First Day of School!

Brandon and Kate eating their breakfast. They are about ready to head out to catch the bus!

Kate is starting 5th grade. I can't believe how grown up she is! Holding up her "5." Such a cutie!

Brandon starts 6th grade today. Here he is, silly as ever. ;) Handsome guy, too!

The big intermediate schoolers
Megan is a big 3rd grader today! Wow! I thought she looked so beautiful in her new dress.Holding up her big "3"Now I am back to having 2 little ones at home. Carli will start preschool in a few weeks, but for now it's just me and my babies. :)

Polar Express and Class Parties

This was our 3rd year creating a train car for the Polar Express parade for the 2nd grade at our school. The kids love to do it and the parents...don't. Megan's wasn't too bad, though. It was very simple and cute. Here's Megan sporting her train car (notice the forgotten train wheels). She was so happy with the way it turned out. I thought it turned out well, too.The next day were the winter parties in the classroom. I was in charge of Megan's class party this year. It was very simple and fun (I guess simple is my motto as of late). :) We had some activity and coloring pages for the kids to do while we set up the food and then they ate.

Here are Carli, Brooke, and Megan at the party.

After eating all the yummy snacks their teacher read a fun story while they passed their book gifts "left" or "right." They loved it.It's hit or miss with the book exchange, but Megan was thrilled with her book this year. She loves the new Tinkerbell books and movies!Then it was on to Kate's party. The 4th grade always makes graham cracker gingerbread houses. Kate's was really cute, but ended up falling apart by the time we got home even though it was super glued to the plate. Oh well.

Kate and her buds during the party.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get over the Brandon's school to hang out during his party time, but he said he had a great time. I'll have to try to get extra pictures of him this week!

We are having a good time with Grandpa and Grandma here. My mom and I took the girls to see "The Princess and the Frog" this afternoon. Everyone enjoyed it! We'll have to see what tomorrow brings. :) We are excited for Christmas! Brooke especially likes to crawl over to the tree and play with the brightly packaged gifts. I can't wait until Friday when we can let her rip them open!

Holiday Singing

With December comes parties and concerts and all kinds of fun events at school. Kate is a member of the vocal team at school and they had their holiday concert last week. I always love to hear the kids sing (especially mine--they love it and have very beautiful voices)!

Kate singingBrooke and Megan during the performance. Interesting the difference in the color of their eyes. We'll just have to wait and see if Brooke's change at all.The usual sucking of the thumb.Right after the performance. So cute!

First Day of School

Ok, so I still haven't finished blogging about our summer adventures, but school has started and I'm already a week behind getting their pictures up of the first day. My mom has been waiting for this post so finally, it is here!

Our day started pretty early for Brandon who had to catch the bus at 6:45! He was running a tad behind so this was the only picture I was able to snap of my big 5th grader. I can't believe how grown up he is getting. He was so excited to be riding the bus this year. Everything seems to be going very well for him so far!

Almost 45 minutes later it's time to get the girls off. Megan is now in 2nd grade and Kate is in 4th. Of course, Carli had to be in the pictures, too. Don't they all look cute?! Brooke was still fast asleep.Yeah, Kate's feeling pretty grown up. :)Megan is thrilled to be in 2nd grade. They spotted their friend, Kailee, getting ready to head to school, too. They had to run over for a quick hug.Here's what Carli, Brooke, and I did after we dropped the girls off at school. It was a pretty nice morning so we went to the playground! Here is Brooke's first swinging experience. More pics to come from this, but she loved it!!!

End of School

The last two days of school were full of awards assemblies, lunches, and treats. It was a fun time. The kids were all very excited about their awards and all did so well! We are proud of all they have accomplished this year.

Brandon and his teacher, Mrs. Ball. He had her for 2 years and we will really miss her!!! She helped him through a lot and was a huge reason why he was so successful. Thank you Mrs. Ball!Kate receiving her awards on stage.Kate and her 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Fucsko. Kate just adored her and we will miss her, too!Because Megan's birthday is in the summer we took treats on her last day of school. She chose to share donuts with her class this year. She loved wearing a birthday crown!After donuts was the awards assembly. Here is Megan receiving her awards!Megan and her 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Wharton. What a sweet wonderful teacher she was for Megan. We will miss her, too!This is Carli entertaining herself during one of the awards assemblies. :)Another picture from an awards assembly. She did great considering we sat through 3 of them! Brooke was a doll through all of them. I did not get a picture of her, though. Darn!

I am glad school is over for the year, but it will come all too soon. It is so nice to have a relaxing schedule during the summer. With 5 kids it gets a little hectic around our house, as you can imagine. :)

Field Day!

Last week the kids had field day at school. They all love it! What a fun time for them to be outside playing games and having a grand time. It was a beautiful day for it, too. A little humid, but at least it wasn't raining. :)

Here's Megan waiting for her next game to start.Going through the Hula Hula Bula Bula game.
Here's Kate holding the beach ball. They had to see how many times they could hit the ball and keep it in their circle of people.

Brandon was very careful to get as much water into the bottle as he could!

Love the tongue sticking out in this one

Here's what Carli wanted to do while the older kids were playing

Brooke was adorable in her little sun hat!

I'm so glad I am blessed to be able to stay at home and go to all these fun events the kids have at school. I love being a SAHM!

Amelia Earhart

The 3rd grade classes at Kate's school put on a Living Statues Museum. Each student chose a person to depict and then studied that person's life. Then they dressed up as that person and they presented their speeches for the school and parents in their "museum." Kate chose Amelia Earhart. She was so excited about it. It was neat that the museum day was during my Mom and Dad's visit a few weeks ago so they were able to come and see her perform her speech. It was really cute. Each kid had a red dot on the back of their hand and when you wanted to hear their speech you went up to them and pushed the button on their hand and they would talk. Funny. Kate did a great job. Finding a costume wasn't so easy so we made do with what we had. She's more of a modern Amelia than the one from the past. :) Great job, Kate!!!

Other December Musical Happenings

Brandon and Kate are both on the chimes team at school. This is a very fun group who play these chimes that make the most beautiful and heavenly music. I just love to listen to them play! This year the 4th graders had their own music night at the school and then the 3rd graders had their music night the week after. Then all the chimes teams (3rd grade team and 2 4th grade teams) went on tour together. They visited two retirement homes in the area and played Christmas carols for them. Carli and I were able to go along and it is so neat to see all the faces light up when these kids come in the room and play their music. They especially love seeing the little ones, like Carli and a small baby who was with our group as well. It was a neat day.

Megan's grade has a little "sing" at the beginning of school one more last week. It only lasted 5 minutes, but the kids love to dress up in their Christmas clothes and sing these sweet songs to their parents and the rest of the school. Megan donned her bright red Christmas dress and sang her heart out. :)

Here are some pictures from all of these happenings.

Megan singing with all the other 1st graders. We couldn't get very close because the rest of the students in the school were sitting in the main part of the gym. Megan off to class

Kate playing on the tour.
Kate playing her chimes at the 3rd grade music night

After the chimes tour they all went out to Cici's Pizza for lunch. Everyone enjoyed that!

Sorry about the open mouth (Brandon!!!). Here he is with his buddy, Ryley, who is on the 3rd grade team.

Carli sure enjoyed the pizza and pasta! Yum!

Carli has to walk the curbs wherever we go. This was outside one of the retirement homes.

Brandon got right up to the camera lens and this was the result. Silly guy!

Brandon (center boy) playing on the chimes tour. His team played Hark, the Herald Angels Sing. They did an awesome job and it was really beautiful to listen to.