May was such a fun month. The first week of the month we were in Indian Rocks Beach. We ended up extending our trip by one more day on the last day that we were there. It’s so hard to leave the beach for all of us. Extending it by one day more meant we were traveling home on Mother’s Day. So we didn’t get a cute, matchy photo this year for Mother’s Day. We got the pic below, in our travel clothes. And it was a great Mother’s Day because we had an extra day at the beach and we were all together.
Mother’s Day 2021
Nana and Grandad ordered the kids special drinks in the monkey containers one night. A few days after we had gotten back home I found that Nora Kate was pretending she was still on vacation drinking out of her monkey.
Sweets all day on a birthday...birthday ice cream at the Trash Pandas Game.
We can’t believe our big kid is TWELVE!
The kids got walkie talkies. They’re so excited, and have been entertained by these for hours on end.
They were all so proud of their trophies!
Lolly sent the kids this LEGO book of ideas and it has provided hours of entertainment.
Clayton got the game ball for some awesome hits and runs one night. I think he was prouder of this than he was of getting his trophy at the end of the season. Look at that face-pure joy.
He really has improved drastically this season. And he loves it.
The coaches for the A’s have been great. The coach always makes a big deal presenting the game ball, and I just love the expressions on Clayton’s little face as he is surprised and happy to be receiving it.
He may have bragged to his siblings that he got the game ball because he got a grand slam which was not true, but he did play AWESOME!
Then before we knew it, it was the last day of school.
This year of preschool at First Baptist W.E.E. (Weekday Early Education) has been so great for Clayton. His teacher, Miss Kelly was fantastic and he always said school was “awesome” when I asked him about it. He always had lots of hilarious stories to tell me about his days. Clayton learned so much this year between doing homeschool lessons on M, W, F with me and then school with his teacher on Tues/Thursday mornings.
Nora Kate had a fantastic year of 2nd grade. Unfortunately she never got to enjoy a school day without a mask, but she (along with the boys) were troopers. The went Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8-11:30 (12:00 on club days). Next year we have to switch to Monday Wednesday and different hours so we will see how that all goes come fall. BUT this year NK learned so much. Probably the biggest jump I’ve noticed this school year has been 1-in her reading. She is LOVING to read and so good at it now. She can read and comprehend some really hard chapter books now. And 2-a big jump in her ability to sit still and focus when we are working on our homeschool days (there are so many distractions when you’re doing school in your house with your dog and three brothers). She said science was her favorite subject because she loves all the hands on activities.
Carter on his last day of 3rd grade. Carter always WOWs me with his ability to understand completely any new topic or lesson that’s thrown at him, and this year has been no different. Third grade brought cursive writing which he was super excited about. But his favorite subjects are science and math. He sails right through math with any new concept and amazes me. He said his least favorite thing he did this year was the final ELA unit of the year on poetry because it just took too many words. Carter is always all about efficiency when it comes to his school work so this cracked me up. Carter is a happy student, and even though his teacher gave a much heavier work load than Dawson’s or Carter’s for some reason, he was a trooper about it!
Dawson’s last day of 5th grade and last day of elementary school. I can’t believe that Dawson will be a middle schooler. It makes me a little sad that he won’t be in the same building as his siblings on his 2 school days next year, but I also think that will be good for him to have some bigger kid time. Dawson’s least favorite subject was social studies this year, and his favorite was science. Can you tell that the science curriculum is great?! All three kids picked it as favorites. He had some really neat science lessons this year in his alchemist unit so I can totally understand why he picked Science. Dawson is also a fantastic reader so ELA comes easily to him. His final assignment for ELA was a personal narrative. I gave him zero instruction or help other than going over the assignment with him and suggesting he recheck one sentence to see if it was missing a comma...and I couldn’t have been any more impressed on his personal narrative he wrote about catching a shark! It was great! I can’t wait to see what you’ll do in middle school!
This is a silly little thing that I wanted to remember. Every.single.day before preschool we would have about 5 minutes to sit in the car and read or talk after dropping off the big three (usually we dropped them first) and walking Clayton into preschool. I asked him to take a selfie with me on the first day, and then every.single.day. Of preschool after that Clayton requested a selfie before I walked him in. So I have a ton of selfies like this on my phone, but I just wanted to compare the above picture that was our 1st day selfie and the below picture that was our last day selfie. He has grown so much, but you can also see even more confidence on that sweet face on the last day than day 1.
Our garden has started to really produce!
The kids picked all these strawberries in the basket above in one afternoon and now we have gotten about 3-4 times that much and it’s still producing strawberries.
The first of our radishes.
Clayton’s school did an absolutely precious graduation program for the kids. Here we are after graduation.
So proud of his performance in the program. You could just see his confidence and personality on stage.
He got a diploma!
May meant wrapping up the spring soccer season for NK and Carter.
Nora Kate ended up playing goalie several times this season-see the above picture of her in her goalie gear. She made a good goalie even if she didn’t really like playing that position. I think her coach knew from her lack of enthusiasm about goalie (although she was always willing to do it and give it 110 percent), so usually the other half of the game her coach would move her to striker or midfielder both positions NK prefers.
Nora Kate’s team made it to the championship game in the final round of the tourney. The above picture was in the championship game. Unfortunately they lost and came in 2nd place.
But they played really well!
Nora Kate’s team
2nd place medal
One sunny game she was a goalie looking directly into the sunset-we put sunglasses on her with all her goalie gear, and she did great!
After owning Trash Pandas gear for over a year now (we were planning to go to games last summer before Covid canceled minor league baseball), we finally got to go to a Trash Pandas Game...on Dawson’s birthday! It was SO fun! It ended up being a crazy cold May night which was weird because it has been really nice, but that’s why we are all bundled up. We had so much fun!
We celebrated Dawson’s birthday at breakfast with waffles made by Daddy with crushed up Oreos inside. Breakfast of Champions
Birthday cake
Trying to take a family selfie during the game.
Now that we are on summer break (YAY!) the kids have much more laid back schedules. Here they are enjoying breakfast on the patio one morning...and Clayton was sleeping in (yes, we have one child who will actually sleep past 7:30...sometimes!!!)
First swim in the neighborhood pool of the season!
I couldn’t be prouder of Dawson. He has been playing the trumpet for about 18 months now, and this school year he was asked to play with he middle and high school band. Then he was asked to play with them at the high school graduation. Here he is before graduation.
When people say they live at the ball field...I totally get it now. Between soccer and baseball, that’s where we have lived this spring. I’ve gotten to help out in the dugout 4 or 5 times which meant I got to snap a few pictures while in there. Here they are all lined up ready to bat.
First jump in the neighborhood pool. It opened at 9 am on May 22. Guess who were the first people in the water...these 4! Haha
Duke’s First Festival
We took Duke to the Fridays After Five festival on the Square in Athens one Friday in May to enjoy music and fun. He did pretty well, that was the most people he had ever been around. The only struggle was when John and 2 kids tried to walk away from us to go in Limestone Drug to get the kids drinks, Duke cried and whimpered for John and Dawson and Carter until they came back. Duke is a herder and it made him obviously nervous for three to be split from the other 3 in this crowd haha! Other than that he did great with all the noise, other dogs, people, kids, etc. there.
Summer break means saying “what do we want to do today?” almost every day. This particular day it was “go on a long bike ride around the neighborhood.”
We went boating and tubing for the first time of the season on May 23rd. 8 hours on the pontoon boat sure wore us all out, but we had SO MUCH FUN! The kids loved tubing, jumping off the boat and swimming, and just riding.
Our captain
When I went back through ALL our pictures from the day, Carter had some great faces in lots of them. Can you tell how much fun they’re having.
Pulling back into Lucy’s Branch marina. What a fun day.
Headed out for the morning.
CANNON BALL
Baseball tournament time! Clayton has loved baseball this season. He bats left handed. Throws right handed. Wears one batting glove on his left hand when batting or when fielding (under his glove). He’s learned a lot, and made us proud!
Mouthful of big league chew and ready to pull out a win (which they did) in the first round of the tournament.
I was making a chicken pot pie for dinner and had left the oven light on as I was watching the crust brown up, I walked back in to the kitchen and noticed Duke like this watching the pie bake.
Well, the boys lost in the second round of the tournament but they played SO hard. This was Clayton with his head coach after the final game. His coaches were dedicated, patient, and great with the boys.
Team pictures after the 14th game these boys have played together!
Helping in the dugout is serious business, but not too serious I can’t snap a picture or two. Here the boys are in the batting line up for the final game, they’re already sweating and the game hadn’t even started yet...hello, Alabama summer heat! Go A’s!
We swam all morning and then decided to bake double doozies! I think they earned these calories with all the swimming them did! (Pool hair, don’t care)
Another pool day
We have still been leisurely reading our way through the Little House on the Prairie books. We finished The Long Winter. I didn’t remember to snap a picture of them with this book until we were about to walk in the library to return it. Now we have started The Little Town on the Prairie.
John brought this slingshot home for Memorial Day Weekend, and it was so fun to drive on our outings.
Nora Kate attended her friend, Madalyn’s birthday party the Saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend.
Girls in the Slingshot
Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend was the Hot Air Balloon Festival. It was a crazy cool day for Alabama in May and VERY windy. We ended up having a great time at the Hot Air Balloon Festival, but they didn’t get nearly as many balloons up as last time due to the high winds. In the picture below you can even tell that the two balloons behind them are hitting as I took the picture. Clayton (above) was thrilled to get cotton candy and the festival.
Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend we went to a Trash Pandas game. We got there early and played on the playground.
After the game the kids got to run the bases!! That’s Carter in the red hat, NK behind him, then Dawson in the next red hat, and Clayton in the red and khaki.
During the game...it was hot-felt like baseball weather.
Before the game walking a round checking everything out.
Then on Memorial Day we went to a friends house for their daughter’s birthday and a cookout. Clayton and his buddy Ruby above more than enjoyed the cupcakes!
NK and bday girl Annie
The boys
The girls
I certainly cannot believe it’s already June, but I’m looking forward to a slower, calmer month in June with some downtime and free time for the kids to play slightly less structured now that sports and school are finished. We have some camps and activities lined up for summer but it will most certainly not be as busy as May!
