Audrey's Preschool Graduation

Audrey has been going to the Special Needs preschool at my school as a tuition/model student this year. Her teacher told me a while ago, if she could hand pick a tuition student, it would be Audrey. What a compliment! Last week, they had their preschool graduation. She's such a cutie!

Here she is singing songs...

She was pretty sleepy and kept yawning...

Maddi was entertained by Grandpa...

Audrey in her graduation hat...

With her teacher, Miss Jennifer...

With the teacher's aide, Miss Paula, whom she really loved...

The 6th graders did a carnival afterward for the kindergartners and preschoolers. Audrey got her hair and nails done, face painted and played a few games before going home with Daddy.

Congratulations on graduating, Audrey!!!
(Next year she will be in preschool again, she's got another year before Kindergarten.)

Maddi's First Words

Maddi's first word was uh-oh.

She now says, in her own cute way:
birdie
pisa (pizza)
peese (please)
ba (bath)
na (no)
dis (this)
was da (what's that)
da do (thank you)
ma
da da
And maybe a few more I can't think of right now. I wanted to get this posted before I forget!

the farm

At the beginning of May, we went down to visit a cool farm in Springville. We got an awesome tour by a friend of Dave's from work.

The turtle was awesome! 

Not shy at all, it was walking all over the place. 

And it had cool spikes on the back.

 Then we got to feed the lambs. How fun!

On to the kangaroo, my favorite!

The kangaroo was really friendly and liked the bread we brought.

Do you want a taste of my bread?

Too bad, I'm going to eat it!

Maddi had so much fun! She fell down in the mud a couple of times, including one face plant. But she happily got back up and kept cruising around.

Gotta love this haircut!

miscellaneous fun

As we have been working outside more, the girls are always out there playing around. Kimee and Audrey both love to water the flowers, which is nice. Until they decide to do this. . .

Maddi loves to play with the horses, whenever she can sneak a chance.

Kimee lining her horses up on a train.

We had a sleepover in the living room!

Kimee teaching school to a small group, cross-age class.

This is not so much fun, but as Maddi was playing outside, she tripped and hit her eye on the picnic table. I finally took a picture as it was about to get better. I think she is going to have a scar there under her eye from this accident.

curbing

We love working and being in our backyard. This spring, we added some curbing to the border of the flower beds. I think it looks really nice. And hopefully, it will keep the grass out of the flowers a little better.

BEFORE:

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Spring Break: Friday

On Friday, we said goodbye to the condo and the ocean and started driving.

We stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory before leaving the coast. It was fun and a great place for lunch. We drove all the way to Boise, and spent the night at a cheap hotel by the airport. Saturday, we drove the rest of the way home. The girls were so excited when we got home. I was happy to see how much they missed their room and bed, the backyard, etc. Home Sweet Home!

Spring Break: Thursday

On Thursday I did not want to go anywhere in the car, since we would be driving all day Friday. It ended up being one of my favorite days of the trip. It was supposed to rain, but we got lucky and had a pretty nice day. We walked down to the promenade: the bay, the whale watching center, and the shops. We stopped in the candy shop and got some taffy, several gift shops to get a bell and t-shirts, and the Fuddy Duddy Fudge shop that had awesome fudge.

Spring Break: Wednesday

On Wednesday, we took advantage of the one day it wasn't supposed to rain to go out on a boat. We took a Discovery Tour of the Newport Bay. Normally, they would go out on the ocean as well for some whale watching, but it was too stormy still. So we just cruised around the Yaquina Bay and River. It was really fun, with teaching and activities for the kids. Kimee and Audrey both got to take a turn driving the boat with Captain Tom.

Right at the end of the tour, as we were walking to get off the boat, Kimee dropped her glasses in the water. She says a bug landed on her face and she shook her head to get it off. She kept shaking her head, and her glasses fell right into the water. She was so sad, she cried as if she was really hurt.

 This is where Kimee's glasses were lost.

Down by the docks, we walked around to some of the shops and also watched and listened to the California Sea Lions bark.

After the tour, we stopped for lunch at the Pig'N Pancake in Newport. We loved it! We want to add that to our "must see" list next time we go to Oregon.

When we were in Newport, we stopped at a seafood market and picked up some fresh crab.  Dave was excited to eat it for dinner with the Claunches. The girls and I had something else for dinner; we were going to just have a taste of crab. When they were asking Audrey if she wanted to try some crab, Jon told her it would make her grow big and strong. She took it very literally. She actually still talks about it now, over a month later. When I say she is a big girl, she says she is bigger because she ate crab.

Well, Dave fed Maddi a small bite of crab. Audrey started sobbing. We couldn't figure out what was the matter. It was so sweet and almost brought me to tears when she could finally get the words out.
It was something like this, in between sobs...
"I don't want Maddi to eat crab. I don't want her to grow big and strong. I want her to stay a baby. She's my baby."
Audrey, I completely understand how you feel!