Award's Day

May 29 was awards day at the school and both my big kids got little awards! Daniel was able to push back a couple meetings to join me at the ceremony and I know at least Will was very happy about that. He wasn't quite as concerned about mom being there, but this is not the post to cry about that. :)

First the Kindergarteners sang a few songs, one we've heard Will sing many times before, then Maggie's Pre-K class presented their awards. Maggie got the award for best behavior, she was very proud of it and getting to be on stage!

Then the related arts teachers presented their awards, followed by individual teacher/class awards. Will won an academic award for all E's all year long. He didn't enjoy the spotlight quite as much as Maggie :)

 Jake was so excited to see Will on that stage but got very upset when 

I would not let him join big brother

Field Day

The kids' school held a field day May 16 to celebrate the end of school. I could not believe my Will Will was almost done with Kindergarten!! This year has flown by way to fast! Pre-K and Kindergarten had their outdoor time together so I was able to hang out with both the kids. I did have to bring Jake with me which I knew would be interesting, but he ended up hanging out in the stroller most of the time with Maggie's teacher while I took her around to all the activities. Boy was I wore out at the end of the day!! Each grade was coupled up and spent a couple hours outside, then got a snow cone. I'm pretty sure they just had fun the rest of the day too! I enjoyed getting to enjoy this celebration with the kids.

It was a chilly day but my two big kids didn't want their jackets. Maggie finally gave in toward the end, but Will was happy without his. I always enjoy sharing activities with them at school, it was a great day.

Our Anniversary + Daniel's Birthday

I often wonder if Daniel and I will have anything to talk about in 30, 40, 50 years, God-willing. We celebrated our 9th anniversary on May 14th and as the day approached, I thought about making a card or buying a card or writing a blog as I have in years past. But then I thought to myself, what can I say/write to him that hasn't already been said? I mean, surely there's something, but everything I thought of sounded very familiar and I knew that road had already been traveled. Do you ever wonder things like that?
Anyway, we celebrated our anniversary much in the same way we did last year: dinner and a movie while the grandparents watched the kids. This year, though, we went to O'Charley's and since our anniversary was on a Wednesday we got free pie, yay! And we saw Captain America 2. It was a very nice evening. We've played it low-key on the celebrations this year and last partly because we have so much going on to go all out but also because I've been planning a big 10th anniversary celebration in my head for awhile now and I'm hoping it all works out. :) We took no pictures of our evening which saddens me, but I've been really bad about photographic journaling lately. Happy Anniversary, babe, love ya!

Daniel's birthday fell on Memorial Day this year, which would normally be nice since he's off work and so many people plan get-togethers anyway. But we spent the weekend in St. Louis and had to drive on Monday, so boo on that. I did buy him a couple movies and made him a healthy cake (his choice, not mine) on Sunday, so we did celebrate him, just not in the grandeur I would've preferred. Also, I brought my camera with me, but again too zero pictures. Which means I don't even have a photo of the cake! Ah, major fail. It was a healthy take on cheesecake made with mostly fruit with crushed almonds as the crust, served cold. I got the idea from Natan. Daniel (and several others) enjoyed it, which is all that matters. Happy birthday babe!

Another Trivia Night!

We have been quite blessed with our fundraiser(s) for Maggie's treatment in Canada. While still in Canada this last time (March-April), some people at my dad's work got together and organized a fundraiser for Maggie and it was quite a success!! Then at the end of April - same day as the Baby Reveal- my parents and their friends hosted a trivia night at their church!! Daniel and I helped a little with this, but not a whole lot, especially compared to the one we hosted in February where I did the majority of the work. I have to say, it was very nice to sit back and relax; I was able to take many more pictures this time.
I have detailed the evening's events here with plenty of photos. Thank you so much to all the people involved with these two fundraisers, they were both a huge success and meant the world to us that you were willing to put in that much time and effort for us!!!!

Baby Reveal

Earlier this year my cousin, Rachel, called to tell me she was expecting and due only a few weeks after me. A couple months later we decided to do a joint gender reveal party. I wasn't planning to have one for this baby because we already had one for Jake. But she really wanted to do this together and we won't ever have the chance again, etc. So I agreed.

One of the main reasons I was pretty hesitant about it was because I was going to have to keep my baby's gender a secret for about 6 weeks. I'm about 3 weeks further along than her and I found out at 18 where she didn't until 20. Plus, I was in Canada for the first 4 weeks, so we could not have planned it much sooner. Still, I conceded because this would be our only chance. 

So we decided to have the party at brunch time with a Ties or Tutus theme in blue/grey for boy and purple/yellow for girl. Jake's reveal was cupcakes with a blue filling so I wanted to do something different and had many ideas. I finally settled on one the day before the party! Look below to see. 

 My reveal- votes for boys (blue ties) and girls (yellow tutus). I chose a pinata for the reveal and apparently chose one without the pull strings so I told will he could open it. But once he started, all the kids wanted to join in, eventually resulting in the contents being broken...

Above, we're ripping open the pinata to pull out the sugar, spice & everything nice. The sugar mess took away from the dramatic reveal a little bit, but I think everyone got it. Once we cleaned it all up, Daniel and I took some pics. :)

Rachel's reveal- boy then girl guesses with a cupcake reveal.

Our aunt Rose made us gifts with her guesses and she was right!

then I had the kiddos pose with the sugar, spice and everything nice :)

Yes, that is a bag of skittles, but we didn't know what else to use and they are quite nice