Ben's 2nd Birthday

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my two little hobos

Field Day 2016 + their school years

Lily just completed 1st grade with Ms Long.  She had a great year.  She tends to be our more shy one so it takes her longer to come out of her shell.  Her teacher did a great job of recognizing that and bringing her out.  For us at home, she is wide open and energetic (like these pics!) & that's is unfathomable to her teachers.  She works hard at school, is a great student and then LOVES & NEEDS to be physically active & outside when she comes home. 

She became a proficient reader in 1st grade.

It is interesting and so helpful to have the older kids only one grade apart in school.  It helps in keeping up with/comparing (gasp!) where they should be skill-wise & its obviously so helpful that they can learn things at similar times and (it goes w/o saying) that benefits Lily.

Lily also loves math & science.  She enjoys practically showing us the ways she uses math skills in daily life- money, telling time.  Its great!  She also loves a good tactile "science experiment" using anything she can get her hands on.

She also loves playing teacher to Ben (& Peter when he'll cooperate).

Peter had an exceptionally outstanding year of 2nd grade with Mrs Jefferson.  Last summer we went through the process of getting him an IEP again.  (He'd had one as a preschooler & kindergartner but was dismissed at the end of K & during 1st grade.)  I can't say enough wonderful things about the staff at our school who helped with that process and helped him this past year.  Mrs J was super organized, super smart, & just so gifted at teaching.  He also had a SPED teacher (Mrs B) that we adored.  His reading improved dramatically.  I feel like it finally "clicked" for him the last 9 weeks.  He has always LOVED & been captivated by books since birth.  He would naturally spend hours just sitting and looking at books.  But he began to instinctively choose to read them instead of look at them. He impresses me so much with his love of reading!  He has come so far!  Way to go, Peter! 

He is also just a SWEET child.  So happy to see Goo & Mommy.

 Another interesting fact about the 2015-16 school year is that school was cancelled on the last day!  We had a huge storm and power was out for 48 hours.  So these pics will have to serve as our spring/end of 1st and 2nd pics. 

The Other Mama & Her Baby

bedtime stories with sissy.

she loves him, sometimes too much.

look at his sweet cheeks and toes.  

she is a willing and helpful big sister.

its been a treat to all of us to have this boy among us.

and its so nice to have the help of bubba & sissy.

he so willingly gave up his paci.  the end of it started to break apart.  so we began to tell him that his paci was broken so he wouldn't be able to use it.  it really was a non-issue. so thankful for his easiness. his communication skills are quite amazing, if i do say so myself- we only have a little (um, 5 years) experience with speech therapy. ;)  he talks in complete sentences and is quite easy to reason with.  and its amazing how much that helps. :)

 isn't he cute?!?!  quite the ham!

Julia's Birthday + Dennis Cousins

we got to celebrate Julia's 1st birthday!

 a picture of each of the cousins  ::  early spring 2016

peter

 lily

 audrey

 elizabeth

sarah

ben

the girls 

 the whole crazy bunch

Spring Break 2016 {aka, Drive Me to Sunshine}

With the big kids in school and living in a wonderful neighborhood with lots of kids, I have realized that it can be hard to find family time that we all agree on.  Third year in school and I finally caught onto the idea that spring break is family vacation time.  Its not just time to "make do" at home with the kids while Daddy goes to work all week.  And I often have an itch to go and see new places.  So with all of those in mind, I decided we were taking a trip for spring break!  

The driving thought was 'where can we go that's warm?'.  I played around with distances & locations we could reasonably travel to in Florida, and settled on Amelia Island.

So off we headed on Easter Sunday.  We travelled about 6 hours to South Carolina, spent the night in a cheap Days Inn, let the kids wake us up early the next morning, then headed for Florida!

Ben got to forward-face and watch his first movie!  The world opened up for him!

Our condo wasn't available until the afternoon but write it down that we arrived very early, had a lunch of our leftover car snacks, then had the whole afternoon on the public beach area!  

It was lovely, & sunny, & warm.

Our 3rd floor condo was beachfront so we got an amazing view of the sunrise each morning!

 One day we drove to Fort Clinch State Park.  It backs up to the Cumberland River between Florida and Georgia.  We had most certainly brought along our kayak so after exploring that beach area, Mike & the big kids kayaked over to Cumberland Island, Georgia.

Ben & I stayed behind to nap & throw rocks. :)

 "Daddy, Hold You!"

Treasures found on the other side :)

A safe return!

We stepped back in time & explored the fort at Fort Clinch.

 That eve we went into the cute downtown area for pizza & ice cream.

 Another day was cooler but perfect for long sleeves and shorts! :)

Books and coffee on the day - oh, what a good day!

 Mike got to go surfing every day! :)

Thumbs up that his mini-van has a kayak on top!

Maw gave each kid $10 to get a treat.  It was for sure a highlight of their week.

 There was lots of Uno playing & a daily happy hour.  :)  Cherry 7-Up for the kids (maybe their second time ever to have soda?!)

 Lily perfected the selfie. :)

On our final morning, we hit the beach as early as we could. Run to the beach to squeeze in every last drop of salt water, air, and sand! And these pictures show the prettiest time of the day.

Final stop on the way home was a Railway Museum in Savannah.

 This will be their album cover when they're famous.

It was such a great week!  Oh, I loved it & am so thankful for the time away together and a little adventure!