May Is the BUSIEST Month of the Year!!!!

April showers bring May, er, MORE rain!!

C had a playdate with one of his best friends, Maxwell!

Park days... the kids play and I read!  Win, win!

Our very pathetic strawberry harvest!  Yes, JUST ONE,
UGLY strawberry!

"May the Fourth" be with you!

"Everyone, look at the camera and squint your eyes!!"  Great job!  Strawberry
Festival in Slater, SC(super redneck, but fun!)

C had a birthday party for a little girl in his class.  The party was
originally suppose to be at the park which I thought would be great
for a wiggly kiddo.  Too bad it rained and we had to have all these kids,
plus more, inside for the better part of two hours!  We endured!

Child labor back at it!

The PTA hosted the annual Teacher Appreciation Luncheon.

C and I went market hopping - first to Taylors and then to Greer!  He ate his
way through:)  We both really enjoyed it!

Publix partners with the school to decorate Mother's Day cakes.  I helped out this
year!

Both kids each decorated a cake.  I didn't get pictures of them, but here is C
in the background of one of the school pictures!  Because we were heading to
Charleston straight from school on this afternoon, we kept one for ourselves and
brought one to Shelley when we arrived in Charleston!

C celebrated his summer bday at school with cupcakes!

When you go to the farmers' market and they have your favorite
jam(on sale!), you buy them out!!

This is rare nowadays!  He was one tired kiddo!

Running from dance to karate... exhausting for everyone!

M and I snuck in a date night to our favorite cooking class
location:)

I scored a foot massage by these cuties!

You know you live in the country when you stop to get night
crawlers and fresh picked strawberries on the way to pick
the kids up from school:)

M and C going for a tractor ride(C driving!) around the
neighborhood!  

C's class "party" was a Chick-fil-A picnic on the playground!
C and Nathan have been best buddies this year!

M and C had some luck out on the lake!!!

We spent some time Memorial Day Weekend with our cousins
at the pool and grilling out:)

We've joined a new gym that has a lap pool and I was able to give
it a go for the first time! I survived!

Riverbanks Zoo

Several months ago, Amy and I got our calendars together and planned to spend Memorial Day at Riverbanks Zoo together!  These kids really do get along great and pick right back up every time we get a chance to hang out!  Today was soooo much fun!  We arrived when the park opened at 9am and saw, I think, every animal there!  The kids insisted on sitting on every metal statue of an animal there was, they fed the birds, did the rock wall(several times), fed the giraffes, rode the train, ate lunch at a little restaurant there, watched the sea lion show and I'm sure I'm missing something!  It was such a fun way to spend the day with such wonderful friends!!!

This guy never seems to be out and about when we are there!

I think this was the kids' favorite animal of the day!

Always a favorite of us all:)

I'm curious at what age they will outgrow this??

Boy LOVES to milk a cow!!!

This ostrich had a bunch of eggs she kept sitting on
every time another animal got too close for her liking!

We were all exhausted by the end!!

Recital Weekend

Last night was dance recital rehearsal.  S got a ride down with the carpool and I picked them up!  C and I got downtown a little early and decided we deserved a cake pop for all the dance time we were going to be putting in this weekend:)  We got to the theater just in time to see S's class do their thing.  We were told that there would be absolutely no photography/videography on the day of the actual recital, so I wanted to make sure I got some good ones during the rehearsal!

The girls got a ride with Grace's mom to the rehearsal!

Because it was going to be a busy weekend of dance,
C and I got much-deserved cake pops while we were downtown
before picking up the girls!

Last minute instructions from Ms. Liz.

When we walked out of rehearsal, we were greeted by TONS
of kilt-clad-bagpipe-playing Scots preparing for a parade:)

Today was the day of the recital!  Things at our new studio are done quite differently than they were at the old studio.  This one does not call it "recital" but rather "demonstration".  The girls wear their assigned colored leotards and for the only time during the year are given skirts to wear!  I thought this might be hard for S to adjust to since she is used to having the pretty, fancy, fun costumes, but she said she actually liked it better because she wasn't itching the entire time!  HA!!  The recital lasted only an hour(and all the men in the family rejoice!!) and there were 21 dances done in that amount of time!  They were all fantastic and quite impressive!!

After getting our dancing princess from backstage and taking the requisite pictures, we headed to our dinner reservations at Soby's.  This just happens to coincidentally be my favorite restaurant;)  This was also the first time the kids have ever been to a really nice restaurant!  They did very well and even learned some fancy restaurant etiquette while they were there!

Even after all of this excitement, we were still able to be home to get the kids in bed not too much after normal bedtime unlike when we've been out super late after previous recitals - a definite plus with the set-up of our studio's demonstration!!

Awards Days

It's that time of year - awards time!

Tuesday was 1st grade awards and C was thrilled to get the Excellence in Academics, Excellence in Reading and PE Superstar Athletic Award.  I am so so so very proud of this kid!  He struggles with behavior a bit(usually being just a wiggly, talkative, distracted, inquisitive little boy!) but he has matured a bunch this year and is smart as a whip!!  He tested off the charts in reading(?!?!?!) and in the 95-100% in math!  For him to get Academic Excellence and Reading Excellence made him so proud of himself which in turn makes me so happy to see!

SO hard to get a good, normal smile!

SO.HARD!  LOL!!

It was kinda funny, she accidentally skipped over him

when giving out awards, but you better believe he 

quickly corrected her:)

S had her awards this morning!  Her's was done in the classroom so that was a bit different but a more intimate feel!  She received All A's All Year, Student Counsel Certificate, Winner of the 3rd Grade Art Contest, PE Push Up Award(this was tested a couple of months ago and she is STILL not completely over the soreness this award cost her!), Music Award from the music teacher, Art Award from the art teacher, Spelling Award, Reading All the Time Award and the Simply Sweet Award from her teacher!  I'd say she pretty much blew it out of the park!  So proud of her academically and socially and all the while keeping a very busy schedule outside of school!

An attempt at a class picture!

S, Kiersten and Aluxia

Natalie and Olivia

Oh they were getting crazy by this point:)