Congratulations Graduate!

Wow!  Our sweet Kathryn graduated from K-4 today and we are so proud of her!  She has had such a wonderful year at her little preschool.  She has had great teachers, made great friends and has enjoyed every day.  She never one time complained about having to go to school!  Her school had a nice graduation ceremony for us today as well as a reception afterwards.  Kathryn and her class recited a poem for us, sang a song and showed us a slideshow of the whole year.  I will say that it was so sweet it brought some tears to my eyes!  I know she will miss her school now, but she is so excited about starting kindergarten in the fall.  Bring it on!

Here she is getting her diploma

Kathryn and her very best friend Claire! 

The graduate with her new balloon!

Last night, Kathryn's ballet school had their spring recital.  I must say, this was a big taddoo!  Her class has been working and working on thier piece to perform and they did a great job.  They were absolutely adorable and they did a tap dance to the song "Everyday" by Buddy Holly.  They were a hit and of course we thought Kathryn was the cutest one up there :) 

Here she is with her trophy and her flowers!

Nana and Papa drove all the way from Charlotte for the show!

We sure love our sweet ballerina!

Mimi and Grampy enjoyed the show too!

Critter Keeper Birthday Party!

Yesterday, we celebrated Caleb's birthday (again!) with a big party at our house.  Since Caleb loves all sorts of bugs, lizards, reptiles and other creatures, we booked the "Critter Keeper" to come and be the entertainment at his party.  It was awesome and he totally exceeded all of our expectations.  We had 20 kids at our house, which made a fun but wild party!

Randy, the Critter Keeper brought around 18 different creatures to show the kids.  He let the kids touch and hold many of the ones the brought.  He explained all about each creature, and he was very entertaining with different magic tricks that he did with the them.  He was really good!  A few times he would be holding a box with a creature in it, then pretend to trip and fall, drop the box and the creature would fly out and onto the floor.  Of course everyone would scream and jump back only to see that it was a fake spider or snake. It even scared the adults!

It really was such a fun, entertaining party and Caleb loved every minute of it.  We definitely made some memories that we will cherish for the rest of our lives!

Here are some pictures of some of the creatures that we got to see:



Here is our family holding a 60 pound albino python! 



The birthday boy himself holding his very first snake!



Kathryn really impressed us with her courage.  She touched and held every creature that she could and she wasn't the least bit afraid!  The Critter Keeper was so impressed with her!



Here he is explaining about this special lizard on the floor.  I can't remember what it was called, but it was really neat.  Caleb even got to feed it some worms.  He would hold the worm in his hand and the lizard would eye it and then all of a suddon stick it's tongue out really fast and grab the worm!

His presentation lasted almost an hour and a half.  The kids loved it!

Hissing cockroaches.  Yuck!

Here Caleb is holding a huge scorpian.  Each kid got to hold it and they got a special sticker to wear if they did.



Yes, this is a REAL tarantula.  It was huge and it's legs were moving.  No, the kids did NOT get to touch this thing.  I was ready for him to put it back in it's box!



This is an extremely dangerous cenitipede that Randy showed the kids.  It was long and had tons of legs.  It is so poisonous that he never gets it out of the box.  It gave me the creeps!

Randy even brought this cute little hedgehog!  It have never seen one in real life before.  We all got to touch it's prickly hairs!

Here is some sort of lizard.  It had big, beautiful big eyes that looked like they had eyelashes.  It would jump from his hands and really was pretty cute :)

This is Mr. Beasly, one of Randy's big iguanas.

I can't remember what this creature is called, but it was really fascinating.  It's skin looked and felt like it had tiny little beads all over it's body.

Caleb got to feel around in a bag and pull out this coral snake.  He wasn't a bit afraid!

Each kid got to hold out their hands and hold this ball python.  This was one of the creatures that Randy had rescued.

At the end of the presentation, the kids lined up to hold the big python, Julius Squeezer.

Each child got to have their picture taken with this huge snake!





Caleb was so excited about his cake.  I always love coming up with an idea for my children's birthday cakes each year and then making them.  Caleb's first request was that I make a Komodo Dragon cake for him.  After researching what they look like, I soon realized that was not an option!  So, he settled for an iguana on top.  It is all made out of cake and icing and it is all edible!  Caleb LOVED it and it made my all the work totally worth it :)



Happy 7th Birthday Caleb!

Cello Playin' and Strawberry Pickin'

Caleb has made us so proud with his talent at playing the cello.  He has a wonderful teacher here and we are very blessed to see him continue to improve.  It certainly has it's challenges, but he continues to learn more and play better and better.  He had his cello recital last Saturday and he played so well!  His teacher played a duet with him as he played his song and it was wonderful.  As a music teacher myself, I have been involved in many recitals, however I must say that it is completely different when my child is up there playing! I was so nervous for him and so proud of him when he was done!

Last week, I took Kathryn and Clayton to pick strawberries with a good friend.  It was hot out, but we had so much fun getting some delicious strawberries.  Caleb loved picking them and he was a big help adding to our baskets, much more even than Kathryn!  However, I kept seeing him sneak strawberries into his mouth and by the time we were done, he was covered in red juice!  I couldn't blame him though because they were so yummy they literally tasted like candy.  We had 2 buckets finished in just a couple of days!

They're Back!

Last weekend my brother Jay, Stephanie and Shiloh came back to visit from Colorado.  We were so excited to see them again and we LOVED spending every minute we could with them!  We are so thankful that we are able to see them at least twice a year, so we cherish every moment when we are together. 

Shiloh turned one in March, so we had so much fun watching him play and interact with our children.  They sure love him and Kathryn loved babysitting him :)

This girl sure loves her Uncle Jay.  She wouldn't leave him alone!

Thankfully we had beautiful weather and we spent a lot of time at the pool.  Even though is was really hot out, the pool hadn't warmed up very much.  Here they are putting on their "It's freezing" face!

This picture cracks me up!  Clayton just learned out to chew gum and the piece he has in his mouth here he chewed for over 30 minutes!  He was so proud of himself and he kept coming to show us his gum.

I think they look so big here:

My mom loved having all her grandchildren here :)

The last night they were here we all went out to a Japanese steakhouse for a little birthday dinner for Caleb.  Our kids have never been before and they loved it!  Caleb and Kathryn were fascinated with the cook and all the fire.  They were a little nervous, but they did great!  Clayton and Shiloh liked it to, but unfortunately it only held their attention for a few minutes!

We had some delicious food and a lot of entertainment.  Caleb even had to dance the chicken dance in front of everyone in the restaurant since it was his birthday!  I'm sad I don't have a good picture of that!

Caleb and Kathryn's favorite part of the dinner was when the chef made an angel out of fire.  It really was neat!

We were so sad to see them go, but we always look forward to the next time they come!  One day, we will make it out there to see them, hopefully sooner rather than later!