Swimming Summer

We've been doing LOTS of swimming this summer, almost every day.  We are very happy to have a community pool in our neighborhood and the kids enjoyed a couple of weeks of swimming lessons where they each improved greatly on their swimming skills.  We'll have them turned into Arizona water babies before long.  Every Friday after the summer movies we've been going over to the Bergen's for a little swim/pizza party.  This particular Friday happened to be the week of Rex' and Ren's birthdays.

 The newly three and five year olds and almost all the cousins (who live here).

 Everyone enjoyed the cupcakes Kindra made (I probably could've eaten 5)!

Then we called cousin Mia in Idaho to wish her a happy birthday since it happened to be her birthday on that very day.  Wish she could've been here to help us celebrate!

Number 5 is Alive!

Rex turned 5 in June and he was pretty excited.  I love my little Rexy and I'm really sad he's old enough to be in kindergarten now, I hate how fast time flies.  He's lovable, fun, friendly, laid back, sweet, and smart.  He especially loves anything to do with numbers.

Enjoying his birthday donut. (They get their love of maple donuts from their dad, yuck!)

We celebrated with a little family party at Chuck E Cheese's, as you can see he was pretty excited.

We were glad Granny and Pops could make it.

He seemed more excited to get this water gun from Gracie than to get any of his other presents.

The boys.

The kids raked in the tickets, apparently they found a game with a glitch and scored a billion tickets. More than they've ever had before, they had lots of fun picking out their prizes and the guy at the counter was super nice and patient :).

The big present. Maybe once summer is over he'll get a chance to actually ride it.  (Kris and I have this thing about bikes, in Arizona you get bikes for Christmas because it's perfect weather for riding. In Rexburg it doesn't make any sense to get a bike for Christmas because you won't be able to ride it for another 4 months. And it looks like Rex shouldn't get a bike for his birthday in AZ because it's just getting hot enough that you don't want to be outside anymore unless you're at the pool, lesson learned.)

The birthday cake. It was a store bought ice cream cake and I thought it was pretty gross, another lesson learned.  At least the kids enjoyed it.

Happy 5th birthday Rex!

Last Day of School

The kids had their last day of school on May 26th. Which I was so grateful for because by this point I was just flat out exhausted from all the end of the school year festivities (it didn't help being 7 1/2 months pregnant). 

Here's a pic of them on the first day of school.

And here they are on the last day (just to see how much they've changed). Funny, Matthew's wearing the same shirt. I think Colby's changed the most!

Matthew graduated from elementary school.  Which to him was kind of weird since he took a step backward when we moved here, he'd already been to middle school last year and had to go back to elementary school.  Poor Matthew.  But, onward and upward to junior high.  Eeek! Do I really have a 7th grader?!?

Way to go Matthew! It was a difficult year as far as moving and adjustment and change but he survived and his grades were awesome! 

He had an excellent teacher, Mr. Monette.  He did a lot to help him survive the year.  He is a teacher who goes the extra mile and really cares about his students.  I'm so glad Matthew had him for a teacher this year.

Rex and Colby had a blast at the end of the year splash party for preschool.  They played, played and played some more in the water with all their school buddies and cousins.

What a crazy year!  It was just a relief knowing that we had all survived.  I'm so proud of the kids for being so strong and doing so well in school in spite of all the changes and upheaval in their lives.

Preschool Graduate

On May 24th, Rex graduated from preschool.  He's been going to my sis-in-law's Montessori preschool and it was such a great experience for him.  I know he's ready for kindergarten.  The graduation ceremony was so cute program and the children all looked super adorable in their caps and gowns. 

As you can see, Rex was pretty excited to graduate!

 Rex and Miss Kindra

More End of the Year Stuff

For moms the end of the school year is crazy and the more kids you have the worse it gets.  Projects, concerts, reports, field trips, school activites, awards ceremonies, graduations and a larger influx of crap coming home from school. Seriously, I just wish the teachers would throw half of that stuff away rather than leaving it for me to deal with.  Do I really want the last 10 pages of whatever workbook? No, I do not, but they send it home and I suffer guilt about throwing it away rather than having my child finish it up or play school with it or whatever.  I just wish I didn't even have to see it.  Anyway, on we go...

Matthew's castle project

 Gracie's peregrine falcon report.  They had to do written and oral parts.  I think she knows everything a person could ever want to know about that bird.

 Owen received the Falcon Citizenship Award.  They selected two people from each class who exhibited excellent qualities.  We were so proud of him for earning this.  He was surprised to see me and the boys in the gym at the assembly because he had no idea so it was pretty fun to see his face.

 I think these two felt a little neglected the last few weeks of school and they wanted me to take their pic in the Walmart arcade.

End of the Year Concerts

I've got some super mega catching up to do as far as blogging goes so there may be several posts from me in the next little while, hopefully I can get all caught up before the baby comes.  Let's start off with the end of the year concerts.
Gracie had her last orchestra concert on May 12th. She did a great job and had a lot of fun being in the orchestra this year. She's not sure if she wants to continue playing the violin or join the band next year and play the flute or something since she will have that opportunity as a 5th grader.  But, playing in the orchestra has been a great experience for her.

The following week Matthew had his end of the year band concert.  He received the Student of the Month Award for the month of May and a special award for being one of only two people to play two instruments in the band, he plays the bass clarinet and the soprano clarinet.  Way to go Matthew!

I'm so stinkin' mad at Blogger because I've been trying to upload another video of Matthew's and I've tried about a billion times and it's just not working.  This one is of him playing the bass clarinet and the quality is not great.  The other one shows him playing the school song on the soprano clarinet and Kris actually got up and shot the video from a much better spot.  Oh well, maybe check back later and see if I got the other video loaded.

I'm glad that my kids are enjoying being in these music programs, hopefully they will continue to for a long time!

Just Call Him Slim Shady

Colby's added a new accessory to his wardrobe.