Matson went to sleep totally on his own (for the first time ever!) with a little help from his bear. I walked in and saw him cuddled with the bear over his head and it was SO cute! This little guy has to have a blanket (or bear, apparently) pulled up around his head in order to go to sleep.
Love him
Our cute little Emily is a kindergarten graduate!
Emily and her teacher, Mrs. Peterson. She was the perfect teacher for Emily. She was sweet and loving and she absolutely adored our Emily. We will miss her! She is having a baby and won't be teaching anymore but we are excited for her!
Emily's kindergarten class. This was the sweetest little class of kids. I absolutely loved going in to help because they were all so adorable. Emily has made so many wonderful friends this year. We also found out at graduation that John's childhood friend had a little boy in the class. It turns out it was a little boy that liked Emily and they both had told their parents ALL about the other one. Pretty funny!
Emily and our next door neighbor Reese. It was so fun that they got to be in the same kindergarten class together. Their big sisters walked them to K each morning and they came home on the kindergarten bus together. There was nothing cuter than watching these two bound off the bus together each afternoon and head up our street. They were inseparable at school. In fact, their teacher had them sitting next to each other at the rug and at their tables because she said they did so well together and helped each other to be less shy and come out of their shells. I'm SO glad they had each other this year!
Kelsie and Emily in the hall by their classrooms. Their classes were right next to each other this year which was another blessing for Emily in this transition to school. They were able to check up on each other during the day! :)
Emily's favorite part of kindergarten was the monkey bars. She was dying to get outside after the program and do the monkey bars for us (dad, mom, and Grandma Peterson). She is also proud to announce that she has already mastered the monkey bars on the big kid playground as well.
mom, dad, and our little graduate
At the end of May Emily had a performance day at gymnastics. She got to show off her skills on the vault, beam, and floor. She loved performing for an audience. Her strength is definently the floor. She has perfect form and her cartwheel is seriously impressive. She absolutely loves gymnastics and has learned so much is the year she's been taking lessons. This is her class bowing at the end with their teacher (Aunt Kandace). You can see more info. and pictures of her doing gymnastics on my sister's website tumbleweedsutah.blogspot.com.
The bar is her favorite so she showed off a few skills after the performance.
Emily and Lizzie waiting for their turn to perform.
On his nine month "birthday" Matson decided it was time for some new excitement for him and mom. He started climbing the stairs. Aaah! I was so mad when I saw him doing it because I knew my life had just gotten more complicated as far as keeping him safe.
But after I saw him climbing the stairs with his little proud grin, I couldn't help but think it was the cutest thing in the world. He is completely thrilled with himself and doesn't just climb up one and stop. He climbed up three steps on the first go. It doesn't help my cause any that he has three adoring siblings sitting at the top of the stairs cheering him on!
For Kelsie's birthday party we did a cupcake themed baking party! It took more prep than most parties I've done but it turned out super fun. It was 3 hours and we ran out of time to do everything, but here's what we did do:
As the girls arrived they each got an apron to decorate with fabric markers. The picture at the top is all 13 of them showing off their creations. They turned out so cute!
Next, they each made their own mini pizza for dinner. They rolled out the dough to the size they wanted and then added the sauce and toppings they wanted.
After dinner we played the candy bar game (where you wear oven mits and try to get into the candy bar with spoons). They loved it. We also did a memory game with baking items on a tray. We ran out of time for the other games and relays. Matson was enjoying the attention from all the girls until he realized he was really outnumbered! Kelsie's friends were all doting on him!
Each of the girls got their own cake to decorate. You wouldn't beleive how excited they were about this! They were thrilled. They frosted their cakes and decorated them with all types of candy and sprinkles, etc... They all turned out different and so cute. Some of the girls were super creative and artistic and some of them just saw how much candy they could load on the cake. I guess I should have seen that one coming. :)
The girls took home their aprons and decorated cakes and they all seemed to have a really good time. If the noise level equals the enjoyment level then they had a REALLY REALLY good time! It was really fun and a bit crazy. Thankfully I had my mom and John there to provide extra hands with the cooking projects. I loved getting to know some of Kelsie's school friends that I didn't know very well.
One last shot of Kelsie with her huge cupcake cake. She loved it! Happy Birthday!
Happy 9th Birthday to Kelsie!
She celebrated her birthday by going to Chick -Fil-A for lunch with her best friend, Brianna. Then all the Peterson's came over for her birthday party. The gifts she got represented the things she loves most: baking, singing, and doing crafty stuff. She got baking mixes and a cupcake apron, a Wii sing it Karoake game, craft stuff, a Barbie with color changing hair, American Girl books, and a sparkly, poofy tutu type skirt that she's been wanting FOREVER.
She didn't get the one thing she REALLY wanted: A DOG! She been begging for one of those since she first learned to say the word Ruffy (her word for dogs when she was little). But Aunt Janae brought Ashley to the party to celebrate and it made Kelsie so happy!
And last but not least, I had to include this picture of my dad from the party. We found grandpa in the corner engrossed in one of Kelsie's new American Girl books. It was pretty funny! He read a couple chapters of her book and said it was a really good book. :) Don't worry Grandpa--when Kelsie's done with the books she''ll lend them to you to read!
