Awards and Field Trip

It's starting to bring a tear to my eye thinking that the school year is almost over. These past few weeks it has hit me that my babies are growing up! T had her last day of preschool. She has come a long way this year. I remember how my heart broke as I had to leave her in an unfamiliar place with strange faces. The teachers had to pry her off of me as she cried tears of terror. Despite a rough start, she really came to enjoy it. T will go again for another year this fall before starting Kindergarten. She learned how to write and sound out words. We are so glad we stuck with it!

Her last day was a fun one...moonbounces, snowcones...what girl could ask for more? Then they had a cute slide show and she got her certificate.

I also had an opportunity to tag along on G's field trip. He went to a farm nearby. He was able to go on a hayride, jump on a huge moon bounce, ride tractor bikes, do mazes, and feed animals. It was a blast!

G had his awards ceremony today for Kindergarten. He got an excellence award for spelling.

Here's a proud mom saying, I am so proud of my kids for giving their all this year. Summer, here we come!!!

Here's a little montage of our events...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Biking

I don't know how we mustered up the energy for a bike ride after having field day, camping, and grilling, but if you are on a roll, why stop now? We all went on this cool bike path that we have in Northern VA called the WO & D trail. It used to be railroad tracks that they converted to a bike path. You could even bike all the way to DC (45 mins.-1 hr. car ride) from our house, if you were ambitious enough! We went a couple of miles with the kids to this stone quary. They loved it. Then you'd think we would have called it a day, but Memorial Day is not a holiday without swimming! We headed to the pool (I'll spare you the bathing suit pictures) and then to grandma and grandpa's. We were beat by the end of the day (and long weekend)!

A Visit from Friends

The Sunday after we got home from camping, our friends Dave and Kerry came to visit us from Annapolis with their cute daughter Lacey. We had a wonderful time chatting and playing in the backyard. Of course, we had to fire up the grill and cook some good old burgers and hotdogs. What's Memorial Day without grilling? I think M made a new good friend! Here's a pic of the blonde and the brunette cuties sharing a hug. Thanks for visiting us!

Camping

This year, we decided to get in touch with our adventurous side. Every year, a big group of friends from our ward head out for a fun weekend of camping at Shenandoah National Park. The group grows larger by the year(88 people attended this year). We have never been camping before as a family (the last time was when we were kidless at BYU). We were nervous that the kids would get scared of the bugs and sleeping outside in the dark. However, we declared this year as the year to start the tradition, or at least see if it will ever become a tradition!

So with that said, I stayed up till 3am packing and finishing up on work (G had a field day the next day at school that I had to help at and we left right after). Who ever knew camping would require so much packing? Thankfully, it paid off. To much of our surprise (and delight), camping was a huge hit! The kids loved gathering the firewood and helping dad build the fire. The hike was a little rough; Cedric had to carry T the whole way up and I was stuck with M in a baby carrier (we were too lazy to pack the hiking backpack). G cried half of the way down because his ankle hurt. However, the view at the top was spectacular. It was worth it! G said he'd never do the hike again, however, if you ask him what his favorite part of camping was, he said it was climbing the rocks at the top of the hike. I think he really gained a sense of accomplishment from it! Final verdict: A tradition is born!

Field Day!!!

We had a busy busy Memorial Day weekend. G had his field day at school on Friday. He was lucky enough to have both of us go and help out. We love being involved in his school. It's the best to know all of the kids and the teachers. Plus, you can pick out the good kids from the bad for play dates, ha ha. Anyway, Cedric and I were in charge of the parachute. This was the only activity that wasn't a race and just plain fun. However, we had all of the kids (25) in each class at our station at each time. It was tough getting them all to pay attention and follow instructions. We had to get creative with the stuff they had to do with it. After being sleep deprived from packing (see above posting), it was a little hard to do, but we managed. I think by the last group, we got a groove down, but it took a few trials and errors! We still all had a lot of fun.

Wind=Good Times

We have had a bout of strange weather. The past week it went from downpour to almost 80 degree weather, to this windy, cloudy day. The kids (including Cedric, the big kid) were running around the culdesac trying to fly the kite. G even tied it to his bike. They did pretty well. The girls just watched and laughed at the boys from their luxury jeep for most of it. Our neighbors probably thought we were cooky. I think Cedric ran about a mile by circling around so many times!

Hanging out with the Grandparents

My parents live about 15 minutes away. We are lucky to have them so close. The other day, we went to their house and discovered this nature preserve nearby. It was pretty neat because it was basically a long deck that wrapped around this pond. The kids loved feeding the ducks...or shall I say geese (they kept correcting me if I got it wrong). Here are some pictures of us on our walk.

Farm Fun

Last weekend, all the farms in our county had free tours and wine tasting (which we, of course, did not take advantage of). We are so fortunate to live so close to the country and also close to the city. We can see a mix of different scenes and it's wonderful! We went to an alpaca farm. I thought the kids liked it while we were there, but as we were leaving, I had the following conversation. G: "Mom, I don't ever want to come to this farm again." Me: "Why?" G: "All they had were those Alcapocos and some goats. They just stood there. Like, come on, where are the real animals?" Gotta love the enthusiasm.

The Nation's Capital

We had some family friends visiting from Iowa last week. We had an opportunity to take in all the sites of our nation's capital. It was nice to do the tourist thing for a while. Sometimes we take for granted how close we live to all these neat things. We haven't really taken the kids much because it's usually too crowded and a lot of walking. The kids loved it. We were able to go to the Air & Space Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the White House, Washington Monument, and some other places. Since there were so many pictures, I decided to do a slide show. Hopefully, this will entice all of you that are far away to come visit us!!!!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Potty Training?

I have to apologize in advance for the potty picture. M is going to kill me 16 years down the road when she knows I did this. However, at 18 months, she is starting to tell us that she needs to go poo poo and pee pee. The other day, she told us she needed to go #2 while we were changing her. We tried to put her diaper back on, but she refused. We then asked her if she wanted to go in the potty, and she shook her head yes and started laughing. We brought her in there, and she actually went! We were so proud of her. This is the earliest any of my kids has done this, so we are shocked and crossing our fingers that the progress will continue! I'm also going to add a cute normal picture of M with her brother to balance it out...that will take away some of my guilt for posting a picture of her on the can!

Another Birthday Party

Spring must be a popular time for birthdays! We've been to a gazillion parties in just the past few weeks. Here are some pics of the kids at our friend Josie's party at a ballet studio. G was the dragon and was supposed to scare all the princesses. He was all excited about it, but then when it came time to do it, he didn't have it in him. I'm telling you, the kid is way too nice for his own good. We had a great time!

Boys vs. Girls

In the Moran household, the girls out-number the boys 3-2. We often remind them of this when we decide what we want to do as a family :) A few months ago, someone gave us an old Playstation. The boys can't keep their hands off of it. In order to keep some control over the video game madness, we set a rule that they can only play it on Friday nights when we don't have anything else going on. Believe me, if it weren't for that rule, they'd try and play it every night! So on the nights the boys are having their tag team racing car game, the girls and I had piled in my room and watched a chick flick and had some popcorn. Sometimes, during these nights, you can hear chants from one end of the house to another...G: "Boys rule, girls drool." T: "NO! Boys drool, Girls ROCK!" And the battle of the sexes has already begun!