runner up!  I don't think she could have been any more amazing in all that she did.  She showed so much personality and joy in her performance.  We are all so very, very proud of her. 

Some documentation:

Rehearsal night with the escort and her very good friend, Blake.

The court!

Her loyal admirers!

Family portrait.

New friends and ...

old friends.

A great night!

(Shhhhh.  But I'm glad it's over!)

SPT--*Egg*stra special

Just a few pictures of our FHE activity on Sunday:

Fun activity!

I'm so glad that's over with...

Did I mention that Lilly has decided to run for Jr. Miss?  One of the things that we decided on first was that Lil wanted to buy a modest dress that didn't need altering.  Not so easy to do here in our fair state.  So we having been searching the internet for dresses, and to our surprise, there is a shop on the west side that has only modest dresses. 

We made the trip over yesterday, crossing our fingers that we would find something that would suit Lilly's shape.  And guess what!  We were successful!

Yes, we have some altering to do.  It's quite large in the bust and a few inches too long.  But we are excited for the prospect.  It is a beautiful dress.  And Lilly likes it.  That is the most important thing. 

All in all, good times!

Easter Egg Hunt

I was thinking yesterday, how different it has been raising Tess with such a huge age gap.  We don't do nearly the things that we used to do with the other kids.  One of them is Easter Egg Hunts.  We used to go to several every year.  We would do one with our extended family, and with the community club.  But this year, I didn't have one easter egg hunt planned.  I was thinking that as I was reading our local paper, when I saw that the Lions Club had one planned for today at noon.  I decided that I should take Tess, and before I could think this through, I said to her, "Hey, do you want to go to the Easter Egg Hunt?"  What was I thinking?! 

Do you see all those eggs out there?  It looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it?  The problem, they were mostly real eggs.  Oh, please, we had enough real eggs at home.  I was just like, please, Tess, don't pick up the real eggs, only the shiny ones, that have candy in them.  Well, with all those eggs out there, you would think that the kids would have a pretty easy time getting eggs, but it was a mad house!!  There must have been about 150 kids, in our age group alone.  It was nuts.  And it was so hard for Tess to find eggs (well, the plastic eggs), and I lost her for a minute, and ....  I'm telling you, it was crazy and out of it, Tess got, yes, one egg.

She wasn't too unhappy, but a little disappointed because the candy in the egg wasn't any kind that she wanted.  Bummer.  So in compensation, we went to Walmart and got a toy.  And when we were there, we saw:

The Easter Bunny!  That really made it all better.

What an Easter.  Please, next year, I'm going to plan my own easter egg hunt.  Really.