Summer, Week 1

Summer's not slowing us down. Last week we:
-Had a sleepover with the Frisbys while they were up from St. George. Played some Rock Band.



-Made Cinderella's Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Delicious Drink for lunch-Had the Tongs & the Hoens over with the intention to play Rock Band but just hung out instead
-Saw Space Chimps at the Scera Summer Movies
-Went to the Orem Library summer reading kickoff magic show
-Went to the Provo Library for story time
-Hit the park for playgroup
-Had a girls' (plus one boy) night out & day out to go to the Parade of Homes









-Went out to get my free Birthday lunch at Noodles and Company
-Celebrated National Doughnut Day with a free doughnut at Krispy Kreme.-Played some Rock Band with our friends, the Meyers, and stayed up way too late.
-Played some more Rock Band with the Tongs and only had one minor injury with Kade biting through his lip. Ouch!-Ate a ton of popsicles, including Alexis's first:-Oh, and I was pretty sure I broke my finger. Turns out it was a bad sprain. Ouch!

Our Little Graduate

A couple of weeks ago we began Nick's commencement into the world of a big kid with his graduation from preschool. Nick has had such a blast at preschool this year and I'm so glad that we decided to put him in it. His teacher, Ms. Roxi, was the absolute best and Nick has had so much fun with his buddies at school. His class had 7 kids in it, 5 of them being boys which Nick thought was the best thing ever. He never wanted to miss a day and was so excited about everything they did such as Alphabakery and super fun field trips. Here's some pics of his buddies Caden and Carsen and Josh.
For the graduation there was a BBQ at Ms. Roxi's and the kids from all of the groups put on a program for us. They sang a bunch of songs (check out Nick belting them out!) and also told the story of The Old Lady Who Swallowed the Fly. Each kid had their own part and it was so cute to watch! Nick's part was: There was an old lady who swallowed a bird. Oh how absurd to swallow a bird! Nick did fantastic and his voice was just so stinkin' cute. Since I am not very tech-savvy with getting video on here, I'm totally stealing this video off my friend, Angie's, blog for your enjoyment (Thanks Angie!):


Last week Nick took a walk that was a little more hard for me personally. He graduated from his second year of Joy School. I have so loved being one of his teachers the last two years and getting to teach him about the joys of life. He was always my little buddy at Joy school and was such a good student for me. I will truly miss teaching him. We had the graduation at our friend's, the Mailes and my parents were able to come since they had been down for my nephew, Dylan's, graduation from high school earlier in the day. My parents just happen to be good friends with the grandparents of Scott in our Joy School group and they were there too so they were able to visit. Nick and Scott have always thought it was fun that their grandparents were friends just like them. We had a great graduation ceremony with the kids and they sang some of their songs. We had a fun time!









I can't believe that Nick is now ready to head off to kindergarten. These years have gone way too fast and I am going to miss him so much when he's gone every day! Today, Nick climbed up on my lap to cuddle and I asked him if he was still my baby. He said that he was a big kid now but he promised to always be my baby. Ahh, so sweet.

She's an actor, model, dancer, whatever....

So it's time to brag about Miss Skylar for a bit. I'm pretty sure I could do this a lot but I try not to go overboard. But, hey, she is such a great kid that she deserves it every now and then. So about a month ago we went to Skylar's dance competition at Lagoon. We had planned on making it just a Mom & Sky day and spending the day there but it just happened to be the one Saturday that it didn't just rain, it poured buckets!! We were drenched within minutes of walking in. So, we decided to just stay for the competition and then head home-which was fine since this was a week after going to D-land! We had a fun time together! I also had the great experience of being amongst a thousand wet dancer's moms crammed into a pavilion in a downpour. If Skylar hadn't been so dang worth it to see, I might have been more peeved. But she never disappoints me with her awesome dance skills and amazing enthusiasm!! Her group did soooo great! They did two dances-one ballet and one tap and ended up getting 2nd place for both! How awesome is that?



















A few days after the dance competition we went to see Skylar show off her singing skills at the Hope of America concert at BYU. This is kind of the kick off for the Freedom Festival and I really had no idea how big it would be. There are schools that come from all over the valley to participate in it. It is mostly fourth through sixth graders but somehow our school got lined up to have the only 1st grade class that performs at it year after year. Skylar's class did an amazing song called Go My Son and did all the sign language to it as well. They did a great job! It was really neat to see.
Last week was field day at Skylar's school and she did so great! She won first place for the obstacle course and 2nd place for the three legged race. Way to go Sky! The other day she also came home from school and was excited that she had won an award at the school Awards ceremony. She got the Top Academic Award again this year. I said "Wow! That's two years in a row!" to which she replied "No, last year I got the Smart Cookie award!". This made me laugh because that's what we had told her the award was last year because she didn't know what academic meant and that was the best way to explain it. Anyway, congrats our Top Academic/Smart Cookie girl!
Finally, last night was Skylar's last dance concert for the year and our family was able to go see Skylar strut her stuff. My parents and Ben's mom also were able to come and Skylar loves that so much! It was such a wonderful concert! The theme this year was On Broadway. Skylar's group, the Mini Stars, performed three dances-1 jazz (You Can't Stop the Beat), 1 ballet (Castle on a Cloud-sooo beautiful!), and 1 tap (I Want To Be a Rockette) . They did such a great job! This is actually Skylar's last year with Mini Stars because she is moving up to the Mini Company next year. She will be the youngest in the company but her teacher, Ms. Christy, says she is definitely ready! Skylar says she never wants to stop dancing and I'm pretty sure that she's won't!
















So there you have it. Skylar is just plain awesome!!

This is Utah, after all.

So it's finally warming up here and our kids have been BEGGING for the chance to run through the sprinklers. I mean, it's been warm, but not that warm yet. But we let them do it anyway. Notice all the snow on the mountain behind them. This did not deter our crazy, freezing kids.

Random Cute Kid Quote

Tonight, out of nowhere in the the middle of dinner Kade says:
"If we go to the beach again, I will do the robot dance. Like this"
and then he proceeded to dance like a crazy man.

I think we should go back to the beach.

Brothers

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.

Marc Brown

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Our Little Nicky