Miss Clara Lillian at 18 months

Miss Clara at 18 Months weighs 24lbs (47th percentile) and is 33 inches tall (84%).  She continues to be our long and lean baby.  She is our most fearless child.  She is lightning quick and you have to be watching this lady every second especially at the pool or in the front yard.  Our friends and neighbors can not believe how fast she is.  Speaking of the pool, she has discovered the joys of swimming in the deep end which proves to be quite a sight with this pregnant mama holding onto her.  I think she learns a new word every day.  She loves scolding her siblings and the other night told Laken and Preston, "Hey, guys! Stop it!"  She calls Braeden, Brae or Brae Brae, Preston is Pudgie and Laken is Sissy, but she says it, "CC".  So, we have started calling Lake "CC", too.  She loves, loves dogs  And, has become a bit of a bag lady putting anything she gets her hands on and then some into her toy shopping cart.  She has also discovered a love of costumed characters, mascots etc. which is a first as all the other kids have been afraid of that type of thing.  She loves to high five them.  We just love this precious toddler to pieces.

Jumpin' June

We are way behind in blogging!  So here is what we accomplished in June...
While not technically June, we did enjoy the Memorial Day Parade together!

 

 We planted a garden.  This will be the last year for anything other than strawberries in this spot.  The strawberries are taking over and produced a bumper crop.  We made strawberry cake, strawberry smoothies, strawberry muffins and strawberry lemonade.  No jam here as my little Jam monster Pudge will not eat strawberry jam.  It's a seed thing.

 

 

 We held our Third annual driveway movie.  The weather did not cooperate this year, so it ended up being a garage movie.  For the second year in a row we had a title sponser.  This year's sponser was Expo.  Each child in attendance received dry erase markers and a marker board courtesy of Expo.  We featured Cars before the release of Cars 2 and munched on snacks and drinks.  We love this tradition!

We celebrated Brad's birthday and Father's Day with Gammy, Grandpa and Mike.

Brad received an award from Dougherty Staffing and Riverland College for being a founder golfer in their golf classic.  I was tipped off about the award and was able to attend the dinner with him.  A sometimes rarity in our house.


We celebrated Brad's birthday at home with Death by Chocolate Trifle and a much needed new pair of shoes.

Brad helped organize and Gammy and Grandpa attended with us, the 2nd Annual Henry Wenger Bandfest.  This is a marching competition for High School Marching Bands and they are are amazing!  We got to place our vote, as a group, for the People's Choice award.

We held our annual Monarch Butterfly release.  The kids love watching their Chrysalis' hatch.

Of course we found plenty of time for goofing around.  Clara managed to figure out she could fit in the toy shopping cart.

We decided we can make a pretty good pyramid with Dad as the base.

We found time for swimming at the OCC pool and the beloved slip and slide.  Hope your June was just as jam packed!

Our amazing boys....

 Oh, how the end of a school year makes me sad.  I am excited to have all my babies at home for the summer, but it is really how I mark the passing of another year.  And, my sweet babies are growing up all too fast.  Makes me teary eyed just thinking about it.  Here is Braeden in the top picture on the last day of school and below on the 1st day of school. 

 And, Preston in the top photo on the last day of 1st grade and the bottom on the 1st day of 1st grade.  They have grown too much since the beginning of the school year.

 So the last day of school was June 6th and it was awards ceremony day.  We knew Brae would have a 5th grade graduation, so we wanted to be in the audience.  We had no other expectations other than that.  Boy were we in for a surprise!  It started when we didn't see Braeden walk in with his class.  Little did we know he was chosen to represent his grade in a special farewell to Principal Mary Baier who has taken another position within the district.  Nolan (our neighbor) was also selected from his class.  There is a video of Brae during some of the performance below.

 Here is Braeden excepting his 5th Grade Diploma and a picture of the diploma below.

 

Preston, much to his and our surprise, received a phy-ed award for setting a new 1st Grade boys' school record for the shuttle run.

 Here is a photo of Preston's award for the new record!

 The Grandaddy of all the awards came when Braeden's name was called to receive the Presidential Academic Excellence Award and Pin.  As shown above.  This is quite an achievement for him and the highest honor you could receive at the ceremony.

 Preston also received his 1st grade diploma.  We are so excited that he is involved in the Looping Program at Washington.  So, his teacher and classmates will all be the same for 2nd grade.  They will be meeting once over the summer and his teacher sent home a calendar of some "homework" to do each day.

 Also, Braeden received an award for serving on the Safety Patrol to help students cross busy intersections before and after school.

 Both boys, also, received a National Fitness award for their scores on the Physical Fitness tests.  Keep up the amazing work boys!  We love you and couldn't be prouder of a great school year!

Baby Update

So I've realized that this pregnancy has gone relatively well, so I haven't needed to provide updates like I did with Clara.  The week after Laken's dance recital, was Brad's annual DC pilgrimage.  Of course I made a visit to Labor and Delivery to be monitored as I was having very bad low back pain.  The kind that makes you double over.  Thankfully, everything turned out just fine and it was determined the babe must just be laying in a bad spot.  I had an ultrasound done ,then, and my OB doc pointed out the babe already had some hair growing in.  Fast forward to the end of June.  I had a biophysical ultrasound and my OB doc, Dr. Reimer, again pointed out the hair and that the baby appears to have chubby cheeks see labeled pic above.   Then, last Thursday the ultrasound tech did an ultrasound and she, too, commented  the babe will not be a baldy and that it had some chubby cheeks.  Can't wait to see for ourselves!  Today, I had my first cervical check and Dr. Clubb says I am dilated 1 1/2 to 2 cm.  This generally is not a big deal for most, but I am a wee bit freaked as I have never, ever dilated with any of the kiddos before the onset of labor. In other words before I delivered.  I go from 0-4 like that.  So, this is uncharted territory.  I'm trying to keep calm as I realize I could just be this way for weeks, but I am so not ready for this little one to come, yet.  I have too many nesting projects to accomplish.  Not to mention a few things to purchase, too.  I am also a wee bit freaked as I lost weight this week and that sometimes is a sign of labor being around the corner, too.  I am just hoping this little one keeps baking for bit longer and I'm all crazy for nothing.

Preschool Graduation

Laken received her preschool diploma the Wednesday before Memorial Day. She is the third child of ours to graduate from the program...WOW! She had the exact same teacher, Mrs. Kingland, as Braeden did. Hopefully that means great things in her future, too.








Mrs. Kingland was all tears saying goodbye to her class of ten. Seems like just yesterday I was dropping her off there for the 1st time. Laken got to take two of their class goldfish home (I am happy to report they are still alive). Afterward, we celebrated at McDonald's with some of her classmates and she cried about preschool being over all the way from Nursery School to McDonald's.

Recital Weekend!

Laken had her dance recital May 21 & May 22nd. On May 21st she danced at 7pm. She was so excited all day to perform. For the 1st time I did her hair myself, which was a HUGE undertaking, because I am not a hair person. All the girls bring a beach towel and wait back stage until their dance numbers. She did not bat an eyelash for me to leave her backstage with all her "girlfriends". They had a blast playing with each others toys. My friend Karen lined them up backstage, so she was kind enough to take pictures of her backstage. They are posted on FB. Brad, the boys, Clara, Nama and Grandpa and I were all at this performance. We were sitting close enough that she could even see us despite the spotlight. Preston was worried he would be bored during it, so he brought a pen and paper, but never wrote anything the entire time. He was totally engaged in it. Laken was fabulous. You can tell she is loving every minute of being up there. Her star really shines on stage.












I learned the first year of her dance (mommy and me) that it is customary to bring your dancer a "gift" of some sort after the recital for a job well done. This year we bought her an American Girl dress, shoes and crown that resembled her dance outfit somewhat. She was elated!












Her next performance was on Sunday, May 22 at 2 pm. This time she wanted her hair in pigtails. So I tried my best to make dance worthy pigtails. This time she was able to perform for Gammy, Grandpa and Mike. Grandpa even thought she was the only one who knew what she was doing. One of the other parents overheard Grandpa and agreed. Beside her ballet and tap numbers at both performances, she had a big part in the finale where she was front and center. She loved ever minute of it! Afterward, we all came back to the house and she rode her princess bike in full costume.