Pre-K Graduation!

I know it's cliche to say how fast the time has flown by this year, but I can hardly believe we're just a short summer away from having a kindergartner!  Em's class had a graduation ceremony on Thursday night, and they'd done a lot of work to prepare for it.  They said "hello, how are you?" in multiple different languages, recited the pledge, and sang some cute songs together.  I know she'll make new friends, but I'll really miss the connections she's made with these kids over the past few years.

I really wanted to get a picture of Em with her teachers, and I love how this turned out.  Ms. Chandra and Ms. Christina have been terrific this year, and we never could have asked for better teachers--she really loves both of them.

Mick and I both came straight from work to make it in time.

 And there's Miss Sassy, after she got her diploma :).

5 Year Checkup

I took Em for her 5 year checkup Thursday morning before school, and once she confirmed there were no shots, she was in a great mood for the appointment.  While we waited for the doctor, she struck a few poses for me in her gown.

She is such a clown!  She's 46.5 inches tall (96th percentile) and weighs 46.4 lbs (81st percentile). Last year at this time, she was 43.25 inches tall and 41 lbs.  I knew she was tall, but the 3+ inch growth certainly explains why we have trouble keeping up with her in clothes.

Her hearing seems perfect, but the doctor did ask us to follow up with an optometrist because Em seemed to see a little better out of one eye than the other.  I'm not sure Em wasn't just being silly during the eye test, but we'll see.

Memorial Day Weekend Trip to SSI

We decided to take a couple of extra days off for Memorial Day weekend and head down to St. Simons Island, GA to be with Mick's family.  We rented a condo at the beach with Rob and Stacy, but went by Mick's parents' house when we first got there so we could see them before we checked in.  Em was happy to see Grandma, Papa and Muffin.  She is such an animal lover, so perhaps she really will grow up to be a veterinarian like she plans!

Once we got to the condo, we spent most of the rest of the weekend there, with the exception of going out for a few meals.  Em stayed with Mick's parents each night, and they came over to join us during the days.  We were oceanfront with a great pool, and the weather really couldn't have been more perfect.  Em had a great time playing with her Uncle Rob!

She would have spent the entire day on the beach building sandcastles if she could have!

Luckily, when we left the beach, she was happy to spend time at the pool, so we did a lot of relaxing.

Even Uncle Chris came by one afternoon to see everybody.

This sweet girl loves her Papa!

And her cousin Landon, although he wanted nothing to do with a picture.

It was a great long weekend with plenty of fun and sun. 

Sweet Gifts

These are a couple of sweet gifts Em has made lately--this is the Mother's Day gift they made at school.  I just love it!

The week after Mother's Day was Teacher Appreciation Week at her school, and we sent in small gifts each day with little notes attached.  We ended the week with some nice gift cards and notes from Em--her teachers really are terrific, and we feel lucky to have had Em in their class.  She really does love Ms. Chandra and Ms. Christina!

Gracie

Four years ago, our first baby (Gracie) tore a ligament in her left leg and we had it surgically repaired.  The doctor said at the time that there's a good chance she would do the same thing to her other leg, so we've sort of been waiting, but felt like we were close to being in the clear.  Almost four years to the day of the first surgery, Gracie was running in the backyard Monday night and suddenly sat down.  She didn't want to move, and when she did, she wouldn't put her back right leg on the ground. We were worried she had done the same thing, so I planned to call her vet first thing Tuesday morning to see when I could take her in.  Luckily, the same surgeon is still there and they told me if I could bring her in early, they'd work her in to see Dr. Dozier that day.

A little later, he called me and said "well, if you thought Gracie tore her ligament in her right leg, you were right."  He was surprised she made it four years after the other surgery without it happening, but said he could do the surgery the next day if we wanted.

This is a picture from 2011, after Gracie's first surgery.

And this was after surgery when we brought her home on Wednesday.  Em was extremely concerned about her and wanted to stay right by her side.  She was on so much medication it was hard for her to do much moving, but I think she was just really glad to be home.  She didn't want to eat, so I made her some chicken and rice (which of course she didn't turn down).

By the end of this week, she was already touching the leg down a little when she walked, and was back to eating her normal diet.  She's healing nicely and now just has to deal with the cone of shame!

Lantern Fest

I read about this fundraiser called Lantern Fest that was coming to Gastonia, and decided to buy tickets for us because it was raising money for the American Cancer Society, and because it looked like a lot of fun.  The price you pay includes a biodegradable paper lantern, markers and crayons to decorate it, and ingredients to make s'mores.

If you've seen Disney's Tangled, you know all about the floating lanterns that Rapunzel sees every year on her birthday--we of course saw the lights near the Rapunzel tower at Disney World, but I knew Em would love the opportunity to set off her own floating lantern.

We got there in plenty of time and took our blanket and chairs down to the field--it was in the middle of a speedway, and they had hundreds of fire pits and tiki torches set up.  They sold food and drinks, and we got to work decorating our two lanterns.

Rapunzel and Flynn made a guest appearance!

Em was super proud of our lanterns that we decorated with pictures, our names and the date.

When it got dark, the lanterns started going up!

They say they have a crew of "lantern chasers" that gather about 90% of the lanterns after they fall that night--the other small percentage just biodegrade or are picked up later.

There were thousands of people and hard to even estimate how many lanterns in all.

Toward the end of the night, a couple of lanterns got caught on the cell phone tower you see in the back here, and started a pretty big fire.  As we were leaving, the fire department was there to put it out, and the story made headlines everywhere.  It was really a super cool event, and beautiful to see all of those lanterns.  Em loved it!

 

 

Strawberry Festival

The Strawberry Festival is always the first weekend in May, and we've gone every year since we moved to the area since it's literally right down the road from us.  It starts on Friday night, and we prefer to go that night since the crowds aren't usually as bad as on Saturday, and it's definitely cooler.

Em found these handmade lace crowns shortly after we got there and picked out this silver one with a feather on it.  Surprisingly, it stayed on all night, even through the rides!

There are a few rides we can go on  with her, but she kind of likes the independence of being able to go on some by herself too.

She loves these flying rides where the bar controls how high up you can go!

We've gotten a picture of her every year with the strawberry--this was 2012.  My, how things change!

Spring Fling

Hard to believe another Spring Fling has come and gone!  This year, Em's class chose "Roar" by Katy Perry and they all learned a routine to go with it--we've seen it at least a thousand times over the past few weeks as Em perfected her moves.  The kids all wore jeans and a white shirt with sunglasses, and they looked super cute.  This is our little show-stealer before they went on stage with a couple of her friends, Hannah and Andrew.

Making Money

It seems like the last few times we've tried having a yard sale, we pull everything out in the driveway just long enough to get rained on, and this time was no different!  We didn't have a ton of stuff to sell this time, so we hadn't planned to be outside long.  Em really wanted a lemonade (and water) stand though, so we made lemonade the night before and she designed her own sign.  Then she set up her cups and cash register, and was ready to roll!  One lady actually paid her a dollar for a cup of water!

Exciting Easter Weekend

Our neighborhood had its annual Easter Egg hunt and cupcake contest on Saturday--I helped with the coordination, which meant Em could go over with me and have some extra time in the bounce house with a friend before it got crowded.  She was pretty excited about that!

Our Easter Bunny arrived on the back of a Harley!

After pictures with the Bunny, all the dads went out to hide the eggs (and the kids cheered them on from the clubhouse balcony).

This is Em's little friend Ella--they actually were in the same class when Em was at Gateway a couple of years ago.  They're the same age and will start kindergarten together this fall.  There are lots of kids Em's age in the neighborhood, so it's nice that she'll know some when she goes to the big school!

We split the kids into two groups for the egg hunt because there were a lot of really young kids who didn't have a fair shot with the bigger ones.

Everyone found plenty of eggs!

On Easter Sunday, we were on our way home from the grocery store and had bought a bag of carrots to stop and feed the horses.  There's a horse farm near our house and we sometimes pass it and talk about stopping to see them.  I've seen people out there before, so we decided to give it a shot.  We pulled out our carrots and the horses came right over to the fence.  After we fed them a few, we looked up to see a lady on a golf cart heading toward us--Mick was sure we were about to get in trouble, but it was too late to run, so we waited to see what she'd say.  As she got closer, we could tell she was waving and smiling.  She pulled up and said she was getting ready to saddle up one of the horses so her 5 year old daughter and her cousin could ride, and asked if Em wanted to ride too! Not a tough decision for our little animal lover.  Mick ran home to take the groceries back, and Em and I rode to the house with her on the golf cart.

When we got to the house, there were two little girls in a small fenced area with bunnies!  Em was ecstatic, and jumped right in.

Then the lady let us walk out with her to get Dakota, the black and white horse they'd ride.  Em wasn't the least bit shy--she is completely crazy about animals.

She took control and led Dakota back to the barn, talking the whole way.

She looked like a natural when she got in the saddle!

It didn't take her long to start asking for a horse.  We stayed almost two hours, and they invited us to come back any time we saw the gate open!  Southern hospitality at its finest :)!

That afternoon, we dyed eggs (better late than never!).

This was one of Em's masterpieces.

And Mick got to take some really fancy boiled eggs to work with his lunch this week!