pool day!

Last Day of Kindergarten

Today was Miles's last day of kindergarten. He had a fantastic year with his class. Here he is with his teacher, Ms. Anderson, on the first day and then today.

He had such a wonderful year and grew so much, but physically and intellectually. We're so proud of all he has accomplished. His wonderful teachers, Ms. Anderson and Mrs. Douglas, can't be beat. They put together so many nice end-of-year gifts for us: a fun CD including the kids singing some favorite songs; his journal and lots of summer activity pages for keeping up with skills; and a scrapbook of the fun activities with lots of class photos from the year. We will treasure them all!

Now it's time to jump into summer fun. After last week's Festival of Reading, Miles checked out about 12 of the 15 Babymouse books from the library. He's already read about half of them! Yes, even though the cover is pink, boys love Babymouse too!

We just finished a session of swim lessons for both kids. Audrey's working on being able to swim alone and Miles is building strength in the various strokes.

He will be doing the feeder team for the swim team so will have lots of practices to work on those strokes this summer.

And we'll be doing some fun things around town. Yesterday at our library we caught the performance of Otis by the Dollywood Penguin Players. We hear they will be performing Ladybug Girl at the park this summer so we may have to make our first visit!

And we'll be on nest watch too. We see 2 eggs in the nest! Mama Cardinal is very caring, sitting in her nest all the day long. We think she's getting more comfortable with us being on the patio, she doesn't chirp at us as much anymore. Apparently these eggs should hatch in 11-13 days, so we're looking at June 3-5. We're waiting on another very important egg to hatch too: our baby cousin /nephew Sam is due sometime next week! We can't wait to go meet him after he arrives!

Field Day Fun

Miles had field day at school on Wednesday of the last week of school. It was the first time they'd held a true field day at the school in years, and I think it was a huge success. I volunteered to help man the 3-legged-race all day, a post chosen for its prime indoor location (although it probably would have been fun to be outside witnessing the madness). Here is Miles's class getting ready to race.

Miles and his buddy Patrick decided to be a pair.

They were ready to go, practicing their 1-2-1-2 count.

They won the their class race and came in second in the Kindergarten finals. It was a lot of fun for all involved.

See the look on their face above. They were in 3rd but then the middle team fell.

We finished their session early so the teachers and volunteers ran a heat and I teamed up with Mrs. McCormick and we won! I still got it!

After lunch the liturgical choir entertained the school with their band (3 electric guitars and a drum kit) playing songs like What Makes You Beautiful and Don't Stop Believing. Then a nun showed up and crashed the party. See for yourself:
That's actually one of the office staff in the habit and lots of teachers dancing. The principal is to the right of the nun and Ms. Anderson to her right.
The day was so much fun, I hope they continue the tradition.

Children's Festival of Reading

Saturday was the annual reading festival sponsored by our public library. Miles and Audrey were so excited to see Biscuit and meet the authors of Interrupting Chicken and Babymouse/Squish. We got our chicken and Squish books autographed. The festival worked its reading magic: Audrey has read Interrupting Chicken so much that she's reciting it to me. And Miles is on his 3rd reading of each of his Squish books. Oh, and they each got to try writing with a quill. They did a nice job!

Running into summer

Sunday, we participated in Sacred Heart's 1st 5K/Fun Run. The kids and I did the 1 mile run. I started with Audrey in the stroller, but at the halfway point she wanted to get out and run with her friend Elizabeth. Now, Elizabeth's mom has won the Knoxville marathon 3 times, so Elizabeth's already a runner. But Audrey kept up pretty well, even in Keds.

Neither of my children wore appropriate running footwear, but they both made it across the finish. Miles started out in a full sprint and got a side stitch after the first 150 yards, so he walked and jogged with his friend Eli and made it to the finish. When he realized that there were age group winners in the 5K, he decided he wants to run it next time. I told him I'd start running with him this summer. We'll see how long that lasts!

Afterward, we stayed for the picnic and played with friends. Audrey and her buddies found the sprinkler, while Miles took off to the soccer field.

On a calmer note, we were excited to discover a mother cardinal building a nest in the crape myrtle by our porch. We sat on the sofa and watched through the screen for a long time. She and the daddy cardinal were back this morning so hopefully we'll get to watch some egg sitting and hatching in the coming weeks.

Mother's Day in Kindergarten

OK, this first on isn't from Mother's Day. This is Miles, Patrick and Geronimo Stilton at the school book fair. Geronimo is a character from a series of early chapter books that Miles has started reading. He's finally taking off with independent chapter books. He's working his way through the Wimpy Kid series and has some Stink, Squish and Babymouse in reserve. Since he still wakes up at 5ish every day, he gets some good reading time in before the day even starts.

Back to Mother's Day... his class hosted a tea for the mothers on Friday. They said prayers, sang songs and presented us with drawings of their favorite thing to do with mom. He said he likes to go into the woods and cut down trees with me. I let him use the saw recently, so that must have made an impact!

My mom helps me to keep my books alphabetized!

Oh, and they made these beautiful hats for us to wear! It was such a sweet morning with my boy.

Dancing Queen

Audrey participated in her first dance recital on May 12th. The studio has an evening show for the older dancers to perform, but the beginners get a low pressure day show with just a few classes watching. Audrey loved it and did a great job. She really worked hard this spring. Here she is in full performance make-up. I loved that they wore their regular dance gear (footless tights and leotard) and just dressed it up with some fabric. Very simple and modern.

She kept place in the movement....

Each girl had an older buddy, an apprentice dancer in the older classes. Audrey gave her buddy, Kate, pink roses to thank her. And Audrey was so thrilled to get flowers herself!

The same day was Miles's last soccer game of the season. I didn't get to see it, and he was gracious enough to leave at halftime to come see his sister dance.

When he grows up

Miles was the child of the week a little while ago and had to fill out some pages about himself. He wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up. Not just any archaeologist, though, he wants to be Indiana Jones!

Beachin' it

We went to the beach for spring break this year. It began Holy Saturday, so we were blessed to wake Easter morning to this glorious sunrise. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, I tell ya!

A family with kids in school with each of ours was vacationing nearby, so we got to play with them all week. That was awesome to mix it up and keep some of the sibling annoyance at bay. And they kept each other entertained so the moms and dads could relax and enjoy the week too!

Here we are after our fine Easter brunch at Eggs Up Grill. Yum!

So most of the week was spent playing sports on the beach: football, soccer, catch, anything with a ball.

And when it was too windy for balls, we ate sand! You ate what? We ate sand! No really, we ran around with our towels as superhero capes.

When we made the reservation, we were concerned that April might be a tad chilly. But this early summer we're having kept the beaches nice and cozy all week, except for one day. But we were prepared for that.

We spent the morning at Brookgreen Gardens exploring their low country zoo. We got to see lots of cool birds, foxes, otters and a big ol' gator!

what a great week!

Oh, and this is what happens when you eat too many Peep s'mores. KA-RAZY!

fun at the Kids Walk

The snowflake princess

When I asked Audrey what kind of party she wanted, she didn't hesitate. "Snowflakes," she said. Since we've been taking ice skating lessons, I suggested that activity and she was ready to go. We had to postpone her party since Miles & I were sick on her actual birthday, but i think it worked out better since Sunday was much less crowded than a Saturday would have been.

Of course since it was to be on Sunday, that made it harder for the out of town family to visit. We were so happy to visit with Mimi & PawPaw the weekend before her birthday. The weekend after, YaYa & B and the Williams' family came to play. We skated Saturday with the cousins then had yummy Mellow Mushroom and Menchies to celebrate.

 The Sunday was the "friend" party. Audrey was very gracious to include the big brothers of her friends. There is a crew of 4 year olds in her class who have siblings in Miles's class, so we often end up together at parties.

Here are the boys noshing on the marshmallows that were intended for the hot cocoa. Sugar!

 Audrey liked her cupcakes. They have little "pearl" sprinkles on them that look like snow!

 But as usual, the little ones only want to lick the icing. We always have lots of cupcake "stumps" left over.

 These two look like they're ready for hockey with the missing teeth!

 Here are all of the silly girls! They are all hopped up on sugar and present opening.

We had a lot of fun with everyone. Thanks so much for making Audrey's birthday a success!

PS I made a Pinterest board to plan her party. So much fun, but too many ideas! I used a lot of them though, including the snow globe, skater girl and snowflake ornaments.