a boy. his sister.: May 2014

First Holy Communion

Last but certainly not least in my long line of posts tonight, is Brett's First Holy Communion, which was this morning at mass. He was so excited and even got to bring up the gifts with a little girl that he was in preschool with. I just love our little church family, and I love that we had so many friends and family members there to celebrate with us!

Brett and our sweet friend, Caroline

Brett with his assistant, Mrs. Kirke - we just love his teachers this year!

Brett and his friend, Chris

Brett with his friend, Ryleigh - another friend since preschool Monkey Class!

Brett with Father Bill

Brett and his godmother, Aunt Erin

Brett with Aunt Dithy

Memere & Poppy

Brett and his pen pal, (great) Auntie Ann - Brett had to write to a family member that he didn't know well for school, and he chose Ann all by himself. The two of them have kept up with it and still write letters back and forth :)

Kate picked out this cross at Michaels with me one day and painted it by herself to give to Brett for his First Communion

A cool coin from Lisa and Jeff

Love this boy! Sweet baby P!

Brett holding a picture of himself at his baptism at 5 weeks old

Gymnastics

A few months ago we decided to pull Kate out of the gym that she had been doing gymnastics at since she was 3 years old... we pulled her out for several reasons, scheduling, distance to our house, annoyance of other children in her class that couldn't figure out how to behave and were taking up all the teacher's attention. Yeah, the last one was the biggest reason... Anyway, so we switched gyms. What a HUGE difference it made in Kate! She's like a different child out there! She even decided to try out for Specialty (Rec) Team and made it, so starting next month we'll be there 4 hours a week (compared to 1 hour a week now). I hope she's ready - she's definitely excited!

These pics were taken at the Trophy Week ceremony on Thursday - she was so excited! Her teacher couldn't be there because she just graduated from NC State last week, but we LOVE her and she is SO good with Kate... Kate has learned so much from Miss Morgan in just a few months. I can't wait to see her learn more!

CASL

This was Brett's first season playing soccer through CASL, which is the ginormous soccer league in our area. For now, he is just playing rec, but the plan is to move up once he gets old enough (one more year). He was on a team with 7 other 2nd graders that all live pretty close to us, and Todd was the coach (of course). Their games, however, were WAY the heck out at WRAL soccer center. I see many many many more weekends of driving to WRAL in my future!

It was a great season and we saw him develop so much as a player... I can't wait to see what's in store for him in the fall when he plays on two teams!

Fire Pit Party!!!!

Man do we LOVE a fire pit party! Do you know what else I love? Sending an evite out at 11pm on Thursday night for a fire pit party on Saturday night and ending up with 60 (YES... 60!!!) friends in our back yard! It was awesome - we provided hot dogs and drinks for the kids and everyone brought meat to throw on the grill for the adults and sides and more drinks. Definitely one to remember!

Sweet friend enjoying her s'mores! What?! You don't wear your sparkle princess shoes to a fire pit party?! Kate does, and now Sloan does too!

He has the right idea - so many kids, and only 4 giant bags of marshmallows!

He even convinced Miss Beth to roast his marshmallows for him!

Strangely the ONLY picture I got of Kate all night - she had so much fun running around with her friends!

I think I know where all of the marshmallows went - attack of the 8 year old boys!

Catch up!

I think it's time for my semi-annual "What the *&%@ have we been up to?!" The good news is that we've been so busy living life that we (I) haven't taken the time to blog about it! When I can't remember what we've been doing, I scroll through my phone and finally empty the SD card in the camera :) Here are some cell phone pics... some of them are just about me, and not the kids. It's a rarity!

When Meredith was tracked out, she and I took a hike along the Eno River - it was really pretty and a beautiful day, until it started raining about 1.5 miles in :) But we survived, PeeDee the dog included!

Kate and her friend, Samantha, at the Hula Hoop contest at Field Day

Another pic of our Eno River hike

PeeDee was a thirsty puppy after all of that hiking!

This was the cool swinging bridge we found on our hike

The sign says, "The Eno River rose to the level at the bottom of this sign during Hurricane Fran on September 6, 1996"

Instagram shot of the cousins on Easter at Memere & Poppy's house - Todd was home sick as a dog (seriously, the most sick I've seen him in the 13 years I've known him!)