Last Day of School Picnic

Kendyl's second year of preschool came to an official close today. Two years, four awesome teachers, and a ton of great friends. The preschool experience has been wonderful for Kendyl. I really and truly think she is ready for kindergarten and am excited for her to be participating in a full day program. I can't wait to see the growth in her knowledge next year. She's close to reading on her own and I think within the first couple months that she will be off and running. Here are some pictures from the farewell picnic:

Kendyl and her 'boyfriend' Mitchell

Her friends Maura & Abby
Kendyl and Clara
And Lil Miss Lauryl who spent almost as much time at the school as the kids in class!
It was a fun year and I'm excited that Lauryl will participate in tot time next year so we can still stay in contact with some of the teachers and moms that have shared in our last two years.

She's a BIG girl!

The toddler bed transition is complete! After an initial false start, we left both beds set up in Lauryl's room and let her lead the way. We'd move the mattress back and forth at her command. After a few days of checking it out on her terms, she suddenly announced at nap one day that she would sleep in her big girl bed and since then we haven't looked back! She cracks us up b/c if she gets upset during the day she just goes up to her room, grabs a bink, and lays there until her mood improves and then comes back down. As far as temper tantrums go, that approach TOTALLY works for me!!!

She looks so big in this bed. Before I know it there won't be a baby in our house anymore...

Big girl bed

Lauryl is snoozing in her big girl bed for the first time tonight. After a false start last week, it seems we're heading in the right direction. She napped in it Saturday and asked to sleep in it tonight. We'll see how the night goes. Not sure what will happen if she wakes up, which she's been doing alot lately. I'm hoping that the full size blanket will keep her cozy and that she won't wake up cold and needing covered back up. I look forward to the morning and seeing if she'll yell for us or realize she can get up and come into our room on her own.

Kendyl & Madison

The Moore kiddos spent a fun day with us while their mommy went to one of her last clinical days of the year. The girls both love when they are with us and it's so nice for them to each have a similar age buddy to play with. It especially brings me joy to see Kendyl and Madison together. It's hard to believe that Madison has been in Kendyl's life since she was only 6 weeks old. I hope we can keep them in each other's lives for years and years to come despite different schools and crazy schedules. It would be great to grow up with a friend that you've known from the very beginning!

Priceless

• A good friend watching your kids so you can take care of your schoolwork and know all is well
• Knowing the kids enjoyed the beautiful weather with a trip to a park for a picnic and playing
• Swapping kids for the evening so your little boy can catch some extra shut eye in his favorite napping spot while you watch your daughter tap dance up a storm without needing to entertin him
• Coming home to find your child looking like this:

PRICELESS!!!!!

(PS. Nathan got red popsicle on his shirt and I took it off to pretreat it, he may look like he's been partying all day unsupervised BUT that is soooooo not the case!)

Photo shoot

It was a beautiful day and I couldn't resist getting out the camera and taking some new outside pictures. The girls were super cooperative and really enjoyed playing to the camera for me. I got some good ones so I was thrilled!

I love these two little girls more than I can explain. These smiling pics brighten my day!

Just the Two of Us

Lauryl and I took advantage of an extended school day for Kendyl and hit the zoo together--just the two of us! When I think of the million times that Kendyl and I went together, it makes me sad that age 2.5 was the first time solo with Lauryl. She LOVED leading the way and doing the things she wanted to do instead of following the pack. We even had an opportunity to hang with friends, but I resisted and gave her my full attention and full control. What a great day!

A self portrait

Feeding the birds (brave girl!)

We ran into the Moore's and Lauryl couldn't resist hanging
with her best buddy for a few minutes The flamingos
Definitely up to something...scheming about where to drag mommy next!
Lauryl and I have to learn how to have fun together alone (not that we can't, we just have a built in buddy and like having her around)! We lose Kendyl to all day kindergarten next year, so we're gonna take full advantage of her presence this summer! This was a good dry run though!

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day this year was one of my best yet. Kendyl kind of got it this year and was all about making it a special day. My first treat of the day was that I got to lay in bed and read while Rob got up with the girls. After I woke up the girls gave me coffee mugs that they decorated for me and 'helped' Rob make me breakfast. Rob misinterpreted one of Kendyl's very specific breakfast requests and she made sure he knew! When she said to get me muffins, she meant to make me muffins, not buy English muffins!

After breakfast we played outside and I got to go for a walk with my neighbor and then head off to an early dinner with the in-laws. This on the heels of a Saturday evening cookout with my family so that the WHOLE day of Mother's Day wouldn't be spent running from house to house!

I'm the luckiest girl on Earth to get to love and care for these two precious human beings. Spending the day with my family is the best gift of all! Thanks to Robbie for helping to bring them into the world and make my dream of motherhood a reality! Thanks also for taking such good care of all of us. Without his support I wouldn't be able to work PT and do all the special things with them that I get to do on a regular basis. I love being a mom!

My BIG girl

After a year of listening to Kendyl complain that ALL of her preschool friends were in booster seats, she finally hit 40 pounds and I broke down and bought her one. To say she was thrilled is a massive understatement.

Trying out her new seat

I guess you could say she liked it!

Sharing the excitement with her sis...told her it was gonna be a long time before she got a booster seat!

Try as I might, I can't keep them little forever!

Little Yogis

Rob is doing the P90x video system and one of the videos is yoga. Kendyl LOVES it and always wants to join him on yoga night. Rob bought her a mat of her own and it came with a foldout pamphlet with poses. The following chronicles Kendyl teaching Lauryl how to correctly do "yogurt". According to Lauryl, yoga = yogurt;-)

I love watching them together and look forward to looking at pictures of antics like this in 20 years. I want them to know how much they meant to each other and how silly and goofy they were together!

Innis Woods Field Trip

It's that time again...preschool fieldtrip!! The forecast for the day was not very promising. The forecasters were predicting torrential rain with potential for thunderstorms-not very conducive for a nature walk to admire spring happenings in the park. I went shopping for ponchos the night before so we'd be set for anything. Lucky for us, OCP was blessed that day and the rain stayed away until approximately 60 minutes after our fieldtrip ended!

Here's Kendyl right after we got to the park. She thought the purple flowers made a perfect backdrop for a picture.

We scored the crowd favorite, Mr. Barry, as our nature guide! He's an oasis of knowledge and has a fun personality and lots of fun props to engage the kid. After every question that he asks of the kids he asks the answerer to "hit the rock" which they then both explode. Fun times:-)

The kids saw an albino squirrel, a bird in it's nest, some frogs, and a duck. Kendyl's favorite part of the trip though was getting to spend time with her teachers from last year b/c they came along too. It's odd how obsessed she is with them. I think it's just that she knows them from last year. She didn't act this way when they were her teachers. It makes me feel a little bad for hr current teacher's because I'm sure it must hurt their feelings some. We've talked about trying to respect their feelings, but I just can't do anymore to discourage the behavior and she simply adores them!

Here she is holding hands with Mrs. Delmatto

Here's the best group shot that I managed to get

Overall, it was a fun trip. Thanks to Caroline for keeping Lauryl, it was nice to focus on Kendyl for the morning.