Father's Day

The kids made John breakfast in bed and had all kinds of cute cards for him. At church they sang the cutest song that our new chorister had written and the kids were delighted.

That evening we had Grandma and Grandpa Durrant and the Schreiners over to celebrate our dad's.  The kids put on a really cute Father's Day Talent Show to entertain us all.  :)

Fire

We are covered in smoke and ash but we haven't been evacuated.  They are evacuating all the neighborhoods just South of us.

Summer!!!

 Summer is in full swing around here.  The girls have way too much time on their hands and have started planning activities to invite all the neighbors too.  It's their favorite thing to do!!!  Kelsie and Brianna planned a talent show this week.  They made flyers, signs, and got trophies.  Quite a few neighbor kids showed up to perform their talent and went home with trophies or medals.  It was really cute!  Kelsie and Brianna love to plan events like this and they do  a really good job doing it on their own.  I don't know what Kelsie (or any of us ) are going to do when Brianna and her family move this summer.  It's so sad! :(

Now this just cracked me up!  Carter and Emmi informed me they were hosting an easter egg for their friends. Yes, it is JUNE!  They have seen their older sisters plan one to many "events" around here.  They wanted to get in on the action, even if they are only 4 years old!  They used their candy to fill up eggs, hide them, and invited their friends to come over for an egg hunt.  The kids showed up and didn't even seem to mind that there were only 15 eggs and 7 kids.  I think I'm hiding the easter eggs until next spring so that doesn't become a regular event!  :)

Last Days of School

 This is Emily and Jace (AKA Emily's boyfriend).  Emily was very upset to have the school year end because she is afraid Jace will forget her!  She is completely boy crazy!!!  We are really in for it!  She says she is not boy crazy...just only likes one boy.  (Jace and Emily are always together at school.  She is hilarious when she talks about him.  She is completely smitten and couldn't be happier that he told her he likes her too!  I have LOTS of stories about these two, but I'll save them for another time.  :)  At least she chose the cutest and nicest boy in the whole class to be smitten by.  That gives me hope.  He is adorable.

 Last lunch of 1st grade for Emily and her friend Sydney.  I had such a good time eating lunch with my girls on the last full day of school.  The 1st graders were REALLY talkative and told me all kinds of interesting things!  This was the 1st time I'd been to lunch this year and I was shocked by how few kids were in the lunchroom at one time and how calm it was.  I was used to their last two schools that were triple the size of this one.  It has been such a nice change to be at a smaller school this year. 

 Last lunch of 4th grade.  Kelsie with her best friends from her class this year (Holly, Hailey, and Sydney).  Kelsie and Emily ate lunch at the same time this year which I loved.  Kelsie went by and checked on Emily each day to see if she needed help with anything.  She is a really good big sister.  As a result Kelsie and Emily know all of each other's friends too.

 The Mural that Kelsie got to help make in art class.  Really cool!

School is out!  Hooray!  We were all so ready for a break.  We celebrated the start of summer with an ice cream party with our neighbor friends!

The "Almost" Sleepover Party!

 For Kelsie's birthday we did an "almost" sleepover party (since we don't do sleepovers).  The girls came dressed in jammies and brought pillows and blankets.  It was a late night party until 10:30 and we did all the things you would do at a sleepover.  We had pizza for dinner, played a few games, decorated pillowcases, and then settled in for a movie and lots of snacks!  Here's her group of friends that came.  Most of them are from her class at school and a couple close neighbor friends.  She had the nicest group of friends in her class this year and they were so fun!!!

 One of the games we did was a get to know you beach ball game.  We threw the ball around and they had to answer the question their thumb touched.  There were also spots for "truth and dare" and the person next to you got to ask you a "truth" or send you an a dare.   They loved it!

 As the girls were doing their "truth and dare" questions, it came out that most of the girls like boys that live on our street.  Kelsie is surrounded by dozens of boys her age on our street and not many girls.  Anyway, as the girls said who they liked and we told them "oh, he lives across the street OR he lives three doors down" they were SO funny.  So at the end I dared them all to go run in the front yard and scream out who they like.  It was pretty funny since they were all yelling names of boys that live on our street!  :)  I do wonder what Kelsie yelled because she finds all the boys her age totally annoying!  Which is fine by me!


These are the pillowcases the girls decorated and then used for their movie night.  They turned out really cute!



 After the movie they ran around, chatted, and played some serious foosball!  Ity was honestly the funnest party I've ever done for Kelsie.  The were so happy to just hang out together and didn't care if there was much planned.  They are a really fun age.  I loved chatting and getting to know them.  Happy Birthday Kelsie!

Kelsie is 10!

 Kelsie turned 10 on Memorial Day this year.  Here she is with her present birthday cake.  I truly can't believe how fast these years have gone and I can't believe my baby girl is a decade old!  We had a fun family BBQ with my family to celebrate.

 

 Kelsie got a touch screen mp3 player for her birthday.  She was super surprised and delighted!  She loved the idea that she could download episodes to watch.  She also got all kinds of fun Hannah Montana stuff that she LOVES and some cute jammies.  She asked for clothes this year!  She's growing up!  TOO FAST!

Happy Birthday, Kelsie!  You are such a sweet, responsible girl.  You have become such a huge help to me with cleaning the house, watching your siblings, and you've even started to make lunch.  You love doing all these things!  Your teachers all tell us what an amazing girl you are:  so caring to others, so honest, such a good example, and such a hard worker.  You are a smart girl and are always ready to help others and you have the funniest sense of humor.  You got that from your dad.  :)  We love you!!!

Preschool Graduation

The graduation went really well this year.  I was completely stressed out leading up to it and I had several people who just came and helped me to make it happen.  They made hats, made refreshements, cleaneThThe kids actually sang the songs this year!  Yeah!!!  I was so happy.  They always freeze up when all the parents arrive and don't sing.  I think it helped that I have a bigger class this year so there were more little singers.  We also had a crowd of parents and grandparents and they were such a supportive audience which I really appreciated!  Afterwards, we passed out certificates and watched a slideshow that John put together for it.  It was a fun celebration of ny cute little preschoolers.  I have loved this class.  It was more kids than I was used to for preschool so it took some adjusting but I have absolutely loved having a bigger class and I have grown to love them all.  Having Carter in my class made this year a little more challenging but we survived it and he has grown up a lot this year. 

 

One of my favorite parts of this year was having Matthew (Carter's 2nd cousin) in the class.  He is adorable and I have loved getting to know him and having Carter get to know him.  They have becompe such cute little buddies who are always together at preschool.  Love this picture of them!

Watching the slideshow :)