May 2016
We were able to enjoy some nice weather and have some fun family days - as well as celebrate Mother's Day, Jake's birthday and the usual day to day things.
Claire's school year in second grade winded down a week ago and she is anxiously awaiting her report card to see if her teacher let her go on the 3rd grade. I'm not entirely sure where this fear is coming from considering we have told her that we would know by now if she was not able to go to 3rd grade. I think it has to do with their class behavior and the many times her teacher probably said that it would not be tolerated in 3rd grade. She also finished up her 2nd year of Girl Scouts and we are planning on continuing with the same troop next year. She continues to love soccer and basketball and we are going to take a stab at baseball in a couple weeks. Her personality is growing more and more mature and are enjoying those proud moments when we look at each other and realize we may not be doing half bad with this whole parenting thing.
Grace finished up her kindergarten year and is ready to take on 1st grade. She is our little book worm with the engineer mind that just wanted to know why things do what they do and argue every little point possible - not because she's annoying and argumentative, but she just wants clarification. However, there are MANY times that I just want to tell her to stop arguing and leave me alone. Ha Ha :) She has become more involved with soccer which is fun to watch and is anxious to try T-ball in a couple weeks. I can't tell you how many parents have asked if Grace has ever raised her voice or thrown a fit. I simply reply that she is our ONLY child that we have literally had to lock in a room and tell her to come out when she was done acting so crazy.
Jake is getting very excited for kindergarten and is definitely ready to be one of the big kids. He has trouble listening and his attention span could use some help - but we are hoping the structure of kindergarten will help that. He absolutely kills it at soccer, but needs to work on his modesty. He scored 6 goals this past Saturday at his game and had a ridiculous celebration after each goal where he ran down the sideline to get as many high-fives from the fans as possible. We are still working out the kinks, but planning on starting a new behavior/chores/allowance system with the kids this week. Stay tuned for the next update.
Pete continues to be extremely involved with soccer and has started a younger organization within his organization to try and appeal to our children (and younger children in general). He is participating in a weight loss challenge at work that started in April and he has lost 32 pounds to date. His dedication and will-power is inspiring and I'm so proud of him.
Here are some pictures from our month of June:
We started off the month taking a family bike ride to the local elementary school and then to go get ice cream. We had a great time playing a basketball game (girls vs boys of course) and the weather was wonderful.
The first weekend in May, we went to Indianapolis to visit with my family. We had a great time relaxing with family and it was very nice to have no plans at all.
Grace and I were looking at this book and she told me it was time to find the "whore glass" - I had to put this on the blog to remember this memory because the sweet innocence of her words were hilarious.
Pete in his happiest place - his son finally playing soccer video games with him... might as well just say goodbye to their attention now :)
Grace with her daisy troop
Impromptu date night to a local winery - we had a wonderful time!
Another random evening at a local playground - we were competing about how could jump of the swing farthest...Claire won by falling a few steps forward but I stuck the landing :)
A group of us went and did the local "Escape Room" - we had a great time and enjoyed some drinks afterwards.
We celebrated this little man turning 5 with a Chuck E Cheese birthday party - he had a great time and I can't believe my littlest baby is 5 years old!
Immediately after the birthday party, I drove to Indianapolis with the honor of being on of my dearest friend's little girl's Godmother. It is such an incredible honor.
More birthday festivities for Jake
Each month, I tried to volunteer in the lunchroom at the girl's school. It was always so much fun but something that ends at 2nd grade so my last volunteer day was bittersweet with Claire in May. Here are a couple of pictures of me with my little ladies in the lunchroom :)
She may be in a skirt, but she's on the field and she scored her first goal! Those backyard scrimmages are really paying off!
We spent the day down at the tree farm over Memorial Day weekend. It was eventful to say the least. We went on the tractor ride to get ice cream, went on a hike and creek stomped to a "waterfall", and enjoyed company and conversation with family and friends.
One event that was not as enjoyable was when Jake rode this little ATV (picture #1) over this little 3 foot cliff (picture #2) and landed head first with ATV on top of him in the creek. He was sad that he had some scratches and bumps (picture #3 and #4) but we were extremely grateful that the injuries were minimal.
We went to the local Memorial Day Parade and the kids loved to wave at each vehicle that passed and really loved when they threw candy for them.
See you in June!
