School's Out!

Both Courtney and Dylan had end-of-year celebrations last June. Here are the pictures from those events.

Dylan's Kindergarten class had a fun celebration. They invited the parents to class, sang us a bunch of songs they learned, read us a book they wrote about the school year, gave a slide show, and served us ice cream sundaes. It was a lot of fun to see how much they have grown throughout the year.




Dylan's best friend, Spike, is the 4th kid to his right, the blond boy. They are inseparable at school.




Here are a few pages from Dylan's book:
"We learned words that are word walls that are easy. And I learned the alphabet and count to 180."

"My favorite time of day is recess because I like to play. I like to play police and I like to play with Spike."


Courtney's last year of elementary school was celebrated with 5th Grade Graduation. It was a really nice ceremony for the kids and parents. I'm usually not very emotional with my kids' school advancements. I don't cry when I send them off to Kindergarten. But I broke down during graduation. Looking at her up on the stage, thinking about how far she has come since Kindergarten, and feeling so blessed to have a wonderful, strong, beautiful, and smart daughter caused me to lose it. I was just a little choked up until they had each student take a flower and give it to their Mom in the audience. That was it, I was bawling like a baby. Even now, remembering is getting me teary eyed.

I had a hard time taking pictures during the ceremony. The ones I managed to take came out blurry because my camera was on a weird setting. So this is all you get.





Courtney receiving her diploma.

The specials teachers (art, music, PE, library) gave out awards to a few kids who displayed outstanding work during the year. Courtney received one from PE, which she was so excited about. She loves PE so this meant a lot to her. (I didn't have my camera ready so I only got a picture of her heading back to her seat.)


With Mrs. Penland, her teacher.

With one of her good friends, Jacob. Her other really good friend, Jonah, was out of town so we didn't get his picture.

The kids in her class wrote down words to describe each of their classmates. When they recieved their diploma, her teacher read a few things that were written about each of them. It was really special so hear the different things they came up with.

Now we're off to another school year!!

Fun in PA

For Father's Day weekend, we went up to Pennsylvania to visit Bruce's parents. We had a great weekend hanging out with them and Bruce's brother, Tim and his family. We helped with some yard work, Grandma took the kids hunting for toys at garage sales, swam in their pool, practiced our archery skills, and just played.

The highlight for the kids was our trip to Kennywood. These are the only pictures I took from the whole weekend. Tim's wife, Hilary stayed home with the babies. The rest of us went and baked in the sun, but had a great time.









Bruce and I took Travis and Rachel to Kiddieland for some great rides for little ones, while the big kids went with uncle Tim, Grandma, and Grandpa for some big rides.











We met up for lunch, then got soaked on the water rides.




Travis and Rachel were pretty tired, so they left with Grandma and Grandpa. We took Courtney, Erin, and Matthew on some big rides, (Dylan was too scared to go on most,) then Tim took Erin, Matthew, and Dylan home.





We stayed with Courtney so she could ride the 2 big roller coasters, Thunderbolt and Phantom's Revenge.

She was a little nervous before-hand, but loved them so much and wanted to ride again and again. Unfortunately we only had time for one ride each since the lines were so long. While waiting for Phantom's Revenge, one of the cars got stuck on the first hill going up. They got it down and everyone out safe, but we had to wait about 45 minutes for them to fix and test the ride. It was a lot of fun, although I've decided my roller coaster days are about over. I love them, but I came off feeling really sick and dizzy. Getting old stinks!

Just Because He's So Cute

Here are a few shots of Travis that I had to share. He loves to have his picture taken and will ham it up any time. The little girl is our next door neighbor, Candice. Her mom and I were canning peaches that day while the kids stayed busy with cartoons.

She's A Poet & I Didn't Know It

Courtney's 5th grade class had a poetry reading at the end of the year. Most read poems they had written themselves, a few read works by famous authors. I knew they were writing poetry in class, but I never saw what Courtney was working on until the day of the reading. Parents were invited to come. They served us snacks and juice and presented their works to us. I was very impressed with Courtney's creativity (peotry always freaked me out in school, I was really terrible at it.) Here is her brilliant piece:

Wyoming

Wyoming. Wyoming.
The best state in the world,
With rivers and mountains and prairies galore.
In Yellowstone Park you'll be snug and sound,
Or Devils Tower with steep slopes all around.
You'll be sure to go back again,
When you have been to Lander and Sheridan.
Wyoming is the best place to be,
The best place from sea to sea.

All I Want For Christmas . . .

Way back in June, Dylan lost both of his front teeth, on the same day!

The first one was very loose, and during his t-ball game, it fell out somewhere on the field. He couldn't find it, but was okay with not actually having it in his hand.

Later that day, while playing in the kiddie pool with Travis, his second one fell out. It wasn't as loose, but he worked it hard. This time he made sure to hang on to it so he'd have something to put under his pillow that night.

The tooth fairy came, left him double the money, and he's happy as can be. He has a little lisp that we laugh about. I try to get him to say lots of things with an S. And we laugh together.

So here it is, 2 months later, and those 2 teeth are still missing. The new ones haven't come in yet. I think he may actually get to sing, "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth."

I'm Still Here

I promise more posts with plenty of pics are on their way.

We're finally back after a really long and really fun vacation.

I just have to sort through all my pics and memories and decide how to get it all on here.

***patience***