While the little boys and I were in St. George, the big kids stayed in Amarillo for "Dad Week" where they did all kinds of fun things. I'm sure part of them was sad they couldn't go with us on the trip, but between school and a few special activities, they had plenty to keep them busy while we were gone.
I left a little surprise for the kids to open each day I was gone, and on the first day they got tie dye kits! (I'm sure Dave was thrilled to do that project with them)
Davey had his PreK graduation on Tuesday night. I was sad to miss seeing him all dressed up and looking handsome in his robes, but Dave made sure to take a picture.
With his teacher, Mrs. Andrea
Dave took them to Chuck E Cheese for an afternoon
Sophie had her field day at school and loved having daddy there to watch her compete on all the games and play on the bounce houses
Davey's preschool had a last day luau party complete with bounce houses and a snow cone truck
Thanks for a great year Sonlight, and next up, kindergarten!!
Sophie is done with kindergarten! We are both a little sad that school has come to an end, but it is nice to be done packing lunches and trying to her out the door int he morning. She had an amazing year and grew so much, both physically and academically. She made some good friends, became a fluent reader and a math wizard, and only had to clip down to "yellow" on her behavior chart a handful of times. I think she is more than ready for first grade!
First Day of School vs. the Last Day of School
She went up a couple shoe sizes, grew an inch, lost her summer tan and some teeth
Sophie with her teacher, Mrs. McCready
Sophie really took off with reading! She went from short little readers to beginning chapter books by the end of the year. She is currently at Level J, which is the benchmark for graduating 1st graders.
Here are a couple of her writing samples from April and May
We are so proud of how hard Sophie worked this year!
We attended Sophie's kindergarten program the last week of school. She was so excited and had been singing the songs on repeat at home all month leading up to the event. I recorded a few of the songs for any grandparents that want to watch, as well as her part in the story video saying what she would eat if she was the Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Davey was his usual, lovely self during the program. Thankfully Charlie fell asleep just a few minutes in so we only had to wrangle one crazy boy.
Her program did not include a graduation ceremony, but they did have these photos taken and sent home with the kids, which was a fun surprise. Look how big she has gotten! High school graduation will be here before we know it.
We moved in right before school started and really had no clue what we were doing when picking out a preschool, but lucked out immensely. Unknown to us, Sonlight at the Church of Christ, was where a lot of members attended, and Sophie actually ended up with three other LDS kids in her class, who are now her good friends. The academics were great, it was located in our neighborhood, and each day started with "chapel," where a cute, old lady that Sophie called the "grandma" would teach them bible stories and songs. I've already put Davey on the wait list for 2019.
On Thursday Sophie had her last day of school and her graduation ceremony. We always knew she would love school and this was truly a great year for her. She learned so much, but also had so much fun being in a classroom with friends. Her teacher was amazing and I heard on multiple occasions how "Ms. Elisa knows everything, never forgets anything, and never does anything wrong." Her favorite parts of preschool were recess (of course), centers (where she got to rotate through different activities), and music class. She came home almost daily with a new song to sing for us.
We got her end of year assessment back and she got 100% on everything, which was awesome. Heading into the year she still didn't know all her letters and now she knows uppercase, lowercase, their sounds, how to write them, how to count to 100, all her shapes and colors, and is starting to read! This girl is ready to start kindergarten!
Sophie on her last day of school. First day of school pictures are here.
Her best buddy at school this year was Ethan. He will not go to the same school next year, which is sad, but he is in our stake, and I know his mom so they will still see each other.
Receiving her diploma from her wonderful teacher, Ms. Elisa
Right after Dave finished teaching his winter classes at WT, we drove down to Dallas for a quick trip to see family and friends. The drive takes us about 6.5 hours (including a lunch stop) and the kids did amazing!! Charlie slept the entire way, and we didn't have to get out the tablets for the big kids until the final stretch of the drive. It is encouraging that they did so well since we will probably make this drive 3-5 times a year.
Our trip was less than a week and the time went by so fast, but we are going back for another visit in July after summer classes wrap up. Here is what we managed to squeeze in while there (warning - it was a lot!):
THURSDAY: In the morning we made a Costco run, since we only have Sam's Club in Amarillo, to stock up on a few essentials that we needed. Not exciting, but still important. Then that evening we had a family dinner in downtown Dallas before attending the pinning ceremony for Liz, who was graduating from nursing school! We were planning to only bring Charlie since it was late at night, but after Davey had a freak out at bedtime the night before, we cancelled the babysitter and brought all the kids with us. With the help of tablets, they did amazing well and sat quietly during the entire 2.5 hour ceremony!
Hooray for Liz (sorry for stealing this from your Facebook)
Liz receiving her pin from her parents. While they were up on stage Sophie kept shouting "grandma!" and waving. Notice that her post-graduate placement is at Northwest Hospital in Amarillo. She will be joining us out here in a few months!
Family photo afterward. Amy was there with Ally and Jack, but left before it ended since the ceremony was long and it was a school night.
Dave carrying out our two tired kiddos
FRIDAY: Elizabeth had her actual graduation on Friday morning, but we didn't think the kids would handle another long event, so instead we met some friends at the Dallas Zoo. It's a great zoo (about 10x more exciting than the one in Amarillo) but we had to share it with a ton of kids on end-of-year field trips and the place was packed! So many kids everywhere, but we didn't lose anyone, saw lots of animals, and even found a shaded picnic table for lunch.
Our friends have a membership and were able to get tickets to ride the carousel, not once, but twice!
One of Sophie's favorite animals to see has always been the crocodile. Here is a recreation of a photo we took of her at the zoo on our last visit.
May 2018
October 2014
One of the most exciting creatures of the day was this little green caterpillar she found during our lunch break.
Gazing at the elephants
Attempt at a family picture by the lions
Sophie with her friend Grayson
Grandma Howe gave Sophie a few dollars to feed the giraffes, which is actually a really fun experience. Unfortunately the giraffes had already been very well fed by the millions of school kids, so we fed the birds instead, which was also fun!
After the zoo we had just a short time to clean up before heading out for more fun. We took all the kids to the Palmer's house to play while the dads supervised, and the wives went out to dinner! First we drove to the airport to pick up Tiffany, who was flying in to see Todd for the weekend, and then we ate some delicious food at Pappadeaux's. It's a cajun/seafood place and I ordered salmon, but also tried some fried catfish and fried alligator that was actually very tasty. After dinner we went back to the Palmer's where the dads had given all the kids baths and put them to bed. We stayed up way too late playing games, but love these nights with friends.
SATURDAY: Dave took the big kids to a splash pad to play with their cousins while I hung back with Charlie. Later that afternoon Charlie was blessed (separate post) and then after the blessing we had farewell celebration for Todd, who will be moving to Utah soon. First we went to dinner, and then we came back to the Howe's to eat all of Todd's favorite desserts - snickerdoodles, peach cobbler, key lime pie, and Bluebell ice cream - yum! We were supposed to play Whirlyball after dessert, but the place accidentally double booked the court, so we got bumped and were compensated with unlimited games of free laser tag.
Dave and I at dinner - we ordered the 1 pound fajita platter to share!
Group shot with our friends
SUNDAY: Happy Mother's Day! It was nice to be able to spend this holiday with family. I would have loved to have slept in, but Charlie had other ideas so we started the day nice and early. We attended church, where I ate more chocolate in one sitting than a person probably should. They gave out candy bars after Sacrament meeting, followed by eclairs and cookies during Relief Society, and then the speaker passed around another huge tub of chocolates for us to enjoy.
After church we went over to Greg's house for a Mother's Day feast. We had picked up some amazing, 2-inch thick steaks at Costco for dinner, and it was one of the best meals I've eaten in a long time. After dinner we opened presents. We brought a huge, red rock from Palo Duro Canyon for Dave's mom to put in her garden, and Dave gave me an entire day to do what ever I want while he takes the kids somewhere (or multiple somewheres...) I can't wait to redeem it!
Sophie's paper she wrote about me. The picture is of me and her watching a movie of ourselves :)
Love these kids who call me mommy!
On the way home from church we gave Davey a piece of cookie to try and keep him awake. He managed to get it all over himself and then still fell asleep. Right before nodding off, though, he looked at his hands and declared "I chocolate," which we all had a good laugh at.
MONDAY: Time to go home. The kids did amazing again on the way back, and we found a new lunch spot - Braum's in Vernon, TX. We've tried a different place every time we make the drive, and this was definitely a winner. The food was good, reasonably priced, and it was the perfect distance from Dallas.
Dave graduated from the University of Utah with a PhD in business on Friday, May 5th. His PhD was a 5 year program, that immediately followed a 2-year MBA so it's been a long road for our family and now we are done!! My Grandma Lambert was in town and came to watch, and Dave's mom came up from Texas, and his brother and his family came down from Idaho. We are so thankful for the many people that were there to support us on graduation day, and over the last several years.
Waiting for things to start - thank you Grandma for going early and getting us these great seats!
Stats on the graduating class this year - Dave falls into the lower right group, although we are not sure who the third PhD was. All the candidates but one from Dave's year dropped out, or weren't ready to graduate yet.
