Tansy decided that she wanted to help out with some chores. She actually did a pretty good job.Here is the best Mother's Day present: all of my kids facing the same direction for a picture. I took nine to get this one.

We also celebrated Ben's birthday. The big 3-0. Since this is Ben we're talking about, it was really low-key. All the kids cared about was that there was cake. Ben was on 12-hour shifts every day, which is why he is in uniform for the party.

Tansy and Zack decided to get creative one day by dumping all of the contents of the salt and pepper shakers on the table and making art. We were sweeping it up for days.

And who knows what was going on here before he fell asleep. He seemed just as puzzled when he got up.

In other exciting news, Ben took the girls to a bike rodeo here on base a couple of weeks ago. They pulled Sydney's name in the drawing and she won a new bike. It was fantastic timing since she really is too big for her old bike. She even got her picture in the base paper.

We are also going to Utah on Friday, the 11th. We will only be there for just over a week since Ben has stuff to get back for, but we look forward to spending time with family that we haven't seen for a while.