Preschool Graduation

Last week marked the end of the preschool year for Carissa. They celebrated by having a "park day". We ate lunch at the park and played! She was having a great time until it was time for "organized games", and then she didn't want to participate. But the big event was the actual graduation that took place later that night. We arrived at the library, and she was excited to see her friends.

She even allowed her teacher to place the little hat on her head.

Then she danced in the isles while her other classmates got their hats on.

Then it was time to walk in as a class, and that's where she fell apart. She didn't want to walk with them. She didn't want to stand in the front. She didn't want to sing any songs......

UNTIL.....

the magic song! Then she ran up to join her class. She sang her song, jumped when she was supposed to jump, and sang at the top of her volume (which we all know is REALLY loud!)

And after that, she was happy. She sang the rest of the songs, even improvised some dancing between them!

And here she is with her official graduation diploma!

Wow, what a year. She has learned so much! We look forward to another year of preschool with the same teacher! Now let's just hope next fall I won't have to stay there every day!

Summer preview!

I go a couple of weeks between blog posts and suddenly I have a ton of stuff going on! Guess it's just the busy spring creeping out of the sleepy winter! But we sure have been enjoying the sunshine lately. It's been a bit cold still, but chilly is still better than snowing anyday!

So as the weather has warmed up, our grass was finally starting to grow, and it was quite long in places!! So Carissa decided that she needed to "mow" if for her dad. Hey, with a "mower" like this, maybe we don't need a big mower!!


And I have a feeling we'll be seeing a ton of this in the coming days! She's starting to get fancy on her scooter, and it just cracks me up! Check out her leg in the back. Very fancy!


Hope everyone is having a great spring. I'm sure it's gonna turn to summer before we know it. And I'm looking forward to it. Now if Carissa and I can get over the colds we picked up....I'd be lovin' spring a bit more!

SEVENTEEN?????

How did this happen??? How has 17 years gone by already??? I always have a hard time when it comes to Donavan's birthday, since I know it makes me older too! By way of the calendar year, Nikelle's comes first, and I can handle hers just fine. But when it comes to Donavan's, it just doesn't seem right that he should be THIS old! (which in turn makes ME THAT old!!!) So I always try and "forget" that his birthday is coming up! (well that's MY story:) So because of his work schedule, we had to throw together a little pary for him a few days late. I left Andrew in charge of the cake. I told him that Donavan would prefer chocolate. He came home with WHITE. (Yes, I realize I could have just made a chocolate cake, but that would have been admitting to the before mentioned denial!!) The cake also had fun little graduation tid-bits on the top of the cake, which he insisted on removing!
So here is the official "birthday" picture!

And just because I am nice, I will put up a picture that actually shows his face! He wanted to go to the train tracks to get some pictures for a project for school (which reminds me, I need to print one out for him...yikes!) and it was SO dang cold up there, that we only made it about 15 minutes!


Donavan makes me laugh ever day, and he always is so witty! Sometimes I've even had to get out the dictionary to understand him! But he is really a joy in my life and I'm so proud of the young man he is becoming! (Now he just needs a haircut!!!)

*Edited* I must add that this "fine young man" just got his first speeding ticket today. As dissapointed as I am, it really was unfair. Let's just say, construction zone+motorcycle cop=Speed trap! I always hate this time of year when the motorcycle cops emerge and hide in the most unsuspecting places! So fair warning, down 10400 S.....be careful!

My model Nikelle!

I had the priveledge to take Nikelle on a photo shoot a couple of weeks ago! She had so much fun, but getting good faces for me was a bit more tricky! She gave Jen all her "good" looks and I got the leftovers! Typical huh? But we did manage to find some great places to photograph! Now I get to take Donavan next!
We had some glorious backlighting for this one!

This was her "sassy" face!!!

I really can't believe my girl is 15!!!

Then we went and found this AMAZING red phone booth! It was all rusty and had graffiti all over it. I love getting a shot when she is just 'playing' around, and it turns out to be our favorite shot of the entire shoot!!!!

This next series just cracks me up! Again, she was just playing around, but the action in this series really shows her personalitly. Enjoy!!!




And this one is either her "sad" face.....or it's "mom.....enough"! I can't tell which!