School's out for the summer!

School's out for everyone in the fam' now! Phil and his class graduated last night with a nice ceremony followed by a dinner reception. We knew he had gotten pretty good grades throughout the course, but we were surprised when he was given an award for graduating in the top 10 percent and the "Fogleman Award" for his class.

The kiddos and I were very, VERY proud of him and his hard work over this past year. Nicely done, Phil!

Not a kindergartener

As of today, she's officially NOT a kindergartener anymore. But I refuse to refer to her as a 1st grader because she is still my Claire-baby. And Claire-babies can not possibly be 1st graders who go to school all day long.

Don't worry - I have all summer to get used to the idea.

In the meantime, check out that big girl with her bus stop pals on their last day of school.

Graduation (for Maddie)

Our little Maddie-kins recently had her pre-k graduation. Except she's not really graduating because she'll do pre-k again next year due to her late birthday. But her school makes a bit of a hooplah over it so she got to party, too. They've been practicing their ceremony for awhile now, complete with four songs.
Each child in the class received some sort of award. You know, things like "Most Curious", "Best with Numbers", etc. We were really SUPER proud of Maddie when she was recognized as the "Best Friend" in her class! Her teacher said she was a good friend to everyone. Maddie would find the kid with no one to play with and be sure to include him or her. She was always friendly to everyone and easy to get along with.

We were so happy to hear that our little girl was the same sweet person at school that we (mostly) see around here. Congrats, Maddie
Our next graduates will be Claire (from kindergarten) and then Phil!

Picnic in the Park

As the school year wraps up, there seems to be much less actual learning going on in class and much more fun. This is understandable, as the weather has seemed more summer-like and the kiddos (and probably the teachers, too!) have been antsy for the end of the school year to arrive.

Maddie's school helped with the antsy-ness with a picnic in the park. The teachers and a good number of parents walked with her class through town to a nice little park.

They ate their picnic lunches.

Then they had a little parachute time. Who doesn't love the parachute?

Then a story.

And THEN it was playtime! Wahoo!

All About Me Day

Each year, Claire's school puts on an "All About Me" day for the kindergarteners. They work all year long on making projects to display. On the big day, parents and family can come into the school to see what all they've been working on. Each kindergartener stands in front of their display and answers questions/shows off their stuff. They were so proud of themselves and of all the things that make them, "them"!

Part of the display was a photo of them on "When I Grow Up" day. Here's a closer picture of Claire on that day -- she wants to be an artist.

After showing off their work they all got up on the stage to sing a few sweet songs. How cute are these kiddos (especially the one second from the left in the back row)?

Memorial Day at the Veterans Cemetery

Claire's Daisy Girl Scout troop, along with many other scouting troops in the area, placed flags on the headstones at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Cemetery here in New Jersey. What a wonderful way to help the kiddos understand the upcoming holiday!

Here's our little scout, hard at work:

And Maddie got to place some flags, too:

Even Colin got into the spirit!

Phil helped to hand out flags to the little girls in Claire's Daisy troop.

There were so many scouts there that the whole cemetery was completed within about 20 minutes. It was pretty warm outside today, but the kids all did a wonderful job!

Before:

After:

Let's Dance

We just got home from the girls' big dance recital. They spent the last year getting into the routine of a new dance studio, getting to know a new teacher and all of the girls in their classes, and (of course) learning new dance moves. Once again, they got to wear beautiful costumes and perform a dance on the big stage. They worked really hard on their routines and they both did a wonderful job up there!

There's Maddie in the middle

That's Claire 4th from the left

"Recital week" is a busy week. We had their normal classes on Monday and Tuesday. Photos (in their costumes) on Thursday. Dress rehearsal on Saturday and THEN the real deal on Sunday. I got pretty good at putting their hair into ballerina-esque buns by the time the big day came around! Note: there's lots of hairspray and bobby pins involved.

Getting prettied up

Yesterday the girls were upstairs playing and they were quiet. Too quiet, really, but I trust them not to do anything too awful and Phil's out of town so I chose not to check on them. I'm so glad I didn't! When they finally emerged from the bathroom (yes, they were playing in the bathroom and I still didn't go check -- did I mention Phil's out of town and I'm long overdue for a break?) they were SO cute! They had discovered all of their hair-do accessories and Claire put them to good use.



She combed out Maddie's hair (without any complaints from Maddie - that never happens for me!) and then completed this complicated coiffure. Such sweet and beautiful girls I have!

Longwood in the Spring

This weekend the weather was beeeeautiful so we packed up the fam' and headed back to Longwood Gardens to see the tulips in bloom. Boy oh boy were there a bunch of flowers! Side note: how cool would it be to be a gardener there and get to play with all of those pretty plants and make beautiful landscapes???



Maddie apparently observed her grandmother closely at the gardens and the flower show last month -- she knew just what to do! "Daddy, take a picture of that flower. Ooo and that one! This one too, Daddy!" and so on and so forth. I'm sure her grandmothers will be proud to hear of her love of plants.

The Royal Wedding

I can distinctly remember when Princess Di and Prince Charles got married. I think I was 5 years old. Now there's another royal wedding and my girls are about that same age. I just knew they'd love watching it!


We invited a few friends over to join us for our princess wedding party. Thanks to our good ol' DVR, we could watch the wedding at our leisure, rewinding as needed due to kiddo-fits (I'm looking at YOU, Colin), and skipping forward through the boring parts (by that I mean boring for the kiddos. I personally love the ceremony and history of it all but I'll have to go back and watch later. Kiddo attention was mostly focused on pretty dresses, handsome princes, and snacks and did not allow for in-depth viewing).

Speaking of snacks, we paused the festivities and took a break halfway through for scones, muffins, and lemon cookies. And yes, I pulled out the china and silver. Why not? May as well use it! This kind of thing doesn't happen very often.

I thought the girls were going to burst with excitement when the newlyweds got into their horse-drawn carriage -- just like Cinderella! Those Brits sure know how to put on a beautiful wedding. Best wishes to the new couple! Kate Middleton succeeded in living out every woman's fairy tale -- she married a pilot! ;)

Easter!

He is risen, Hallelujah!


What a wonderful Easter we had! First, the kiddos woke up and tore apart their Easter baskets.

Then we all went to Mass and got there in time to get seats. Wahoo! (no pics of the 3 kiddos together, though -- timeliness does have its price!)

Check out those pretty dresses from Gramma Bethie again - with matching dollie dresses!

Then we came home and had some friends over for dinner. The weather was beautiful -- warm, sunny... perfect! Definitely a joyful, blessed day. Oh, how I wish I could freeze time on days like this. The kiddos' excitement as they checked out what the Easter bunny brought them was such a neat thing to watch. Then there's always the fun experiment to see how much chocolate and jelly beans their little tummies can handle (surprisingly, quite a bit!). They're growing so quickly, but I hope we have a few more Easters with "The Bunny" in our future.

Gearing up for Easter

Poor Colin. There was a "Breakfast with the Bunny" fundraiser at Claire's school and, of course, Claire and Maddie wanted to go. So off we went to get the obligatory photo with the bunny and eat some breakfast. Colin was decidedly uncool with this concept at Christmas time (but that was Santa - this is a bunny! Who doesn't love a fuzzy bunny???). Turns out he's still not a fan. Oh well, we got the picture anyway! Aren't the girls' dresses from Grandma Bethie pretty?

OK, so it IS a demented looking bunny!

Next up: egg hunt at Maddie's preschool.

They had a beautiful day for it.

On a side note, I just love her little preschool. It's in the town of Bordentown, which is pretty much what I always pictured when I thought of New England.

The kids are sweet. The teachers are nice. It's been a wonderful place for her.


Today in our Easter prep: dye some eggs. The kiddos' favorite activity; not so much mine. But they did a lovely job.

Colin really got into it this year and insisted (as only a not-quite-2-year-old can) that he get to participate fully and dye his own eggs. I was skeptical, but he did great. Naked, but great.

And then this afternoon the mailman delivered the annual box o' contraband from Aunt Heidi:

Aunt Heidi - your packaging gives you away!

You see, I can't bring myself to buy Peeps for my kiddos. Is there a worse food out there? They're made of marshmallow, corn syrup, gelatin, and carnuba wax. Yuck. The kiddos love them, though. Lucky for them, their Aunt Heidi knows I'm a big meanie and she ALWAYS pulls through and sends them a big ol' box full of Peeps and other fun items!

Of course, I have to provide photographic evidence of the Peep consumption, so here it is: