Gracie finishes Kindergarten

Oh, I so love having a kindergartener.  They are the absolute best to watch as the school year progresses.  They start out so tiny and unsure and end the year confident, full of new skills, and happy.  And Gracie was no exception.  Just watch her as she sings her heart out on these little songs.  And I am so beyond proud that our school had them sing "God Bless America".  We may live in a state that votes blue, but our little town is god fearing and Red through and through.

Softball and T Ball Seasons

Softball continues to be one of Ellie's things.

It is fun to see her improve each year.  She would love to play infield or catcher, but the outfield seems to be her place for now.  Keep on working girlie.

She is a pretty good base runner.  I even caught her sliding into Home one time.

Tball was so much fun with Things One and Two.  I knew Cayden would love it, and he sure did, but Gracie, my girlie girl, also had a great time.  She loved having a uniform just like Ellie and marching in the parade at the beginning of the season.  She had a terrible throw, but she loved batting and running the bases.  Cayden was as much of a ball hog as most of the boys on thier team.  It was always a pile-up of energetic boys scrambling for the ground balls.  Cayden started counting how many balls he fielded and called them his points.

Seth had a hard time with them playing when he was not.  Too bad he will still be too young next year to play either. 

School Year End Fun- Field day and Preschool Graduation

Isn't this rainbow of children cute?

It was field day for the three middles(every class gets it's own color) and Ellie happened to match.

Field day is a whole day spent outside playing all sorts of fun games.  Nothing could be better on a warm-June-almost-the-end-of-school-day.

And it was also Preschool Graduation Day.

Songs.

Hugs.

And Done.

Simple. 

Then out to the field to meet up with the rest of the students.

Look who we found!

Happy Field Day to All!

My Traditional Before and After School Shots

2013/14 School Year

These kiddos make me so proud.  This year we had Cayden in preschool, Gracie in Kindergarten, Emma(a big dog on campus) as a third grader, and Ellie as a 5th grader.  All their teachers were super at managing thier little quirks, gifts, and inconsistencies.

Cayden was by far the one that got into the most trouble.  At least one day a week he'd come home with a frowny face on his take-home sheet.  But he kept trying to be good and to remember the rules and to help clean up and to be nice and share with his classmates.  We will be pounding the books this summer to help him get ready for Kindergarten in the fall.

Graice, our kindergartener, was stupendous to watch develope, just like all kindergarteners are.  I think it is just magical how you send them off in Sept and a few weeks later they are recognizing all their letters and are starting to read little words and then by the end of the year they come to you saying things like, "I don't even have to wait for anybody to read to me now, I can do it myself."  I love that little bit of freedom they earn.  She was a bit quiet in class but she made some good friends.

Emma was and probably will always be my little forgetful daughter.  Seriously, everyday I would wait for her to have some initiative to pull out her homework, get it done, and move on.  But nope.  She'd finish one part and go off somewhere and I would track her down to remind her that there was still Spelling or Math to do(Reading was the easy one).   She did good in class mastering the skills.  She had an old school teacher that spent some time teaching cursive.  Emma was one of the classmates that worked hard on learning it.  She is so proud of her new skill, especially since Ellie doesn't know how to write in cursive.  She has some good friends she has made along the years, but she is often the girl that feels picked on.  We try all we can to help her brush off these teasings, but any little thing is taken as an offense of the highest degree.  How do I help her work on that?

Ellie had a great year.  Its neat to see her confident and driven, but we are beginning to see signs of tween-ness coming on.  You can always tell when she is feeling a bit stressed.  Those little frustration tears come out so easily.  Its too cute(but of course I never laugh because it is a serious matter to her).  She had a good time in band and basketball and softball.  At the end of the year it got a little crazy with all three and more going on at once, but we managed.

 First day

Last day

First day

Last day

First day

Last day

First day

Last day

Check out how the teeth are doing;)

 First day

Last day

Christmas Piano Concert

The girls had such a good time performing for a nursing home for their Christmas concert.  

They each did so well.

 Gracie has just started having little five minute lessons before the other girls and she is loving it.  It is the cutest thing to see her sitting at the piano plunking out simple Christmastime melodies.

Not everybody enjoyed the concert.  

It put a few of the spectators asleep.

We love our Miss Loraine.  She is the best.  So fun.  She remembers ALL my kids birthdays and brings them little treats on holidays.  And she has a pretty adorable doggie.

Thank you Miss Loraine for another great piano year.

Gracie is Finally Five

She has been waiting for this for a while...at least since she started kindergarten last month and found out that everyone else in her class was already 5.  

This little girl amazes me everyday with how grown up she is becoming.  She jokes with her big sisters and tries to take care of her little brothers.  She has definate opinions about what she should wear, what she should eat, and when she should go to bed.

She loves to play ponies and they have set up permanent residence in her doll house.  

She got to go to a super duper Halloween themed birthday party the day before her own and I thought I was going to be in trouble for not planning her day to match.  She didn't razz me too much, because she loves me and knows some people do birthdays bigger.

For her cake I saw an idea on Sweetapolita(through Pinterest of course) that I knew would be just perfect for her, a doodle cake.  I found the edible markers at Michael's and let the girls color away on the fondant covered cupcakes.

We had a My Little Ponie theme going as you can see, and funner even still the girls were chatting it up with cousin Chelsea on Facetime during the decorating.  She then proceeded to text me a million times since then all matter of unidentifiable stuff, but I still love her:)

These are her favorite gifts, her new ponies from Grandma and the crayon/marker set from Nana.  She has taken such great care of that set.  A month later everypiece is still in place.  She guards it well from her brothers.

For her birthday we actually had quite a few people over.  We had some good friends who moved away years ago come and visit and because they only had a short time to stay we invited all our church friends over so everyone could get caught up on each other's lives.  We were happy to have the Evan's come and happy to help them get to "see" everyone.  Gracie didn't mind one bit that there were extra guests in the house.  She made out pretty well on the birthday card and money area that way.

Thanks again for the visit Mel and the boys.