Caroline's whirlwind couple of weeks

Holy cow.  This girl has been busy!  And as a result, I'VE been busy.  Like, making-my-head-spin busy. The-dishes-never-get-done busy. And I-can't-wake-up-in-the-morning-because-I'm-exhausted busy.

But Caroline just smiled and enjoyed every minute of the busyness

LAST DAY OF PRESCHOOL

When I handed her preschool director my very last tuition payment she told me it was time to have another kid.  Hmmmm....I don't think that's how it works.

Two of her teachers, Miss Appleburg and Miss Adams.

We'll miss them!

I got a glimpse of how they play "Super Girls and Bad Boys."

It involves lots of hugging on her little crush. Yikes.

SWIM LESSONS

We've had bad luck with group swim lessons in the past, so I talked Natalie into letting Finley take semi-private lessons with Caroline.  They are making great progress!  But not actually swimming on their own yet.  (Darn!)

BIRTHDAY!

 

She chose Chick-fil-A for her birthday dinner.

Yummy.

 

 

LOVE her reactions to her gifts.  Priceless.

She decided to have her party at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Again.

We had it at 11 am on a Tuesday.

It was like I had rented the place for a private party!

We were the ONLY ones there for an hour an a half of the two hours.

Awesome!

She had a great time playing games and eating pizza with her friends.

BIRTHDAY PORTRAITS

BALLET RECITAL

She has been looking forward to her recital for MONTHS. She loves ballet and is such a cute little dancer. Her class had a Peter Pan-themed dance this time.  LOVED the Wendy costumes.

Class pictures from dress rehearsal.

What a bunch of cuties!

 Ready for the show!

 A great actress.

This isn't our video, but C's the tall one on the far side of the screen:

 One of my favorite parts was when Caroline danced right out of her shoe
and the little friend that followed behind picked it up for her.  So sweet!

I love this cute little jump.

Her curtsy.

Happy to have Audrey and Miss Angie there.

We LOVE Miss Shelley, 

ballet teacher extraordinaire.

(And an awesome Tinkerbell, too!)

GYMNASTICS

Caroline's other love: gymnastics.  At the end of her season, they let the parents out on the floor with cameras in hand.  Woo hoo!

 

This girl is flexible and strong, which is apparently what coaches look for in a good gymnast. :)  She was invited to try out for the pre-competitive team at her gym. And she made it!  So, this will be our first venture into competitive athletics.  She started this week.  It's pretty intense. They have those girls doing push-ups and chin-ups.  And she hasn't even started kindergarten yet. 

The surprising part for me?  She loved it!  I hope the enthusiasm lasts!

Wow. That was a LONG post.

And I have two more kids. :)

What May Looks Like

So, I don't officially keep track of the kids' funny sayings anymore, but here's a snippet of a conversation I overheard:
W: What are you good at?
C: Helping Mom cook, singing, being cute...

Cute photo bomber

 Lucky girl

 That does NOT look comfy

Caroline's artistic snakeskin shot

Sometimes one book is just not enough

I got to teach the YW a floral arranging 

& corsage making class.

(I didn't know a thing about either

of those before teaching it....had

to do some research. It was fun!)

 

Memorial Day Weekend

Usually, our Memorial Day weekends are spent at the water park on opening day.  This year, we'll only be in town for a couple of weeks before leaving on the road trip.  I told the kids it wasn't worth it to buy passes right now.  So, no water park.

If we're not water-parking, I usually plan some sort of family getaway.  Between spring break in NY, the recent trip to the beach, and our upcoming road trip, I had no desire to travel.  (So not like me!)

So, we got to spend the weekend just hanging out here at home.

And it was awesome.  I am so glad that we can have fun together doing the little things.

We took the kids to see Epic at the theater. Andrew slept through the whole thing. The girls loved it.  Brandon and I liked it.  It was better than I thought it would be. 

Brandon has been itching to go to The Zone to practice his BMXing. So Andrew took him for a couple of hours while the girls and I hung out here at home.

We spent time at the park playing bocce and frisbee.  SO fun. The weather was so beautiful this weekend.  Perfect for spending time outside.  (But a little chilly for swimming. Lucky us!)

We came home and had a cook out.

(Because in NC, barbeque is a FOOD, not an activity.)

What nice roasting posture you have, Whitney.

Mmmmm....spicy black bean burgers.

Delicious.

But not quite as delicious as the s'mores.

Those were all the pictures I took from the weekend. But we also rented movies from the redbox. Hotel Transylvania with the kids. Les Miserables for Andrew and me.  I hadn't seen the new one.  Having it on DVD was perfect because I could skip the questionable scenes that I didn't want to watch.  It was such a great show.  We both loved it and walked around singing the songs for the next several days.

We visited two friends who were both in the hospital this weekend.  

I did lots and lots of yard work that needed desperately to be done.  It was perfect weather for working in the yard.  I got a great farmer's tan on my arms.  

We played tennis with Mac and Diane.  Andrew isn't the biggest fan of doubles, and with his injured body, we hadn't played with them in quite a while.  It was so fun! We split sets, both of them close.

Loved this whole weekend.  What a fun way to kick off summer.  Except the big kids still have two weeks of school left. I guess it was a nice sample of fun things to come.