Last week Owen earned his yellow belt green stripe at Karate!  We are so proud of him.  He has a few week break before he starts the summer session to earn his next belt.  He loves Karate and doesn't like when there is a break between sessions.  He also loves that his friend Aaron is also in Karate with him!

Wordless Wednesday...

Mother's Day

 On Mother's Day at our church they had stations set up for family pictures as a gift for all the Mom's!  They did this last year too and I think it is a wonderful gift to receive!

Girls Day Out...

Last Saturday was a "Girls day out" for me!  Well Ily too!  We did lunch and shopping!

The Box...

 Looking at the box is a must on cereal mornings for this little boy!  In fact he gets very upset if you forget to put the box on the table.  Rice Krispies is his current cereal of choice.  However he calls cereal cheerios no matter what kind it is!

We Are Done!

I am excited to anounce that we are done with school!  Both kids had an excellent first year of homeschool, and I am slowly working on our curriculum for next year.  Owen thinks it is cool that he is no longer a Kindergartener.  I guess being a first grade is a pretty big deal.  He said he can "deal with it" that at church he will still be called a Kindergartener until September.  Ava isn't impressed that she is still going to be a preschooler next year.  She was looking for a new title.  So I came up with she did preschool 4 this year, because she is 4 right now. And, next year she will be in preschool 5, because she will turn 5 in December.  That seemed ok with her.  I think she will be happy once we start the school year because she will have a lot more busy work than she did this year and that is the part of school that she loves the most.   

But for now we are enjoying our summer vacation!  We went swimming at the community center today.  When we got home Owen said he was happy that we didn't have to do school today.  Then he goes I bet you are happy that you don't have to be my teacher today.  With a little laugh I said yep I amnot a teacher today  just your Mama!  Owen and Ava have a lot of places that they want us to go to this summer.  Their plans mixed with karate, swimming lessons, VBS, library, and a few vacations will make for a busy three months!  

Last Tuesday "The Bug Guy" came to our Library!  I loved watching all the different reactions the kids had to the different bugs.  My kids loved them. Owen was a bit hesitant to hold some of them but after watching his sister and his friends Aaron and Emma he held them all!  My nephew Hayden was there too he liked looking at the bugs but said "NO WAY" when asked if he wanted to hold one! 

Cousins...

A couple of weeks ago we went to a party for my niece Skylar who made her First Communion and my nephew Hayden who celebrated his 4th birthday.  I thought it was kind of funny how well the 4  boys shirts coordinated together with out even planning it!

Wordless Wednesday

Family Update...

All right so now that I have shared all of our Kansas pictures I can give an update on what has been going on with all of us since we got back.  I'll start with the 6th the day after we got home.  It was a big day for Ezra and Ily.  Ezra graduated from his crib and is now sleeping in a big boy bed!  Thank you Uncle Greg and Auntie Frances for giving Ezra the bed.  He has shocked his parents and is doing awesome with the change.  We have not had any issues with him getting out of bed when he shouldn't.  At ten and a half months Ily figured out how to get herself from laying down to sitting up.  So, with that milestone we had to retire the cradle and now she is in a crib.

Then on the 9th Owen had an award night for his last day of Sparks/Awana.  The kids sang a few songs and then were given an award followed by ice cream treats.

Luke had an interview with his company on the 10th. As of right now we don't have a 100% yes or no answer if he will get the position but we have very positive feelings about it.  I will be very happy if he gets it because that will mean minimal traveling for him. 

On the 11th Ava went to her first "Friend" birthday party.  Her friend Emma had a tea party with six friends.  Ava was so excited about going to the party she wore her new skirt that Grandma Ruth made her.  She had a great time.

Also on the 11th I noticed that Ily was starting to get her first tooth!  It is on the bottom and as of right now just a little bit of it is showing and the one right next to it is starting to poke out.

Last week my Uncle Roy who was 80 passed away.  He had heart issues for many years and than in the last few weeks he had a stroke and it was too much for him.  He was ready to be with Jesus. On Thursday Luke and I went to his wake and then on Friday we all went to his funeral.  He was a great guy who loved people.  He had a gift for making people laugh with his great sense of humor.  The memories I have of him are many and he will be greatly missed.

On the 15th Owen passed his test to get his yellow belt green stripe for Karate.  We are so proud of him.  We had his belt/award ceremony tonight. Pictures of that to come soon.
Also today was Owen's last day of K-3 Co-op.  A group that he has been going to every other Tuesday for art and gym classes.

Tomorrow will be our last day of school!  We are ready for summer break!

That about sums up the major happenings in our family for the last several weeks.  Time for me to go to bed, good night.

Outside

 Spending time outside is what these three children and their dog LOVE to do!  Owen and Ava were busy rigging up a pulley system so that they could put stuff in a bucket and pull it up to the platform where Ava is.  Ezra loves playing in the sand box.  He is going to have a much bigger sand box sometime before the end of summer!  Toby likes to lay where ever the kids are playing.

Day 7 of our Kansas trip...

Saturday morning we packed our van up to make the long trip home.  We ate breakfast and at 8:40 we left our hotel and were on our way.  We weren't in a hurry to get home and we made a few stops along the way to do some sight seeing!  When we left our hotel Saturday morning it was already in the 80's and when we pulled into our drive way that night at 8:45 it was only in the 50's.  We were a bit on the chilly side being that we were in shorts and t-shirts.  We were exhausted but had great trip!

day 6 of our Kansas trip...

On Friday we went to an amazing 300 acre botanical garden.  It was full of beautiful flowers, trees, waterfalls, ponds, endless walking trails, and a huge area designed for children to play and explore.  And, explore we did for many hours!  Each corner we turned the kids were eager to be the first one to check out what we would find next.  Oh and most of the pictures I have are from the kid area so they unfortunately don't show all of the flowers we saw.

After dinner we decided to find a park to play at and on the way Luke just happened to find yet another place to stop at for a History lesson!  This time he found a landmark that was where pioneers traveled on the Westport, Santa Fe, and Oregon Trails.  Luke again read all of the literature to the kids who in return thought the oxen on display made for a perfect jungle gym!

After the history lesson we did manage to find a great park to play at!  There was a walking trail near the park that ran alongside a river so we decided to take a walk to see what we could find along the trail.

I love this picture  for 2 reasons.  The first reason is that it has all my tired of walking children who are being pushed by my wonderful husband.  The second reason is because I just happened to take this picture at the same time Ily decided that she no longer wanted the cup to be in the strollers cup holder so she tossed it out.