Lunches at school

I love meeting my kiddos for lunch at school. I love having them bring their friends back to the back table and listen to their gossip and giggling. I love seeing a glimpse of their day at school. I had to get in one last lunch before Olivia went off to High School (and it would be super uncool to have your Mommy visit you for lunch there...)

Izzy with Cambria, Joslynn, and Julia

Olivia with Alexa and Sam

Collin and Bubba with Xavie and Matthew

Celebrations

The kids lately have had a lot of things to celebrate. Whenever something cool happens, they almost ALWAYS say, "We need to go out and celebrate!". We went and got Blizzards at Dairy Queen one night and told them this is the celebration for all the FANTASTIC things happening lately. We listed all the things that they have been wanting to celebrate recently: grades, parent/teacher conferences, passing a high school final, working hard on the old house, not crying at school, graduating preschool, cleaning our bedroom, finishing our sports, the list goes on and on and on and on.

Marley Park Showcase

We always love going to the kids' school and seeing all the work they've been doing. I was especially impressed with the art teacher at their school this year, she did some amazing projects with the kids!

Bubba's Tiki project

Bubba's school projects: created a pizza restaurant and did a riddle slide project on a Black Mamba.

Izzy created a clay bowl (her's has a snail and flowers on the edges). We had to buy it for $10, and then got to fill it with an ice cream sundae.

Her class project for Shark Tank: she invented "The Bagonizer", which was a softball bag with many different compartments to store all her gear so it wouldn't get lost.

Olivia's project was creating an entirely new planet with various ecosystems complete with new plants and animals. There was a ton of work involved and the entire project looked amazing!

Olivia's Grafitti Art

Olivia's Embroidery Project

Getting used to the drive

For someone who used to throw up every time he got in the car, this guy seems to have started enjoying the rides.

Preschool Graduation

All the feels right now. I have been teaching preschool in our home for the past 13 years, Collin has been with me for the last 4. This was our final graduation and I'll admit it was pretty difficult for me. It has been a great year with a great class and I have enjoyed watching them learn and grow. Preschool has been such a blessing for our family in so many ways:

• I was able to stay at home and raise our kids while working part time and bringing in some income for our family (although we've always said that we would live within Shayne's income, having some extra "fluff" money allowed us to do some fun things as a family, sports, dance classes, one-on-one activities, date-nights, etc.)

I was able to utilize my education/degree and keep developing and growing while being a stay at home mom

I was able to provide a wonderful beginning education and preschool experience for over 100 children in the past 13 years (including 4 extra-special ones)

• My flexible schedule allowed me to volunteer and be involved in my kids' PTA and all sorts of extra curricular activities
• I was able to watch our kids learn and grow. It is a pretty amazing experience to watch your kids learn to read, learn to write, learn to count-add-subtract, and know you were an integral part in all of that.
• Having preschool in our home, gave us an area and ability to do constant art projects, play dough exploration, painting parties, scissor creations, glue-extravaganzas and so much more! There was a constant messiness that showed me our kids were creating and exploring and having a wonderful childhood.
• Although daycare was never my goal, staying home and teaching preschool allowed me to help out some close family friends in real need of daycare for their children. I helped families who lost jobs and schedules changed, moms that had to go back to work full-time before they were ready to leave their kids, a family who's mom passed away-it was a great opportunity to be able to really fill a need for wonderful families with their kiddos.

Although I am excited to embark on a new page in life and for our family, I am sad to see this one ending. I recently realized that this next school year, I will have preschoolers in every single grade, from kindergarten to 12th grade! That just blows my mind!

Collin's 4th preschool graduation was a little bit different than it was for me. He was so DONE with preschool, he couldn't be bothered! He sat during the entire program lounging on his chair with his hands behind his head. He refused to sing any of our songs because "they were baby songs and he's a kindergartener", and told everyone that he was super-excited to FINALLY be going to 

REAL SCHOOL!

8th Grade Dance

8th Grade Dance "Masquerade Ball". Olivia had a blast!

Izzy’s State Float

Izzy's 5th Grade State Project was on Pennsylvania. They had to create a state float with certain criteria and show them off in a State Float Parade at the school. Izzy did a great job and spent many hours designing and creating her float. Great job Izzy!

Preschool Movie Party

Knowing this is my last year teaching preschool, these fun preschool days are just a little more special. Collin's LAST Preschool Movie Party was watching Finding Dory, we played ocean BINGO, made candy aquariums (worked on our Mother's Day gifts), and enjoyed some great movie snacks.

Final Tball Game

My favorite TBall game of the season! The kids get to play on the BIG field, their pictures are put up on the big screen, and it is just one big party! Collin loves all things sports, especially baseball. He is constantly asking us to go out and watch him hit, or play catch. He begs his coach to play either pitcher or first base because those positions see the most action.  I love watching him play!

A whole Lotta Love

These kids couldn't be more in love with our furry family member.

Spoiled Much?

He has such a rough life...

Symbols Project

Bubba has loved his projects this year in Third Grade. This was our last one, exploring a national symbol. Bubba chose the Bald Eagle.

Mathletes

Izzy has loved joining the Athletes at Marley Park. This year was just as fun. She was on a team with fifth and sixth graders and they rocked it!

Izzy's team came in second place out of over 20 teams in the district!

Girls’ Night

The boys went out to Fathers and Sons campout (NO PICTURES! can you believe it?!!) So the girls and I set out on a night full of shopping. We did try out a new place at the mall called Dragon's Breath-it is like giant cheetos that are frozen  and make you breathe smoke-like stuff while you eat them...the idea was cool, but we were not impressed.

We did spend quite a bit of money on fun clothes, and tried on all the formal dresses that there could be in the 5 department stores around! We always love a Girls' Night Out!

Happy 11 1/2 Birthday Isabelle!

This little lady just won't stop growing up! We're already halfway through her 11th year (and I really am not ready for the milestone of turning 12--although she can't wait!). Izzy has done some great things this past six months: tried out and made student council, worked really hard to be a softball pitcher, did stellar work on her grades, tried out playing flute in the school band, and wants to try many other sports. This girl is going places!

I. Love. Rainbows.

One of my favorite things to see!

Please Can I Play With You?

Someone has a really hard time being left out of playing with trains, littlest pet shop, blocks, pretty much anything he can chew...

Napping Buddies

Bubba had to stay home from church (wasn't feeling well), and he decided to take a nap with his favorite buddy.

Sushi Night

For Olivia's birthday she wanted to try some sushi, so we took her out to a great little sushi place. She loved everything and is looking forward to lots more sushi! Yay!!

Surprise Donut Runs are the tastiest!

I love that Grandma and Grandpa are so close that they can surprise the kids with a donut run down to Krispy Kreme. So much fun!!

12u Sun Devils Softball

That's Izzy in the middle with the bright green sock.

Finally Listed!

Red for Ed

After 10 years of skimping and funding education last, the educators were finally fed up with it and all the educators in the state had a walk out that lasted 6 days down to the capital to get funding for our students #redfored. I fully support what our educators are doing and trying to restore our funding (we are 50th in the country for funding per student and teacher salaries).

Having all the kids out of school meant that I had extra helpers with preschool. They are always begging me to stay home and help out with preschool, and their dreams came true!!

House rehabbing complete

A month straight of rehabbing, demo-ing, organizing, fixing, planning, scheduling, etc. and the house looks FANTASTIC! For being a 13 year old house, it looks amazing! It's a little bittersweet to let it go, BUT WE ARE READY!!