Spring Recital

After we got through the end of the school year, we had to immediately get ready to wrap up the remaining activities of the school year!  Spring Recital was a very busy weekend, after finishing school on Thursday, a late night birthday party with friends for Mommy on Friday night, Cousins William and Charlie's birthday party on Saturday, followed immediately by Spring Recital, followed immediately by an engagement party for Uncle Chris and Catherine!  Whew!  It was a fun weekend, though, and we made it to everything on time, thanks to the help of grandparents and babysitters!

 Dress rehearsal - Abby Kate was soooooo excited to be an "American Girl."  She couldn't wait to wear her "American Girl" costume, and she just knew that LaLa (who LOVES the 4th of July) would love her costume and performance!

 She loved waving the flag to the music!

 Abby Kate's tap routine was a cute 50's song!!

 Christa's ballet performance was really sweet!  The theme of the show was "eMotions," so all of the songs were about feeling "Brave" or "Snazzy" or a variety of other emotions.  It was a really cute show!

 Christa's tap number was "Come on Get Happy."

 Christa, and one of her best friends, Taylor at dress rehearsal!

 Two cute little dancers!

 I always take my pictures at dress rehearsal so that I can enjoy the live performance without worrying about my camera.  My wonderful father in law (who had many years of photographing plays that Cline and his brothers were in) happily snaps lots of photos during the live show (when the cute background is up).  So, I end up with lots of dance pictures, and the live show ones are sometimes blurry.  You get the idea, though!

And that completes a great school year of fun, learning, and great activities with great people!

The VERY Last Day of Kindergarten

OK, last post about Kindergarten, already :)  I finally downloaded the last couple of months worth of pictures from my camera(s), and realized I hadn't posted the kids' end of the year program.  It was adorable, as it always is!!

 Christa made covers for the slide show DVDs she gave her friends as graduation presents.  They turned out adorably!!  I still need to get her to make one for her own copy....

 Two sweet girls ready to finish out the year!

 Obligatory "last day of school" picture with Mommy...

 ... and Daddy!

 Abby Kate in Mrs. Allison's class for the last time.

 Christa and her friends, ready for their patriotic song in the show.  All of the girls in the class had taken ballet at the same studio last year, so everyone had matching costumes!  Love getting our money's worth out of those things!

 Yep, I think she's ready for First Grade :)

 Abby Kate's class sang the cutest song, "My Mother is a Baker."  Abby Kate was the sister, who was a singer, who sings "la da dee da and too dool dee doo..."  Abby Kate insisted it was more like "loddledeedoddledeetoodledeedoo."  She did great!

 She was so sassy when she practiced at home!

 Christa memorized a line for her program, but she was one of the first ones up, and we had to scramble to get our cameras out in time to catch her.

Christa was a ribbon dancer in her patriotic performance.

 The grand finale!

 Yep, we're pretty proud of our girls!

 Picture with the grandparents.

Christa with Lilly, Adeline, and Avery - 3 of her closest friends this year!

 Kindergarten Graduation.  The kids began by singing several sweet songs about graduating!

 Then, each child received their "diploma."  We celebrated with an ice cream social afterwards!

The Last Days of Kindergarten

In an effort to cope with the impending loss of Christa's Kindergarten class, I decided to do a last minute slide show to capture the year.  I know I sound so dramatic about this "huge change" even though it's one of many that will come in my parenting journey.  In fact, I never thought I would be the mom that would have a hard time letting her baby grow up and go to "real school."  But I never anticipated how much we would grow to love our friends there, and how much it would sting when we all chose different schools/classes for our kids.  So, I mourned it a little.... OK, a lot.... maybe even an excessive amount :)  I'm better now, but the days leading up to Kindergarten graduation were hard, and I did everything I could to re-live our wonderful year.  Once I got started on the slide show, I realized that I didn't have certain pictures that really captivated their school year.  So, I photographed some art work that represented the year, and went to the school the day before graduation to get some more shots.

 Christa has several little best friends in her class, but she and Adeline are two peas in a pod.  All throughout the year, I found treasures and notes in her backpack, mostly from Adeline, telling Christa what a good friend she was or how much she loved her.  It was sooooo sweet!

 Notes like this one!

 Jack and Jilly were a series of reading booklets that we worked on throughout the year.

 Girl fun!

 Fun in the play room!

 Shhhhh.... a staged picture for our slide show that turned out really cute!

 Learning time with Mrs. Holdbrooks.

 Fun on the playground!

 The whole class, minus Henry, who had Strep throat that day.

 We spent hours playing on this playground after school with our friends this year!  I hope to continue the tradition next year with Abby Kate!

All ready for First grade!

Strawberry Patch

The morning after the slumber party, I have no doubt I could have taken Christa home to rest for the day!  Strawberry season doesn't last long, though, and it was such a rainy Spring that I wanted to make sure we squeezed that activity in before it was too late.  We met up with Christa's friend, Taylor, and picked ourselves some juicy red berries!

 Sweet little girls ready to get some tasty fruit!

 Elizabeth had a great time looking at the different berries to pick.

 If only Christa would eat these things!  She's very picky when it comes to fruit, and even picking the goods herself doesn't motivate her to try new things.

 Abby Kate enjoyed picking them, too!

Having fun playing hand-clap games while Mommy paid for the loot.  She's getting so big!

Wrapping Up the School Year

Part 2

This year, having 2 kids in "school," it was much more challenging to be at every function/party for every holiday/event.  Many of the parties ended up falling on Thursday mornings, which happens to be my MOPS day nearly every week.  Since I'd already committed to be a leader for the year, I couldn't just skip out for everything that was going on at school.  Luckily, Cline just so happened to be off work and available to go to field trips with Christa or to Abby Kate's class functions every time I couldn't make it.  That was really special time for them, even though I was sad to miss out on a few things this year.  I was able to make it to the tail end of Abby Kate's water fun day for her end of the year party.  Her teachers, Mrs. Allison and Mrs. Mandy were awesome, just as they were with Christa when she was in their class!!  

 Abby Kate enjoyed the water balloons!

 Abby Kate and her "best friend" Molly!

 Fun with soapy water and other, fun outdoor things!

 Enjoying popsicles after a pizza lunch!

Christa's class had an end of the year slumber party!!  I'd heard rumors that the Kinderkid class did this every year long before we got the invitation to it.  When I first heard about the idea, I wasn't sure how I felt about sending my 5 year old to a co-ed slumber party!  By the time the information came to us, though, I had no qualms about it.  They made smores and ate hot dogs by a campfire at a neighborhood clubhouse, and there was plenty of supervision.  Plus, I knew all the moms of the kids well enough that I had no reservations at all about letting her go.  She had such a sweet class, and was sooooo excited about this party!

 A few of her girl friends - Taylor, Molly, and August!

 Three great Kindergarten teachers ready for a long night!  Apparently, Christa was the last one to fall asleep around midnight.  She worked for weeks to stop sucking her thumb leading up to this!  I was so excited and proud that she made the decision all on her own.  I wondered if it was because she was embarrassed to suck her thumb in front of her class, but was just grateful she'd decided to take that step.  My suspicions were confirmed, however, when she begged to suck her thumb again the very day after the slumber party was over!  So funny!  I think some other little girls went through the same thing - if only they'd all known that they're all still sucking their thumbs at night!

 After-party breakfast at Chick-Fil-A!