Just because...

she is so cute. This is Julia's first picture of a person. She drew eyes, mouth, and hair on her balloon.

Aesop's Fables

Kylee and Julia had their dance recital this past weekend. They looked so cute and did a great job. The recital theme was Aesop's Fables. Julia's dance was the Girl who cried Wolf and she was one of the cute little sheep. Kylee was a bird in a Peacock story ballet dance and she also did a tap part in The Country girl and The City girl.

Kylee and Julia with their teacher Miss April.
Julia LOVED going to dance class. Every Tuesday morning I would mention that she had dance and she would get dressed by herself with her tights and leotard on and get her back pack ready with her dance shoes.

The boys entertaining themselves while we took pictures. They were checking out the cracks and playing with dirt.

Blakes wheels are turning

Blake finally took some steps. On Tuesday while we were waiting for Julia to finish her dance class Blake took a couple of little steps to a chair. The next day he took about 14 steps straight. He is taking off. He is getting more independent with going up and coming down the stairs.
I also have noticed Blakes wheels turning. He is starting to figure things out. He has been having a lot of fun stacking blocks and laughing as he watches them fall down. He tries to fit the rings on the little stand. I see that he is able to sit and entertain himself for a little bit of time. It is fun to see him figuring things out.

Great Smokey Mountain Camping

May 14th to 17th we finally made it out to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park to go camping.  Uncle Ben flew down to North Carolina from Baltimore to drive out with us along with the Gasper de Albas and Cranes.  We were all able to set up our tents in a nice little campsite next to a small river.  The kids enjoyed running around playing games.  Blake, crawling but not quite walking, spent time playing in the tent but really wanted to crawl on the ground and chew on sticks.  We put him in one of the plastic tubs to keep him out of the dirt.

Blake snuggled up to Ben right away.  Kylee sat down next to the campfire with Aunt Katrina for knitting lessons that she had been anxiously awaiting.  There was a water fountain at the restrooms where Julia and her gang played getting themselves wet.

Justin Crane put up a rope swing that was a big hit.  There was a constant line to get on the swing.

We were able to rent inner tubes from a little shack downstream from our campsite.  The river was only a few feet deep in most places, but was fast enough to make pretty fun rapids.  We hiked upstream a quarter mile and tubed down in groups.  The water was freezing cold but wasn't too bad once you went numb.  Brayden only went down once, screaming, "I AM GOING TO DIE, I AM GOING TO DIE!" the whole way in his typical dramatic fashion.

In the middle of the second night, after helping polish off a bag of strawberry Twizzlers earlier in the evening, Brayden woke up and barfed chunky red vomit all over his and Kylee's sleeping bags.  Fortunately the rest of the kids slept through the whole ordeal and tedious middle-of-the-night clean up.  Kylee woke the next morning none the wiser, which was essential to getting her to continue sleeping in the tent the rest of the trip.  

We got rain several times but were somewhat sheltered by the patchwork of tarps we had set up.  

We all enjoyed the beautiful hikes through the woods, over bridges, and along rivers.  

The rest of the gang that was with us.

These are few of our favorite things about the camping trip:
Blake - crawling and eating dirt and sticks
Julia - Uncle Ben pushing her on the  swing
Brayden -the swing and marshmallows
Kylee - tubing down the river
Mom - the pretty hikes, walking over the bridges on the river, hanging out in the hammock
Dad - cooking a stew in the dutch oven, tubing with brother Ben
Ben - tubing and hearing Brayden scream, "I'm going to die!" and getting climbed on by the kids

It was nice to have Ben at our house briefly before he had to head back to work.

Last day of School

Kylee and Brayden had their last day of school on Tuesday, June 2nd.




Kylee's favorite subject this year was Science. She enjoyed when her class was able to each have a caterpillar to watch turn into a butterfly. She also enjoyed being a part of the McIntyre Marketplace. Kylee liked her teacher, Mrs. McIntyre, because she was nice. They had a treasure box every Friday and each month if they had not pulled their card they were able to roll a dice to have an extra prize. Kylee enjoyed playing with her friends CJ, Sarah Jane, Nina, and Anisa. She also enjoyed her time with Taylor, Catherine, Amani, and Ian. Her favorite specials were Technology and Art.



When asked about his Kindergarten year Brayden responded with, "I liked every single thing in school this year." I don't know if that is just laziness with having to decide or if he truly enjoyed everything. When pushed for details Brayden enjoyed playing soccer and football with all the boys in his class listing Tommy, Luke, Logan, James, Eric, and Jake. He liked going to his technology and P.E. class. Brayden said his teacher Mrs. Speight was nice and always said "good job" when he did his work. He liked when she read stories at carpet time. His favorite centers were blocks, computers, and math. I enjoyed going in to help out with centers every other week. It was fun to see how Brayden interacted in the classroom.