Larkin's graduation

First day of pre-k back in August. She's long since outgrown the dress and the shoes!

Larkin on her last day of pre-k!

Willa said, "Take a picture of me too!" Every single day she would collect flowers or small treasures to give to Larkin's teacher. Here she is with rocks, a bird egg, and flowers! She can't wait to go to pre-k next year and have the same teachers as Larkin.

 It's hard to believe that a year has gone by and that Larkin will be in kinder in a few months! She absolutely loved school, all her friends, and all the fun projects and activities she did there. Her face always lit up when she would talk about school, and you can't ask for much more than that!



She was very well behaved at school and prides herself on being a "great listener." She chooses her friends based on how well they listen to the teacher. Usually when I'd ask her about specific kids in her class she'd describe them in terms of their listening skills. "Oh him? He's a terrible listener!" or "I'm good friends with her because she's nice and we are both great listeners."


On one of the last days of school the class was getting hyper and wild and the teacher was trying to quiet everyone down. Larkin turned to her teacher, sighed, and said, "Oh Ms. LaJean why don't they get it?! I haven't had to move my color once all year (you move your color when you misbehave). I just don't know why they can't all be good listeners."

The graduation was quite involved--caps and gowns, Pomp and Circumstance, diplomas, professional videographer, memory books, and refreshments! It was such a memorable night for her and she was so proud of herself for getting up on stage in front of a ton of people!

She is excited about kinder and is definitely ready--she's reading, writing, confident in the classroom, a good friend to others, and most importantly (in her eyes), a great listener!

singing "The World is a Rainbow"

 

 

 

 

 

ready for kinder!

getting her diploma

She loves to organize and clean her room, and one night I came in and found her bed looking like this! Diploma was center stage.

recent pics

Two feet on a shovel are better than one! We finally finished our garden out front

look who's sitting up! and grabbing your hot coffee! and your cell phone!

girls singing "hush little baby"...amazingly she did fall asleep and they were so proud!

It will be a sad day when she outgrows this carseat! Sleeps so well in it!

first time painting own nails

I see a resemblance!

First lemonade stand! They wanted it to be a "fancy lemonade stand" so that's why they're in princess attire!

Want to hear me scream? I dare you to take away my washcloth!!!

Shopping is hard work! First time riding in the cart, and then took a record-breaker nap that afternoon!!

First best friend

If you've spent any amount of time around Larkin over the last few months then you've definitely heard her talk about her friend Campbell. Campbell was in Larkin's pre-k class and the two were inseparable. At drop-off in the mornings one would always wait for the other to arrive, and at pick-up in the afternoon they always wanted to walk out together. During class they played with each other so much that even other kids noticed and would greet us in the morning with something along the lines of, "Hey Larkin! Campbell's on the tire swing waiting for you!"

Western day at school. Campbell is on the far right

When they got together outside of class they would just talk talk talk. Poor Willa tried to join in but just couldn't keep up with their conversations since a lot of what they talked about was what happened in their class. One day Willa said, "I wish I were Campbell so Larkin would like me as much as she likes Campbell." Ouch!!

Larkin came home from school one day and said, "Mom, I have terrible news. Campbell told me that she is moving to California and she was really excited about it. I told her that it was exciting, but really, I was just sad." As the moving date grew closer, Larkin became more and more depressed. One day I picked up Larkin from school and her teachers were concerned because she was mopey and quiet all day and they thought that she was coming down with something. I told them that she wasn't sick--she was just heartbroken!


For our last playdate with Campbell I took all the girls to a park and then to an ice cream shop. When we dropped off Campbell that afternoon we saw the huge moving truck in the driveway.  It all hit Larkin then and she struggled to say goodbye to her, even though she was going to see her again one more time at school. As we drove off she sobbed the most heart wrenching tears, and she refused to eat dinner that night.

The next school day was Campbell's last day, but Larkin said she didn't want to go to school because she was just too sad. It was the only day all year that she didn't want to go to school--every school morning she just can't get there fast enough. I knew that if she went to school she would cry and be sad all day, and thought it'd be better that we just skip school and have her last memories of Campbell be of the fun times at the ice cream shop.

Crazy hair day AND ice cream!

It's been a few weeks now since Campbell moved, and Larkin still gets sad about her periodically. When you ask her what's wrong she frowns and makes the letter "C" with her hand (for Campbell).

She's realized though how rewarding a friendship can be. The other day she said, "Mom, when I go to kindergarten will I meet another friend like Campbell?" I told her that she would make another good friend for sure, and she replied, "Well then I can't wait for kindergarten!"

Easter

Here's some pics from Easter! We went to Cat-Mama and Papa's house and visited with Laura's family from California. Unfortunately I can't get all the pics to load onto this blog (they download fine but then when I add them to the blog I only see about 1/10th of the picture??!)-- but here's a few that Laura took!

About to demolish the Easter pinata. I love how Ethan looks like he's already taken the pinata down himself and we haven't even started, Willa has a goose egg visible under her bangs, and Larkin is a sweaty mess. Look out Easter Bunny!!

now if they would only do this inside my house and not in the grass

Ethan sharing his Easter chocolate with Sadie. Yep, it was melted!

camping

 We took the girls camping this weekend, and it was Sadie's first time in a tent. I was hesitant to bring her because she's recently become a great sleeper in her crib and I didn't want to risk changing her good habits! But the Texas summer is fast approaching and I knew this would be one of the last weekends that would work for us to camp there--so we packed up all three kids and headed to Colorado Bend state park.

Colorado Bend is about 2 hrs from Austin in the hill country and is right on the Colorado River. The last eight miles are all dirt roads to the park, so it really feels like you are in the middle of nowhere. The drive out there was beautiful with all the wildflowers in bloom. We saw lots of wildlife too--we even saw a woman who had just run over a hog on the highway, and found a ginormous dead snake in the middle of the road. Joel threw the snake on top of our car to bring home (???) but luckily it fell off!!

snake!!

she loves to nap in her carseat, and did great at night!

 We misread the park map and thought that we would be able to drive fairly close to Gorman Falls-which is a 60 ft waterfall that is in the park. We arrived at the parking lot area and then realized that the word "gate" on the map meant that a gate was closed and blocking the shortest pathway to the waterfall. We almost turned around but figured we'd driven this far we might as well go for it. It was at least a 1.5 mile hike just to get to the falls and it was 4:30 already. After about an hour of hiking we met a woman and asked her if we were getting close. She said that we were close but that it was "really steep" to get there and then looked at us like we wouldn't be able to manage it.

hiking to Gorman Falls

 Suddenly the flat terrain started getting rockier and more challenging, and the girls kept asking, "Is this the steep part she was talking about? It must be!" Then we got to the very end and realized why that woman was so concerned. Harley was with us and he just about had a heart attack when he saw the cliff he was supposed to scale down!

"This must be the steep part."

"Nevermind--this is the steep part!!"

We made it!! Baby carrier and all!

Grandma and Gpa's visit

Boat-Mama and Grampa came down to visit for their spring break and we kept them pretty busy! They had four kids so they are used to a little chaos. They always jump right in and start helping out from morning to night. They changed diapers, babysat the girls while I ran errands, went strawberry picking, colored Easter eggs, restained our bench out front, and even went hog hunting (I will spare you those pics, but everyone got a hog!).

Grandma took most of the pics and I did not get copies of her pictures yet, but here's some pics I took at the berry patch. We've picked berries with them in Wisconsin and in Texas before, and picking is something that the girls associate with Gma and Gpa. Just the other day Larkin was eating some cauliflower and said, "We should go cauliflower picking sometime with Boat-mama and Grampa!"

flowers

 The wildflowers are in full bloom this year! They both love picking but Larkin especially gets excited about all the flowers. Her favorite flower is the Indian Paintbrush and she was so disappointed last year when there were hardly because of the drought. All year she's talked about which flowers would be growing and how she just couldn't wait to start picking them.

We headed to the trail near our house and brought some butterfly nets too. We rounded a corner and came upon a field filled with flowers and butterflies.  Willa gasped and said, "Mom, it's a beautiful world today."

Willa excited about catching a butterfly--
"I GOT HIM!!"

monarch caterpillar

The only pic I took of all three in the bluebonnets, but it's pretty good!

 Note to self--check for prickly pear cactus before telling them to sit down! Larkin got a bum-full of prickers!