Kindergarten Graduation

Week 51:  This was one of those weeks were I was so excited and yet a little sad all at the same time!  This was kindergarten graduation week.  I can't believe that my "first baby" is old enough to graduate from kindergarten. 

She was so excited to show off for her brother and he was equally excited to go to the big school and watch his sister!

Here are a few pictures from graduation - I wasn't able to get as close as I would have liked!
Mary Virginia and a couple of friends waiting on the rest of the class to join them on the stage:

In our school district there is no separate music program for the students. The classroom teachers go above and beyond to teach the children songs to help them learn.  During the graduation ceremony, we were able to see and hear some of the song that they sing!

Receiving her "diploma".  MV also received an outstanding art award!  I am so proud!

The Graduates!

Receiving her library/AR award!

A quick family portrait...JB was exhausted.  The ceremony went on for a while (he was DONE)!

MV and one of her favorite classmates

This is as close as I could get them without them hurting each other (I think we are going to have a wild summer)!

MV is pretty much done with the school year as of 11:30 on graduation day, so I guess that I now have a 1st grader and one in 3K!  It is going to be a wild and crazy summer, but I am looking forward to spending time with these kiddos...

Along with the craziness of graduation and getting into the swing of summer, I have been working on a few wreaths for a friend's house.  I wanted to share the final products! 

Thanks to Mary Virginia and her request for another summer of Alphabet Activities, we are going to be busy, but having lots of fun! (I am thinking it is going to be messy too!)

You will love to see our adventures as we make it through the alphabet!

A Day!

We focused on Apples and Alligators and writing the letter A!

(I am still trying to get JB to cooperate and let me take a picture of him with his Alligator!)

This is MV with her A-Day snack...Apple Mouth!

Watch out Orange Beach - The Whatleys are on the way (all of us)!

Mother's Day Weekend

Week 50:  This was the week of Mother's Day.  Mary Virginia's class celebrated with "Muffins for Moms".   All of the moms were invited to the school to celebrate with the kindergarten classes.  When we arrived the kids sang a cute song and presented us with gifts, then it was time for yummy breakfast - we had doughnuts instead of muffins!  The kids had so much fun and were so excited to welcome us to school!

Then it was time for MV's last Friday of school!  She was so excited and they were going to have a "play day", but of course, being in LA, it rained so they had to postpone it until Monday!

While Mary Virginia was celebrating her last week of school, John Bay and I were trying to get in the swing of summer! 
This was after John Bay's last day of school...

And then there was horseback riding...

I am going to have to try to find a way to keep these kids occupied this summer - and wear them out!

For Mother's Day Weekend, I asked for one thing...we had friends coming to New Orleans for the weekend and I wanted to meet them down there for lunch and a little time to visit!  The kids have always wanted to take a carriage ride, so after a delicious lunch at Johnny's Po-boys, we took a carriage ride.  I think we all loved the ride!  The guide asked Hunter and MV to ride up in the front of the carriage - they were so excited!  I was praying that MV didn't steal the reigns!

Cruising down Bourbon Street - please note that this is the only time that MV will be on Bourbon Street (ever)!

Sydney and John Bay rode with us on one of the back rows.  They had a blast seeing the sights and eating pralines!  (JB wouldn't smile for a picture, he was just being goofy!)

After the carriage ride, the rain came!  We ran through the pouring rain with daiquiris in hand to the French Market and then it was time to say good-bye to the Pfiesters.  But, what is a trip to New Orleans without a quick stop at Cafe Du Monde?  It was a nice break from the rain and the kids were in need of some powdered sugar!

As we were waiting on the car, the kids decided to give me a wonderful Mother's Day gift...they were hugging and loving each other (not fighting) and I luckily caught it on camera!

We are looking forward to a fun week of kindergarten graduation and a trip to the beach!

Crawfish Boil!

Week 49: It is always hard to get back into the swing of things. We had such a fun time at the beach this past weekend - the kids were exhausted and by Monday we had two kids that could barely hold their heads up.  Tuesday was a little overcast, but we didn't think anything about it.  Later that afternoon, there was a little wind and the sky looked like a threat of rain - and then...in 30 minutes time, we had 2 inches of rain.  I was watching out the back to make sure the trampoline didn't blow away, again, when the fence in back fell (not a big surprise).  I guess I forgot to look out front...when I did, this is what I found...

 I am not sure if you can tell by the pictures, but if you look real close on the bottom left corner of the picture, you can see a bit of the curb and the street...this is the bottom of our yard.  When some of the neighbors were trying to get out to go pick up their kids, they had to borrow my next door neighbor's Hummer to get through the water.  The neighbors said that the last time they had flooding like this was during the hurricane. 

 Once we realized it wasn't getting any higher, the "big kids" went out to play!  This is one of my neighbors on their Green Machine.
 
Time for Crawfish!
Our church had a crawfish boil on Saturday afternoon.  The kids love to go out to the church property for events - there is always an amazing bounce and lots of room to run!  While the crawfish was boiling..the kids played on the slide to work up an appetite!

Then it was time to eat!

We have seen a lot of things here in Louisiana that we might not have seen in Alabama - but this about took the cake!  I never thought I would see someone using a front end loader to pick up our lunch.  The pot of crawfish was so heavy that they had to hook it to a chain and use this heavy machinery to lift it out of the boiling pot!  I was amazed and John Bay loved every minute of it! (This was batch number 2 or 3...)  What can I say, the people down here love their crawfish and we are all embracing it!

John Bay chose a hot dog for his first course!  The crawfish came later.

We had to play with our food and really inspect it before we ate!

Both kids tried the crawfish, but I was especially proud of MV!  I didn't think she would do it and she proved me wrong.  She helped me peel it and then asked for more!  She even tried the jambalaya that they had fixed (I think it was because it had noodles instead of rice).

After all the yummy food, we were ready for some down time.  We headed home so that Ed and I could work in the yard.  The kids decided to get dressed and play in the sprinkler.  This is what JB picked out for himself.  I love the "jam" shorts and the matching hat.  (Not really sure where it came from, but he was making it work!)

Life at the Beach!

The end of week 48:  THE BEACH!

We had so much fun with friends and family at the beach! On Friday night, Allison and I decided that we should try to get pictures of the kids BEFORE they were all too exhausted from the weekend and the sun! I think we did a pretty good job (for 2 armatures)!

 The kids were good sports and lasted for as long as they possibly could!  Then it was time to play!  The kids have missed Ella so much, it was all we could do to tear them away to go to bed. 

An early morning and some yummy doughnuts were the perfect start to a beautiful Saturday.  It was time to hit the pool and the beach - Ed was a good sport, he took all of the kids to the pool to play, so that we could clean up breakfast and get ready to go to the beach. 

 The boys (Jaja, Mar, and Ed) headed down to the Florabama to check out the Mullet Toss and the ladies and kids hit the beach to build sand castles and collect sea shells!

 The Pfiesters came over after lunch and boy were we glad to see them!  The kids played in the pool and on the beach.  The boys headed back down to the Mullet Toss (this time just Ed and Mike).  The ladies and the kids kept building sand castles and we played near the water!  We even saw a school (?) of sting rays swim by!  I think there may have been 8 or 9!  Then it was back to the pool when the dads came back!

 Once we were worn out from fun in the sun, we played some more!

 

 We had such fun visiting with friends!  We can't wait to do it again!

Fun at School

Week 48:  We are so looking forward to the weekend...it starts a little early this week - Thursday, Mary Virginia has a field trip to the zoo and then it is off to the beach!  It was a week of school, girl scouts, and playing with friends; just like any old week!  We did add a little chaos - it was Teacher Appreciation Week for John Bay's school.  We had fun making "thank you" gifts for JB's teachers and fixing yummy treats to celebrate those wonderful ladies!  They have made the school year so much fun for JB and they helped him with potty training! (I think that might be the best treat of all!)  Thursday was a wild and crazy day,  JB had Pirate and Princess Day and MV had a trip to the zoo!  He was the cutest pirate I have ever seen and of course, he wouldn't let me take a picture.  He had an eye patch, hat, vest, sash and sword.  Maybe I can get him to dress up some other time for a picture!  After dropping JB off, it was time to meet MV's class for their field trip to the Baton Rouge Zoo!  The kids were all so excited.  I think the best part of field trips for MV is riding the bus!  We split up into groups to roam the zoo.  This was our group as the girls were trying to get up close and personal with the giraffes!

We made our way to the petting zoo - I think the girls were more concerned with what they might step on and then washing their hands!

Their favorite part in the petting area was the groundhog tunnels!  Two of the groundhogs were fighting and the girls could look up through the tunnels and watch!

And then it was time for MV's all time favorite zoo creatures...the alligators!  The two in the front were huge, but nowhere near as large as the one in the back left and under the tree...it was HUGE (and MV loved it)!

Friday was Beach Day!  After a crazy morning of packing the car and taking the dogs to the vet (always a fun experience - those are the pictures we need or maybe video footage), it was time for a quick lunch and to hit the road to the beach!  We can't wait to see the Youngbloods, the Bagbys, and mom & dad! 

I will put the pictures from the beach in another post!

Saying Goodbye to Miss Abby!

Week 47:  It started out as the same old week in the Whatley house! A week of school, playing outside, horseback, and fun times with our friends!  It hit me on Wednesday morning, Mary Virginia is almost done with her first year of school.  I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by.  She has had a wonderful experience here, we have been so lucky!  MV had her cap and gown pictures on Wednesday, I can't wait to see the pictures - but it is really going to hit me that she is growing up! 

One of our favorite neighbors came over to play and poor thing, the kids made her dress up!  They were playing "Mike the Knight".

 Friday we were back at the barn, but it was a little bitter-sweet.  MV did great riding on Cayenne.  She also "jumped" with him for the first time.  The bitter part was that this was her last riding lesson with Miss Abby.  We have met the new instructor (and I know we will riding with her), but we are really going to miss Abby! 

Here are a few pictures of MV on Cayenne.

Here is John Bay hanging out at the barn...he wanted his picture too!

It was another lazy weekend!  We stayed around the house most of the day on Saturday, which was perfect!  On Sunday, after church, we cooked dinner to take over to the Harpole's!  The kids were able to see the new baby and visit for a few minutes.  They wanted to know where his toys were...I guess they don't understand that he is only 1 1/2 weeks old!

Same Old Story

Week 46:  Sorry for the delay...this was an uneventful week!  Mary Virginia had Girl Scouts, which she loved because they are talking about animals!  Friday, we were at the barn, again!  MV is doing great!  She is really following Miss Abby's directions.  She is working on jumping and controling her horse and she is doing so good. 

Over the weekend, we laid low!  We played outside and got the house cleaned up...basically, we took it easy!  On Sunday, we had a delicious jambalaya lunch at church to support the youth group and their summer programs.  Then, we headed out to do our "Faith in Action".  The kids were troopers, walking (riding in the wagon) through one of the largest neighborhoods in the area!  We went out into the community to promote an event that was happening at our church called "Mega Force".  The kids went with us to talk to people and invite them to come to church.  We had a great time!

(See, and easy week! Oh, on to the next - it looks like a busy one!)