Last day of school!

We are in the final days of school and we had to catch a photo of us all on the last morning that I will be driving this crew to school for this school term!  We car pull with cousins and it works so well!  I love these kids!!!!  We are all excited for lazy summer mornings soon! 

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One more day of fifth and first grade!  These two have been counting down the school days and crossing each day off on their bedroom calendars!  

First grade creates their own book with papers that they painted and create into pictures.  They write riddles and a short story!  Author Celebration was today and Austin read his book!  He did great!  He loved that he could do first grade with Adrian!

Mrs. Koenig taught all four of our children for first grade!  She's amazing and somehow she gets each student reading by the end of the year!  Austin can now read thanks to her teaching skills!  Austin is ready to swim, kick the soccer ball in the back yard, play more baseball and move into all things summer!

Ashlyn completed fifth grade and really loved her teacher, Mrs. Felter!  She said goodbye to school friends today and is ready to sleep in, eat ice cream on the back porch and relax!  She's got camp coming up for the first time and she's growing up and ready for Middle School next year!

Dr. Hurst is the principle of elementary and has such a sweet passion for these kids!  I love the way she makes school fun by dressing up over the holidays in her hilarious festive costumes!  Having someone this fun at school really adds fun for the school kids!  Thank you Dr. Hurst!

Finished up school today and we are now ready for SUMMER VACATION!

As I walked in Austin's class I noticed all the backpacks hanging open and nearly empty.  Austin brought home his pencil box and many completed books earlier this week and it's just good to see this year end so well!

Matthew is now officially a senior!  He attended graduation last night and said goodbye to that group of friends.  It's crazy how fast life goes by!  He's off doing things with his class this afternoon and then work will begin next week!  He's growing up into a young man and works hard!  Congratulations on finishing up your Junior year Matthew!

Today is the start of loosening up our schedule and get ready for a vacation this weekend!  Memorial Day Weekend is always spent with friends and we can't wait!  I wouldn't be honest if I say that the first days of "no school" are easy peasy.   We are no longer on a certain bedtime schedule and flex a lot during the summer.  The kids will sleep in and that gives us a much slower morning routine which I love!  It does bring extra patience that first week of no school because usually the kids go from one thing to the next with all their extra time at home but this summer will be so fun!  The two younger ones are growing up fast and pool days are now much easier.  Both can swim!  Both can carry their own belongings!  Both can help around the house with chores!  Both can read!  I do hope to get to the library soon and grab a few chapter books and read them out loud to the littles this summer!  Give me all your book suggestions!  

Summertime is so fun and something Mike and I have talked about lately is the fact of having only "18 Summers" with our kids!  Give or take!!!!  Hadassah is graduated, married and moved out the house already.  Matthew is now a senior and will be working every day this summer.  Ashlyn wants to do camp for the first time and Austin will celebrate turning seven soon.  If we remember that we only have 18 summers with our children (again, give or take on those years), it makes me want to freeze the time and really cherish every. single. moment!!!!  We hope to make many fun memories this summer!

Cheers to school being out and lets get the summer rolling!!!!

Last Field Trip for this school term.

Camp at Old Mill is such a pretty place to do some service work and then play in the afternoon!  Grades 3-5 go here at the end of the year and there were lots of kids!  They made a really long line and carried bucket after bucket of creek water and then dumped it into the fish fountain/waterfall that needed more water!  Some picked up big rocks off of the bank.  Some others stacked rocks along the bank of the creek! It was fun for the kids to do these jobs!

 

It was time for a hot dog lunch and then everyone went to the creek to splash, fish, ride canoes or play basketball!

It was a big group and lots of willing helpers!

I really wanted to stay dry and we did!!!!  The ride was fun!

This camp reaches and minsters to city kids and cops!  It was so neat to hear a bit of their mission and then help clean up the camp!

We are nearing the end of the school year and we are excited for summer vacation!

Austins first baseball tournament.

 "And this is why we pray for our boys!!!!"  I texted this to Mike as I watched Matthew and his friends load up a trailer with four wheelers and dirt bikes!  They loaded up their toys and went to Potter County for the weekend.  Matthew had fun but came home with a fat ankle, dirty laundry, lost keys and memories made with his school buddies!  We pray for our children often and especially on weekends like these when I know they are playing and riding on these fast toys!  Boys will be boys and these are now growing up to be young men!  I love to see them have fun!

Austin just came through his first ball tournament and it was a hot one!!!!  Our spring weather has been on the chilly side.  We are ready for warmer, balmy weather but on Friday we got hit by a heat wave and it shot up to 90 degrees for three days straight!  Friday night, the Flames played two games and won both!  Saturday was another HOT day but the boys played well and went undefeated to the finals!  They played two games Saturday afternoon and then ended up in second place after two more games in the finals against the Dolphins.  This was a long day for everyone but they did great!  Austin played back catcher, right field and left field.  Being a Back Catcher is actually a tough job because he had to throw back every pitch that wasn't hit while the rest of the team waited for the ball to come to them after a hit.  Austin's arm was a little sore but he did good!  It was fun watching this team!!!!

And being on the team with cousins is a big, big bonus!!!!  Austin and Adrian had a blast!

In this league, the dads pitch all the boys.  The game moves fast this way!  Mike was the pitcher all weekend!

Hunter is also on the team!

#44 .... just like his dad!

We had to go home and let Ginger out before the finals so of course we wanted to try out the new Rolled Creamery in town!  Ashlyn got the strawberry with pretzels and loved it!

Ashlyn spent most of her Saturday at the Damien Foundation Wiffle Ball Tournament.  We hated to miss out on this event but we were with Austin at his games.  She got a cute start to her summer tan!

The Flames finished in second place.  They stayed hydrated with lots of water and Gatorade!  We applied sunscreen for the first this season!  We had sunglasses on and eye black helped block the sun for the players eyes!  There's so much fun and memories around the ball park for our family!

Good job Flames!!!!

Track N Field Day!

 Mike made me another small raised bed and we filled it with top soil and then mushroom mulch and now its ready for seeds!  And we replaced all four of our red raspberry bushes because I didn't know that they do not like manure around them as fertilizer.  Now we know.

Out of all the foods we grow in the garden, Ashlyn goes straight to this little herb that came up from last year.  Fennel!  We love fennel, black licorice tasting!!!  We love the bulbs that grow in the ground and slice them and eat them.  I could not figure out why the past two years our fennel plant got as tall as me but no bulb in the ground.  Just roots.  I know now that there are different kinds of fennel and this time I planted a few packs of Florence Fennel Seeds and hope they will be shooting out of the ground soon!  For now, Ashlyn loves to eat the fennel leaves off of this plant and it will clean any mouth pallet as soon as you start chewing it!  It's strong and delicious!  Right now we are also eating butter crunch lettuce, kale, radishes and herbs.  We are waiting to see the sugar peas grow into pods and the strawberries turn from green to red!!!!  Should be happening soon!

May is packed full of so many fun events and its good to be back at this ballpark again!  Matthew played here many years and now its Austins time to shine!  We had a beautiful night at the park earlier this week!

The Lilie of the Valleys are still blooming and smell so good at my kitchen sink!

I've said so many times that Track N Field days are usually cold or wet but not this year!!!  We had a beautiful day watching the children do relay races in the AM and then races and long jump and softball throws in the afternoon!  It was a great day to begin our summer tans as we sat outside and cheered!  Many of my family go to Linville Hill School and it was a great time at lunch to all sit together and eat subs, pizza and soft pretzels my mom bought for the kids!

Afternoon races!

Long jump!

Relay races in the morning!

Doing school with some of the best friends makes it so much more fun!!!!!

See what I mean?  

And of course we found each other!!!!  Miss Zayla is just the cutest little girl ever right now!  She loves us and we love her!  She cries when we leave her house.  Ashlyn said this morning, after hollering out hello from the car window, when we picked up Hunter and Adrian for school, "I'll just get to see Zayla once today."  It's the sweetest to see Ashlyn and Zayla be such good little friends!  But's it's no wonder!  We do so much of life together with these cousins.  We car pull each day to and from school.  We have field lanes to take four wheeler rides out to their house during the summer nights.  Lena watches my kids and I babysit hers.  Some are in the same class at school.  We blend so well!  It reminds me of when I was a kid and we lived right next door to cousins.  We saw each other every day.  Rode the school bus together.  They swam every day with us in our pool.  It was life blended well!

We came home from track n field day with a little tan and tired from the activities and sun!  Ashlyn and I got some lettuce from the garden and made a refreshing salad!  We love garden lettuce right now!

We are at the end of another school week and the kids are counting down the days left of this school term. Each year I think, "Wow, how did this school year go by so fast?"  And I'm hearing myself ask the same thing this year.  Finishing fifth grade and first grade are big accomplishments and Austin is now reading and Ashlyn just complete her last book report for elementary!  Next year she moves up to middle school.

The house is quiet on this Friday morning.  The windows are open and the breeze and birds chirping are the benefits!  I'm enjoying the slow pace because the last weeks of school are usually crazy busy with all the end of the year things!  We do have a busy weekend coming up but it's going to be so much fun!  By the looks of the weather forecast, we might even be turning on the AC?  

Just another reason why I love May ... it doesn't take much to add some beauty to the kitchen with fresh branches or flowers or hosta leaves!!!  It's been fun all this month to create a fresh display of flowers for the weekend!

It's May!  We are busy but we are loving life and thriving to finish up school strong and then start the lazy summer mornings!

Happy weekend friends!