Pre-School Graduation

Kyleigh is officially a preschool graduate! We had so much fun doing preschool this year. The name of the preschool was Keiki Preschool (Keiki in Hawaiian is children, pronounced kaykey). It was a rotating preschool with myself and 5 other moms. One of the mom's created the program when her older kids were small and it was fabulous. Kyleigh went to preschool 2 days a week for 2 hours each time. We had a group of songs we sang at the beginning of each day including "there are 7 days of the week," "What's the weather," and "here we are together." A rotating trifold display board highlighted jobs for the day, birthdays, the current weather, and a calender. There was a theme for each preschool day. Each theme had ideas for circle time, books to read, crafts, activities, songs, and snacks. Themes were widely varied from doctors and dentists, to amazing ants. We had four field trips toward the end of the year. They included a train ride, trip to the police station, trip to the fire house, and a morning at the botanical garden where the kids were scientists classifying seed types. Everyone was sad to see it end but most of us have younger kids and it will probably be close to the same group doing preschool for the next bunch of kids in a year or two. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

The graduate with her candy lei's.

Marching in to pomp and circumstance (yes, they actually played pomp and circumstance).

Receiving her diploma.

Throwing her hat in the air.

The whole family.

Rise and Shine

My favorite time of the day is morning. This particular morning both girls slept in and looked so cute I had to take pictures of them. When Katelyn wakes up I pick her up out of bed (she is usually in her own crib, not my bed) and she always hugs me and pats my back like I am her baby. Kyleigh wakes up and asks if it is a preschool day. Both of them like to snuggle and play in bed before they get up. How could it not be my favorite time of day?

What's new?

Rusty and Kyleigh had fun cleaning up the yard in preparation for ......


Holly and baby Naiya's shower. We had a book shower where everyone brought books as gifts (among lots of other fun gifts). The shower was based on Holly's favorite children's book, Streganona. It is about an old witch who has a magic pasta pot. We had chicken alfredo pasta and garlic bread for the food. We also had books for prizes for the winners of the games.

I even did my best in an attempt to make a "book" cake. This is two full size cakes with color copied pages from Streganona that were laminated with contact paper. I didn't want to actually laminate them because I needed them to be more flexible so I could bend them over the cakes. I trimmed the edges of the cakes so they would look like an open book and layed a ribbon across the middle for a bookmark. It was a fun thing to try.

Baby Naiya is getting bigger and bigger. Her sweet little cheeks are filling out and to Rusty's delight she will suck on his nose when she is hungry. (He has always thought this is so funny).

We had a momentous occasion last Sunday. Look closely in the picture and you will see Katelyn's ponytails. That's right, her hair is just long enough for some scroinky little ponytails.

Kyleigh continues to be the best big cousin and quite creative in her endless inventions. This one is a Maya wrap. Holly was given one as a gift and it wraps around Holly just like this one wraps around KyKy. The baby fits right inside and makes for a hands free holder without the baby's legs hanging out the bottom like a front pack. Kyleigh created one out of Christmas wrapping paper and you can see her tiny little doll's legs sticking out in this picture.

Between Kyleigh and Katelyn we hardly stop laughing around here!