End of the School Year

This past Friday was the last day of "school" for the girls this year.  Eight weeks of homeschooling - hoping we never have to do that again!  The girls did really well considering, and I was proud of how they adapted to the new routine.  Now we'll have to figure out something else to occupy their days.

Evie had a little ceremony at school on Friday to graduate from preschool to kindergarten.  Everyone stayed in their car trunks while the teacher walked around with materials, gifts, photos, etc.  Evie felt pretty special, and seemed genuinely excited to call herself a kindergartner.  Jamie and I had a busy morning with work meetings, and totally missed Maggie's last Zoom call with her class... parenting fail.

Proud of our graduate

Getting her "diploma" from Mrs. Rowe

Spending  a few masked moments with friends before we left

Don't forget about me - going into 2nd grade!

We stopped over at the Rabine's to celebrate sweet Claire's birthday a couple weeks ago, and had a nice little visit outside to celebrate.  The girls were over the moon to see their cousins.

Happy Birthday, Claire!

Playing it cool with Pumpkin

Enjoying the cupcakes (yes, the girls insisted on
wearing their dance costumes for this auspicious occasion)

While the girls are still great companions, they are definitely getting closer to murdering each other as this goes on.  I feel bad for them... they spend all day together and they share a room, so they really have no alone time.  Trying to find ways to help out with that, and we opted to have the Rabine cousins over our house to lighten some tension.

Water balloon fight!  

Jamie wisely promised them McDonald's for dinner
if they picked up all the balloons 

Dancing on the tables

Maggie and Luke are so sweet together.  They like to sit and chat, draw, do art - no longer the wild ones in the house!  The three girls are their own little group, and I love hearing their conversations.

Discussing their Perler beads businesses
(Maggie wants to charge $5 per design, Luke wants to charge much less
plus surprise customers on their birthdays with balloons and music)

Vernors gingerale was surprisingly the highlight of their night

Today was a beautiful day, so we took the kids for a walk to our ice cream spot. 

I spent most of the time keeping him from walking
into 11 Mile

Patiently waiting for ice cream

I had to go check out an upcoming project for work, and we ended up finding a magical trail in our city.  I had no idea this was here, and it was so fun!  Ben just wanted to run the whole time.

Helping hand

Just let me run, Mom!

Big tree

Here's some others:

Love

Rejection

Conserving water?

Our little comedian loves to lay on his back right in my
way when I'm cooking dinner.  Cracks himself up

Soapy

Not a fan of the girls doing his hair

Personal space.  It's a thing.

It's empty....

Batman and Batboy