May We Present May

The entire month of May, then? Here goes...

Miriam's new position: sitting in the window seat of the playroom reading chapter books. We love finding her here...watching that brain grow is one of our favorite things. Speaking of her brain growing, Miriam was "promoted" from Kindergarten to First Grade in May. The last month of the school year was full of activity for her. 

Miriam did a research project and presentation about owls. She had a lot of fun learning all about them - she even took an owl snack in for her class. Daddy chaperoned her class trip to the zoo. MANY parents signed up to help out with this field trip, so Daddy just had Miriam and her best friend to walk around with.

Miriam recieved the "Lovely Listener" award during Awards Night at her school.

Suddenly it was Miriam's LAST DAY of Kindergarten. It was a harder day for Mommy than Miriam's first day...how could she be so old already? Miriam truly loved everything about school, Kindergarten, and her teacher. She told Mommy that she wants to be a Kindergarten teacher when she grows up. What a compliment to the teacher!!! Next year she is going to have another fabulous teacher in the same school with the same wonderful group of children, but time is just going too fast and we just want them to stay little and goofy forever.

Miriam wrote her teacher this sweet note and gave it to her on the last day of school.

Translation: Miss H, I love having you for a teacher. It's too bad I have to go to first grade because I love you.

Mommy got to help with Field Day at school, too. It was full of ridiculous games organized by the gym teacher - she gave all the credit to Pinterest. Which only confirms to Mommy that Pinterest is the best social media forum EVER. In any case, the kids all seemed to have a great time. 

Back on the home front...we had P week and each girl got to make their own homemade pizza for dinner one evening. We use a homemade no yeast pizza dough which saves us lots of time. (Just know that if you use this recipe, we generally leave the salt out.)

In May, Mommy FINALLY finished the quilt top for Felicity's quilt. (Garden Party Tango fabric by Iza Pearl Design + "Tropical Punch" pattern from the Moda Bake Shop) It's July. And Mommy is still quilting the thing...but then it's just binding left and this project that Felicity has been waiting for over a year for will be done!

Vivian finished up a once-a-week "Get Ready for Kindergarten" library program in May. A few times we were able to visit the library as a family which makes for happy memories.

Vivian has gotten suddenly outdoorsy. She was more of an inside child, but this year is begging to play on the playset or explore the woods. It's a nice change. She's especially in love with frogs and never even screams when they pee on her.

Memorial Day weekend, Tim was able to attend the Indy 500 - a dream come true for him!

Sarah spent some time with her family while Tim was away. Always dangerous because of how badly they spoil these girls.

Sarah's youngest sister, Maria, graduated from high school that same weekend. We're so excited for her to begin college and make new friends. College was such a great time for both Sarah and Tim and we pray it's an adventure Maria will love, too.

May wouldn't be complete without zoo trips. We took several, of course. Some without Miriam while she was in school.

 

And one WITH Baby Catherine! It was her first trip to our zoo and we're SURE she LOVED it.

It appears her parents had a pretty great time, too.

So there's May! And each month seems to pass faster and faster and these girls keep growing and growing. We're just trying to soak them in now, because soon they'll be graduating like Aunt Maria. So the Felicity quilt will wait a little longer and we'll keep falling behind on the laundry and cleaning and mowing every once in a while to spend just a little more time with them.