Super Six!

A belated blog Happy Birthday to Hayden who turned 6 last week. She may have already lost seven teeth, but she's only turning 6 years old. But such a grown up, smart, amazing, six years it is! We had a great time celebrating her birthday.

To start, we made cinammon rolls for her birthday which is what she asked for. Then she went off to her final day of gymnastics camp for the morning. Molly and I picked her and Eliza up at noon and we went off to lunch with Popop at her favorite giant Asian buffet place. She enjoyed her plate(s) of rice, chicken legs, mandarin oranges, jello and one piece of a sushi roll before digging into ice cream for dessert. We had fun checking out the turtles in the fountain too!

For dinner, we made pasta carbonara (her choice again) and had dirt cake for dessert. I tricked her good by putting 'sand' on top of the dirt. In fact, I tricked her a little too good as she started to cry thinking she wasn't getting the dirt cake she had requested. Luckily it was delicious and she ate it all up! I don't know if it was the missing teeth or what, but she definitely had real trouble blowing out her candles!

summer dirt cake! (don't worry, plenty of chocolate goodness below.)

do you get more wishes if you blow them out one at a time?

 And of course, she had a great time opening presents after dinner. The princess dress we got her was such a hit, she put it on immediately and has worn it some almost every day since! She was especially pleased to get the art set which was the only thing officially on her list for quite a while!

Molly helped by testing how much weight the gifts could support.

Money to shop at the arts and crafts store -thanks Aunt Katie!

Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne. A perfect present from Grandma!

a princess dress that fits, and it's  extra long and flowy!

the art set, look at that grin

Over the past year, she's conquered kindergarten, reading, swimming, the tooth fairy and thumb sucking - she is pretty darn amazing! I can't wait to see what she'll do as a 6 year old!
 

 

Father's Day

Yes, yes, I'm way behind. I'll keep it short and sweet.

We got to celebrate Father's Day twice this year. My dad was going to be out of town on Father's Day, so we decided to celebrate with him a week early. This was also a bonus because Hayden was going to be out of town on Father's Day as well. We went to the Eno River to play and then had a fun Mediterranean lunch out. Molly loved the hummus and couldn't get enough of it!  Our river time was fun - though the water was a LOT higher than last year!

snuggles with Popop.

grumpy snuggles

Lots of waterfalls. Last year there were rocks visible to walk on.

a dad and his nature girls

Posing with Grandma

got start them hiking young!

wading in the Eno

such a pretty spot

On the actual Father's Day, we celebrated Jason with pancakes and presents. Then after nap, we took him out for a frozen treat. I'm not sure who enjoyed their frozen treat more, the girls or Jason! Thanks for being such a great dad. "Dah-dee! Dah-dee!" as Molly would say.

pancakes!

frozen custard, yum!

You are not feeding me fast enough! I will do it myself!

red tongue buddies

a dad and his girls

 Happy Father's Day to the best two dads I know!

End of School

Summer has arrived. Hayden finished her kindergarten year last Friday! She now counts as a first grader! My how time flies! There were lots of fun end-of-year activities, I'll try to describe the last couple days of school.

First, her class put on a play last Thursday. The play was about mixed up fairy tales and combined much of what they covered over the year including types of rocks, parts of a story, characters of different fairy tales, how a seed grows, and animals at the zoo, among other things. Hayden was Little Red Riding Hood (they got to pick), and her main part had her talking to the wolf (who was more interested in getting bacon than eating her!). It was SUPER cute and all the kids did a great job.

Little Red Riding Hood talks to the wolf

standing proudly after her part was done

Hayden and Josie dancing at the character ball at the end of the play

 After the play we got to watch a slide show of pictures from throughout the year. It was fun to see the kids change over the year, and get a little more insight into what she did during kindergarten! There was an impressive turnout of families at this event. I think there were only 3-4 kids (out of 21) that didn't have family there.  After the slideshow there was cake! The cake was heartily enjoyed. After cake, we just kind of hung out till school was over, because we needed to pick up big Eliza from her class.

munching on the cake. E was too busy to look up.

Alaina, Josie and Hayden - best buds

Hayden and Mrs. Overby

 After school was over, we had a playdate with Alaina and her family. When this playdate was planned, we were thinking park time, but since it was raining (AGAIN), we went to the American Tobacco Campus to roam around. The kids had a wonderful time playing in the rain (nothing too heavy while we were there) and playing with their umbrellas.

I like Molly participating in the lineup.

umbrellas are so fun

look it stopped raining! (I'm not sure what H is posing for.)

 The next day was the LAST DAY of school. It was STILL raining (thanks Andrea!). The rain was good in a way, because it was so distracting that I didn't get all emotional about it being the last day of school. I was just trying to keep us all dry!

walking in to school in the rain

the carpoolers on the last day

We picked Hayden up at the end of school (1:30 -it's the last day, why can't they manage a full day!) Despite a delayed nap time, everyone had good quiet time and then we went out to Red Robin to celebrate. I had a free dessert there, and the kids devoured the mountain high mudpie we selected. The highlight of the trip was getting helium balloons on the way out (why IS there a helium shortage? anyone know?), but then alas, when we got home, tragedy struck. A balloon was lost.

YUMMMMMMMMM

lest you think she's growing up too fast, this was her reaction upon letting go of her balloon. complete devastation.

With much cajoling, we calmed her down and got everyone to bed. Next morning wake up time, she counts as a first grader! She has changed so much this year, and I'm not even talking about how many teeth she's lost (6 since the start of the year!).  Can't wait to see all that she learns and accomplishes next year!

first day of kindergarten

last day of kindergarten! (pre balloon loss, obviously)

The Zoo!

For our last field trip, we took the whole family to the zoo along with all the first graders (and K-1 classes) from Hayden's school. Despite being a little apprehensive about being there ALL day, in charge of even more children than I normally have in my entourage, it turned out fabulously. The weather wasn't TOO hot, the kids didn't get TOO tired, and we managed to have fun!

checking out the ostriches, one of our very first animal sightings!

ostriches!

The whole family joined in the fun, including Jason, plus we added three of Hayden's classmates to our tour around the zoo. Basically once we were assigned our group, we could explore the zoo however we saw fit. It was nice to go our own pace, but also to keep running into other groups from the school so the kids could say hi to friends. We started in the Africa section, met back with the group for lunch, then hit North America in the afternoon. This turned out to be a GREAT plan because there are lots of good play areas in North America, and that's more what the kids were interested in for the afternoon.

Our little ladybug on a 'real' ladybug!  She climbed on this almost the whole time we were stopped at the awesome garden themed playground, until she decided to walk on a retaining wall and fall and scrape her forehead.

The only snags we ran into involved catching the tram back to the Africa parking lot (took SO long and we had to switch trams, no one told us which one was going where!) and then leaving the zoo (took the scenic way back to the main highway, adding 15 min to our return trip). All in all we had a great time. Check out the pics!

riding the hippos at hippo beach while we waited for the buses to arrive

our group plus Eliza at the ostriches, excited and ready to go!

Lions! Look, he's standing up! (for all of 15 secs...)

this is what happens when you ask K-1 students to pose

the girls liked the flamingos

Flamingos! (please be quiet, it's flamingo breeding season..)

scarlet ibis in the aviary

enjoying the huge vents of the aviary (notice the hair flying!)

an elephant!

elephant up close!

let me on!!! more hippo beach during post-lunch bathroom breaktime

can you tell E is getting a little bit tired?

M is still ready to rock and roll!

there was this neat structure made of twisted branches you could run around in

which way did she go, which way did she go?

the garden playground was GREAT fun

at the river otter tank. he just zipped all around. H said this was her favorite animal.

Smile! You're at the zoo! (Can you tell what animal they are sitting on?!)