The rest of May 2019

Where does the time go? It flies when you are having fun and we have been!!

Can you believe Jason finished his 3’s preschool class already?!! This kid is growing up!!

He had a great year and learned so much!! He’s totally ready for pre-K!!

Olivia’s run club wrapped up, too! I occasionally went to Wednesday practices and made it to the last one! Look at all these happy, fit kids!

Before the pool opened last weekend, we had lots of after school water in the cul de sac days!

Leo’s class had a poetry tea, and it was so sweet! And it has inspired Leo to read some poetry—mostly Shel Silverstein, but a few others, too!




Olivia and I saw a high school production of Peter Pan and it was so well done! After, she posed with her friends and some of the actors! We were interested in going because she and her third grade class read Peter Pan for their literary classics unit this year. The play followed closely to the book.

Swim team started last week for the big kids! It’s an adjustment year for them as they are both the younger age of their age group—7/8 and 9/10. Leo is learning butterfly this year and has to swim 25 meters for a meet. Olivia’s practice is later this year and she swims with the older kids—9 and up.

Then last weekend, the pool opened!!

Nicholas left for Montreal Sunday, so we played a bit on our own—Lake Wheeler and strawberry picking!

Happy Mother’s Day!

We had a great week, culminating in spring outing for Olivia and Mother’s Day for me!

Here’s the week at a glance:

Did I say that I volunteer in Leo’s class on Wednesdays doing “Kids Into Thinking,” which is Wake County’s answer to a gifted and talented program for K-2? I do, and he likes it! Six kids plus me for forty five minutes doing something a little bit “more”—we’ve created money systems with rocks, written letters to humans as if we were endangered species, compared and contrasted fiction and non-fiction, etc. I have a new appreciation for Leo’s teacher! First graders sometimes have a difficult time staying on task!

Did I say that my kids sometimes ride their bikes to school? They do! And so do their friends! Leo just started in the past couple of weeks, but Olivia has been doing it regularly about once a week for months. I love where we live!

Jason’s preschool is wrapping up, which is sad, but he has grown SO much! I am proud of this kid! Looking at the clouds here!

We had all the kids in our backyard the other day... I love it when the sky is blue and the sun is shining!

The boys were getting along nicely while Olivia and Nicholas were away!

My garden keeps on growing!

On Mother’s Day, Olivia was hung over from lack of sleep at camp, and the day was dreary, but that made for a perfectly lazy day! The kids played sweetly while I did yoga:

And then I got the chance to see Leo play at his basketball game! It was so heartening to see all the lessons he is learning—good sportsmanship, taking constructive criticism well, sharing with and encouraging his teammates, listening. I was impressed! He is number 18.

Nicholas and Olivia made it to spring outing and had a blast! I will try to post the videos Nicholas took soon!!

Olivia is nine!!

Olivia is nine!! She woke up happy and had such a grateful heart all day! 

She was thrilled with her newly painted room and fresh bedding! We still have to put up shelves and art on the wall, but here is the gist!

I came in for Lunch bunch and brought popsicles for her class! She was so happy!

After school she played with friends and waited patiently for lemon cake with raspberry frosting!

We love this girl with all our heart! We’re so proud of the sweet girl she is and all the growth she is making happen!

And for the birthday quiz! 
1. How old are you? Nine
2. What makes you happy? Being outside, reading, Mom, Dad, and my brothers

3. What is your favorite animal? Dragons

4. What is your favorite thing to eat? Hamburgers

5. What is your least favorite thing to eat? Brussels sprouts 

6. What is your favorite thing to do? Play with my friends 

7. What is your favorite TV show? The Final Table

8. What are you really good at? Swimming, climbing trees

9. What is your favorite movie? Spirit

10. What is your favorite color? Blue

11. What is your favorite song? Meet Me In the Middle

12. Who is your best friend? That’s hard: Mallory, Lalon, Brenda

13. What do you and your Mom do together? Bake

14. What do you and your Dad do together? YGuides

15. What is your favorite sport? Swimming 

16. Where is your favorite place to go? The beach, the pool, my room

17. What is your favorite book? Wings of Fire

18. What do you want to be when you grow up? Zoologist

A week at home, a weekend away

Lots of fun stuff during the week, including an after school stop at Crowder Park! Jason is so excited to start having play dates with friends! And there were so many turtles that day!

And a weekday trip to the Life + Science Museum!

Then, on Friday morning, Nicholas took Jason to the zoo to chaperone Leo’s zoo field trip!

While they did that I was heading south to Savannah to meet my sisters and my mom for our first ever girls weekend!! Woot woot! We had a great time touring the city, visiting, eating, and resting!