Bucket List

On the nearly last day of Kindergarten, Kai's class had a beach day.  At one of their stations for beach day, they made a "bucket list" for the summer (on a cute, large cut-out of a beach bucket).  Kai's list was quite simple--play with his friend Avery, play with his family, take classes at School Crossing, and "do a present".  That last one left me confused, but he explained it quickly as building a race car that he received from a friend for his birthday.  He had asked several times to do it, but I had told him it would make a good summer project.  Well, school had been out a whole two days before he finally swayed me to do it.  So, Saturday morning the boys built race cars.  Kai's car ended up taking all day and lots of help from daddy.  But it was done and it looks awesome.  Now, what do we do with the rest of the summer?!

With Kai's dragging out all day, I apparently have no pictures of Kai actually doing his car.  I'll have to get a picture of him and his car and then add it here.  :)

Smiling?

Sometime in the early morning hours of May 23rd I fell asleep while holding Bree (I was sitting up) after nursing her.  I snapped awake quickly only to look down and see her smiling this huge beautiful smile at me.  I have yet to capture it on camera, but on the 25th I tried.  While I didn't get the smile, I got some pictures of my pretty girl.

A milky mini-smile :)

Last Day of Kindergarten

Kai's last day of Kindergarten fell on May 23rd.  On the 20th (yes in the midst of Reid's birthday craziness) there was a small awards ceremony for the students.  Every child got an award to recognize them for one of the school values that they most demonstrated.  I didn't know that they were also handing out one other award--perfect attendance.  Kai did not earn perfect attendance, but he is extremely competitive.  When he realized that others were getting an award that he was not, he broke down and had a tantrum.  And to top that off, they started the awards for everyone and he was one of the first ones up.  Good grief!  He barely went up to get his certificate before running and crying back to the arms of his teacher's aide.  I was so embarrassed!  Thankfully everyone thought he was just nervous to be in front of people, but that also didn't help me with him as his teacher and the aide coddled him and let him be the special helper for the rest of the day.  What am I going to do with this kid?!

Before the awards

Getting the award for "caring".  He sure did care--that he didn't get the other award.  Geez!

The last day of school one of the parents brought autograph dogs for everyone.  They signed them all in class.  And of course, many brought presents for the teacher.  Kai's teacher, Ms. Korte, collects beads from Brighton, so we that morning we went to the store in the Springs and Kai picked out a pretty bead for her collection.  Everyone thought it was a great gift!  (The autograph dog has become it's own drama.  Kai says he doesn't like having everyone's name on it and he wants to color over it.  Reid and I won't let him.  He's refused to allow the dog in his room since.)

I can't believe he's going to be in first grade in just a few months.  And then he'll be gone all day long!  Yikes!  I'm not sure I'm ready for that.  And at the same time, there is something about that that can be nice.  I'm hoping Finn won't start climbing the walls, though.  This last day of kindergarten Finn was crying that he missed his brother while he was at school.  He was so happy to find out that it was the last day!

Spring is springing

I didn't realize how long this winter was going until I noticed that my white lilac bush that I LOVE still had no flowers on it.  I LOVE the smell of those flowers (and so do the bees) and I was missing them this year.  On May 21st we went outside to find buds on our trees and bushes.  Hooray!

Bree woke up from her nap while we were looking at the flowers, so I found her a safe place to hang out in the car.  Finn thought it was great and wanted to join her.  Unfortunately all of our outside time wiped him out and he ended up cuddling up next to me on the couch and crashing right before I had to go pick up Kai from school.  Somehow I managed to get both him and a sleeping Bree into their car seats in the car without waking them up and picking Kai up from the bus stop.  Bree woke up before Finn and had a great time hanging out with her brother.  Kai just adores her and is making an excellent big brother.  Finn is great with her, too, just struggling with what it means to be gentle!

And this is what happens when dad gets home (sometimes).  See that forgotten dinner there??

Reid's Big Birthday

Reid had a big birthday this year.....and I didn't know what to do.  With Bree I was too tired to really pull off anything "big".  So, I asked the boys and Kai suggested a surprise party.  Perfect!

That morning we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a cake.  And then after Kai went to school, Finn and I went to Party City to get a bunch of balloons.  From there we headed to Target to get something for Bree as well as pick up dinner.  And after all of that, we were all wiped out.

Finn took this picture of me that afternoon.  He kept trying to get Bree in the shot and was failing miserably.

When Reid came home from work the boys jumped out of their hiding spots in the couch cushions.  Then they played the party game that Kai made--Pin the tail on the Unicorn--while I finished making beef and broccoli for dinner.  And finally we had Heath ice cream cake to top it off.  Reid's present arrived a few days later--a stylus for the IPad so he can draw.  I think he really enjoyed his birthday.

Playing with balloons before bedtime

Pin the tail on the unicorn

Cuteness

Bree at 2 weeks and 4 days

Turning 6!

Kai's birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, which meant that it was a regular work and school day.  For school, we made chocolate chip cookies for him to share with the class.  We did this in his Pre-K class and now Kai is sold on this being his normal school birthday treat.  What's even funnier is that another mom came up to me about a week or so later and said that her son wanted to bring chocolate chip cookies for his birthday because the ones that Kai brought were "soooooo good"!  I'm glad we've started a good trend at school.  Also at school that day was PJ day.  They were having a read-a-thon all day and everyone was asked to wear their jammies and bring pillows and blankets and books.  Since our dryer was out of commission at the time and all of Kai's jammies were dirty, we picked up new jammies for him.  He was very excited to get Angry Bird Star Wars jammies and he wore them all day long.

That evening we celebrated Kai's birthday with a small family party of cheesecake and a present.  For our anniversary 3 weeks earlier I had picked out cheesecake and Kai liked it so much that he specifically requested that for his birthday cake.  We got just a small chocolate cheesecake sampler from Wal-Mart and he was very happy!

Finn actually liked it, too!

An Angry Bird puzzle

Bree's version of participating in the events

The face of a 6 year old!  He discovered the Magic Tree House series the weekend Bree was born and he is going through them faster than I can order them from the library.  I had to stop him here to get a picture of him on his birthday!

We finally held a large friend's birthday party on Saturday the 18th.  Kai picked to have his party at Glow Golf in our local mall.  We had it at lunch time, so the first 45 minutes were spent golfing and then we went into the party room where we had pizza, ice cream, and birthday cake.  And Kai also got to open all of his presents!  We had a good turn out of 7 school friend (we invited all 11 kids from his class) and 1 non-school friend.  It was a fun party and it was good not to have to clean up our house for it!  While we were at Kai's party, I left Bree at a friend's house where she apparently slept nearly the whole time.  So, it was a good morning and Kai had a very happy birthday.  After his party he came home to even more presents from the family.  Let's say that Kai made out quite well this year!

Happy Birthday at Glow Golf!  It was an Angry Birds party!

Friends

In the party room