End of school and Cesi visit!

The kids were so excited when May started because they could count down the days until the end of school. They both had a really great year at school, but they are still kids, and the idea of summer with the pool opening and lots of camps in their future is pretty enticing!!  I worked from home so I could walk Isaac to school for his last day, which was more meaningful for me than for him.  He was extra excited for school because he had a zoo field trip and an end of school party, so the walk was fun. He's not yet at the point where I embarrass him, so I walked him all the way in, and even got a big hug and took this picture before I headed out.  Here are some pictures from his day, including with Ms. Valdez. Bill went to the end of year party (we had to divide and conquer).  He had a great day, and was excited to show me his party favor that said "o-fish-ally a 2nd grader" :)

I also took Cate to school, and it was extra special for her because it was her last day of preschool AND they were celebrating her birthday.  We stayed up late making cupcakes for her class, and she wore a special dress.  The birthday ritual was cute, and her friends loved the cupcakes.  I left to work for a few hours before coming back for her end of the year party where they had a big picnic and the ice cream truck.  Here are a few pics of her last day, including one of her hugging her favorite teacher, the amazing Ms. Jean.  We'll miss the Louisville Montessori School!

We had fun weekend celebrating the end of school weekend with a visit from Cesi.  It's amazing that even after not seeing her for almost 2 years, the kids treated her like family (more like royalty) and immediately fell into old habits!  She's such a good sport and spent the entire weekend doing everything with them, including jumping down their inflatable water slide! It was wonderful to hang out with her, and we were all sad to let her go.  Hopefully one day we'll convince her to move to Colorado!

Spring activities

The kids have continued to stay busy, and because our snowy season went through May this year, we were glad to have them in lots of activities.  Cate continued to take art, but I don't have pictures of that (though we have lots of great projects!).  Together, the kids took karate and tennis, and loved both.  For karate, they have progressed up two belt levels.  I can't follow the belts (pretty sure the karate people make it up as they go along), but they seem to be on some orange tiger pattern now. The best part about it is the focus on respect and only using karate for self-defense, which seems to work great at karate school, although I've definitely had to step in and break up some Isaac-Caitlin wrestling matches that looked strikingly similar to the karate moves they learned in class. Nevertheless, they are having fun and learning, which is good.

Isaac finished his tiger scout year, and moved up a level with a ceremony taken very seriously by a lot of lifetime scouts.  The boys all had a good year with lots of activities and earned many badges.  Bill was a great den leader, but is contemplating handing off the baton next year.

Isaac's friend asked if Isaac wanted to do tennis and he surprised us by saying yes.  Even more surprising was that Caitlin wanted to do it with him.  She was the youngest and the only girl. And although hesitant at first, after a couple lessons she was hooked.  The instructor made it fun, and both kids finished the session wanting to play more.

Finally, Cate took another Hip Hop dance class this year.  She continues to love music and dancing, and looked forward to the class every week.  The dancing school has grown a lot over the past year, and the recital was a really fun, big production.  We had to schlep Caitlin to two dress rehearsals, and she took it very seriously, watching every routine closely.  When it came time for her routine ("Everything is Awesome"), she and her class were very enthusiastic and clearly had fun entertaining the crowd, including her sizable cheering squad.  The squad then enjoyed an ice cream celebration afterward!

Easter and Passover

It's been awhile, so I'm catching up on old posts.  The reality is that this will probably be the last year of the blog, so I'm pushing to get in at least 1 per month (post-dated still counts!).  With Passover and Easter falling so close together this year, we had a very family/fun-filled couple of weeks (although I seem to have taken very few pictures!).
Let's start with Easter.  The Andersons came to town for spring break, so there was lots of fun decorating, hiding, and finding treat-filled eggs.  Cate had her first chocolate Peep this year, which was reportedly worth waiting for.  Isaac chose a fluorescent blue marshmallow one that came in a close second.

Egg decorating was fun with an extra special set that had lots of bells and whistles.  Grandma was very patient as the kids made a huge mess finding the exact right decorations to make theirs special.

They also got to pick out new Easter baskets (which look very similar to Halloween baskets if you ask me) for the big Easter egg hunt (Frozen and Ninja Turtles, of course) and made good use of them racing around the yard in search of the "special" egg Grandma hid with $5!

Unfortunately, we forgot the baskets when we went to the community egg hunt, but the Nordstrom's bag served the same purpose (and also helped Isaac take out a few toddlers who dared to get in between him and some eggs).

We stopped at the local bank for a quick Bunny pic (free- ya get what you pay for!), before heading home to play outside in the gorgeous weather before getting ready for a big family feast for 20.  When it was the kids' turn to sit down, Isaac announced loudly that he could see the person's eyes behind the bunny costume, likely traumatizing the other kids waiting on line.  Cate paused for a minute, looked more closely at the bunny, shrugged and asked if she could have another cookie.

We hosted the first night of Passover at our place with friends, and made it an informal, kid-focused event. This was particularly fun because there were more kids than grown-ups! The kids took turns going through the (adapted) Seder, and Cate even read the Four Questions! The food and wine were great too, hopefully this is a tradition we will continue every year.

For the second night, we went down to Denver and had a big family Seder at Nora and Bruce's house.  They went all out with the fun props, and everyone had a blast participating, acting out parts, throwing plagues, having a marshmallow fight, and just relishing the time together.