Ashlyn's Preschool Graduation

Wednesday May 25, 2011 was Ashlyn's Preschool Graduation!

All the graduates were supposed to wear Sunday dress.

We took some pictures in our front yard before we went. We know, our grass is sooo lovely.

We even had some time for a little tree climbing

and grass sitting. I know, I know, the grass is beautiful!

The graduation was at her teacher, Laurel Steele's, house in the backyard. They sang lots of songs.

They did a cute dance.

Carter played during the entire thing. I think he now thinks that graduations are awesome.

He spent lots of time on the trampoline.

He had some fun with the trucks in the sandbox.

He also slid down the slide, played in the playhouse, swung on the swing, and rode around on a tricycle!

Audrie spent the whole time in my arms just looking around.

Ashlyn is receiving her diploma.

She loved her teacher and all the kids in her class!

It was a great year!

A Kiddo Update

I haven't done a very good job of recording the first year of Audrie's life. It is hard to believe that she is almost 10 months old!

Audrie is getting her first tooth! She was actually born with a "milk tooth" that fell out when she was about 6 weeks old, but this is the first normal one. :) She is still very happy and smiles at people everywhere, although she does not like to be held by any one but Mom or Dad. She walks along furniture, stands up on her own for seconds, and just recently learned to crawl down stairs. I am really glad that we only have short flights of stairs. She still loves to put things in her mouth and her favorite chew toys are toothbrushes, crayons, and pens.

A couple weeks ago I went on a field trip with Ashlyn's preschool class. Brad stayed home with the kids and Carter didn't want to go down for a nap. Apparently he wasn't able to fight off the sleepiness all afternoon because Brad found him like this:

Oh the places kids will sleep!

Carter is loving nursery now. YES! His nursery teachers recently taught him to hold up two fingers to show his age. However, he is not consistent with his answers when asked how old he is. Sometimes he's five, sometimes he's one, often he's three and occasionally he's two. He plays pretend with Ashlyn all the time. He loves fruit . . . kiwi, watermelon, pineapple and would eat it all day long. He is still my cuddly boy and loves hugs and kisses and being held. I hope that doesn't change any time soon!

Ashlyn and Carter are always pretending something - that they're monsters, or a family, or Kari and Bryon, or a girl and a dog. They make great messes all over the place, but Ashlyn is getting much better at picking up after herself. She is always helping me pack the diaper bag, buckle Carter up in the car, find Audrie's binkie, and grab the mail. I don't know what I would do without her! Lately she enjoys eating noodles, almonds dipped in honey, and Italian Ice (only strawberry flavored). She loves to hold Audrie (scary) and is great at making her laugh!

Ashlyn's Dance Recital

Since September Ashlyn has been attending BYU Children's Creative Dance Class. Her teachers were Miss Camilla and Miss Noelle. On Saturday she had a dance recital where they did a piece titled "Imagine." She was able to show us her beautiful slides, skips, gallops, and jumps. Grandma May even came to watch too!

Brad took some pictures of her in the front yard before the performance. It is a good thing that he did because the ones from the recital didn't turn out very well.

The recital was in a room in the Richard's Building. It has stadium seating with comfortable chairs, so every one has a good view. Ashlyn's class consisted of about 12 4 and 5 year olds.

The dance was definitely very "creative," but it seemed to work well for the young girls. We loved watching Ashlyn dancing around the stage and she really seemed to enjoy it too.

Kingsley is Here!

On April 21st Lorie gave birth to precious Kingsley. He is such a doll! We had about 7 of these cousin photos to choose from and this is about as good as they get: