Happy Birthday Carly June

Well, the big day has come & gone, and our little girl is now 1 year old! I hate to say it, but time does fly! We celebrated the milestone by having cupcakes in Spring Park with lots of friends & family. She had more fun playing with the cupcake than eating it, but I think that's probably the norm. She is such a happy little girl. She loves playing outside, wandering around the house, picking things up & putting them somewhere else, laying with Ellie, reading books, and sitting in her brand new princess chair. What joy she has added to our lives! Happy 1st birthday Carly!

Homework

Justin finished his last homework for the 1st grade this week. Even though the homework isn't hard for Justin, it takes time and he does NOT enjoy it. Thus, I do NOT enjoy it either. Needless to say, we are both very excited that it is over until August! Halleluiah!!!
Anyhow, I snapped these pictures of Justin finishing up his last bit of homework in the tree in the front yard. Not quite sure why he likes to do homework up there, but as long as he can concentrate, I don't care where he gets it done!

Cardinals End of Year Party

The spring season of Little League has come to an end and Justin's team celebrated with a round of mini golf, pizza, cake & trophies. Thanks to Coach Kane, the parents and all the kids for a great season!!!

Justin on the course

Coach Kane steering the ship

Justin & Tyler

Justin & Owen

Justin admiring his new trophy

Montessori Art Show

Every year in May, the Montessori school puts on an Art Show that displays all the childrens' artwork from the year in a very professional manner. Family & friends are always impressed and the kids are so proud. The collage below shows some of Chase's artwork, while the second picture is the group project Chase's class worked on together. And since we forgot to take a picture of the kids & me in front of Stetson University where they hold the Art Show (like we do every year), we took a picture after we got home. :)

Chase's REAL birthday party

Chase decided he wants every birthday party for the rest of his life at Disney's Fort Wilderness Campground. He was born to "play in the woods, climb the trees, run around like mad, and scrape his knees." So, that's exactly what we did! There were about 25 kids and 20 adults who enjoyed the campsite, swam in the Meadow Creek pool, played in the woods, dove for pinata candy and ate burgers, dogs and cake. Chase lived up to his reputation and hurt himself a few times while we were there. He came home not only with a dirty face, but two scraped up elbows, a scrape on his back and some road rash on his ribs & belly. That's our boy. Happy birthday Chase!!!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Birthday to Chase

Here's a video and a few pictures from Chase's birthday celebration at school. They do a neat little ceremony where the birthday child sets up an elipse around the sun (a candle) and then walks around the months of the year holding a globe while the teachers read about what the child was doing at different ages. Then the birthday kid gets to hear wishes from some classmates, is hoisted up in the air by the teachers and then hands out a birthday snack. Fun, fun!

Chase chose Sam Owen Sharma to help set up

Setting up the elipse

A family shot, plus Riley (the little girl I watch on Tuesdays)

Chase & Justin serving powdered donuts

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here is Chase getting lifted by Ms. Geiger and Mrs. St. Leger 5 times!!!

1st Grade Spaghetti Dinner

The first grade at Celebration School hosted a Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser to benefit the PTA last week. Justin & I volunteered to help out. He worked the drink line (lemonade or ice tea) with his classmates Alex & Kyle and I worked the food line serving up spaghetti and sauce. Justin had a lot of fun and won a tic-tac-toe game for his good service. Way to go Justin!

Hidden Talents

I love this picture of Meg, Roger & me at Amy's 40th birthday party showing our hidden talent of making "clovers" with our tongues. Not many people can do it, so when you find someone else who can, you celebrate!!!

Muddy Buddy

Roger and Shel, along with a few other friends, entered the Muddy Buddy race over at Disney's Wild World of Sports on Mother's Day weekend. The two-person teams alternate running & biking along with obstacles at the end of each "leg" and then wrap up the race by crawling through a giant mud pit. Both participants and spectators had a great time!!! The kids enjoyed their own mini muddy buddy afterwards with a sprint, tire obstacle, a climbing wall and then the same mud pit crawl. Chase actually won his age group. Just shy of his 5th birthday, he got to compete with all the 4-year olds!

The Pifer's were gracious and invited everyone back to their house for an afternoon BBQ and swimming in the pool. Here is a picture of Roger & Carly enjoying the cool water.

We're already thinking about next year. More couples are going to sign up and the post race party will be at the Wagoners :)

Credit Where Credit is Due

This is my first time blogging about my dad's sister, Marilyn, who lives in Rapid City, SD with her husband Jon (she has two grown sons, Eric & Alex). She is an amazing woman... ambitious, smart, funny. After 10 years of study (in addition to a full-time job and being a mom), she has finally earned her doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Nebraska (thus the huskerhead picture below). Congratulations Mare!!!!

One Little, Two Little, Three Little...

Duckies, that is. I took Carly to feed the ducks over at Lake Evalyn last week and she loved it. I think she wants to be a duck! She really loves birds and all animals. She can say ducky, doggy and daddy, but they all sound kind of the same :)

Carly's Walking!!!

Just 3 weeks shy of her first birthday, Carly has decided that hanging on to furniture or someone's hand while she walks is not that fun anymore! She's been taking a couple steps here & there between furniture or to reach something really interesting, but now she is walking across the room and down the hallway. Check out the video below... go, Carly!!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Earth Day Field Trip

Justin's class took a "field trip" on Earth Day to downtown Celebration for Kilwin's ice cream and then walked around the lake to pick up trash. Carly & I joined them and enjoyed chatting with all the kids. It's funny how many of them love babies!

Kilwin's ice cream

More ice cream!

Feeding the ducks

Carly June hanging out