My Soccer Girl

We now have a cute little soccer player in our family.  Ashlyn played soccer for the first time this year and loved it.  She did very well and enjoyed every minute of it, so it's definitely something that she'll want to do again.  Here are just a few pictures from her game the other night.

(With her good friend, Erinn)

Our First Family Camp

Our family had our first Family Camp experience last weekend.  It was one to remember for sure!

The days were very enjoyable, full of swimming, canoeing, horseback riding and lots of free play time.  The kids loved it, and who wouldn't, with free play time with mom and dad!  There was a tire swing right outside our cabin, so that was a huge hit from the start.  We were really glad that the Isaacsons were there and had the cabin right next to us!

The girls also loved the horse-back riding.  Kendall is still talking about it.  She loved the white horse, but she kept calling it the yellow horse, so now, even at home, she's saying "ride yellow horse?"  "ride again?"

She's a horse lover already.

Unfortunately, the whole weekend was not so rosey.  We did not have the best living conditions, so that caused us to get very little sleep.  I wasn't expecting luxury accomodations, I knew that we had rented a cabin, but I was hoping it would've been cleaned out a little better prior to our arrival.  It appeared that we were the first ones in it from the winter, so it was very dusty, with much evidence of little creatures and crawlers.  Let's just say we had to go through everything and shake it all out before we left to come home, and Mama didn't sleep so well wondering what was happening in our cabin in the wee hourse of the night!  And, to top it all off, the first night there was a thunderstorm (no glass on the windows, so we heard everything loud and clear), so little girls did not sleep and crawled into the very small, less-than-twin size beds with us.  Plus, the cabin had settled down on one side, so my bed was slightly leaning.  You wouldn't know it until you had to sleep there and could only sleep on the side that went up-hill!

Oh, it was funny.  It's stuff like this that gives us fun memories to laugh about.  We did decide to leave one night early to allow us all to get some much needed sleep, but it was still a good time and will leave a lasting memory with our children.

We might go back again, although I'm pretty sure we will upgrade our accomodations!

Fun Field Trips

We've had the chance to go on many field trips this year, so I just thought I'd share pictures from a few of them.

Nature walk to identify plants in Kalona:

Visiting a one room school house at Usher's Ferry in Cedar Rapids. Jaclyn loved this one. She's really into the life and times of Laura Ingalls!

Visiting an Amish farm where the kids loved playing up in the hay loft and riding horses!

It's been a good school year.  We're wrapping things up this week and looking forward to another great year of homeschooling next year!

Graduation Party for Ashlyn!

While we were in Kansas City we had a little Kindergarten Graduation party for Ashlyn!  She is now a big 1st grader!!

We took most of the cousins to Bonkers, a mini indoor amusement park, perfect for the ages of my kids.  They had a few mini roller coasters and arcades and a climbing structure.  It was a lot of fun for the kids and Ashlyn loved it.  I think she rode the roller coaster about 40 times or so.  In fact, Kendall loved it too, which was really surprising to me.  I thought she was going to cry the first time, but she kept saying "Again, again", so we kept letting her ride.  It was a really fun evening for all.

In honor of her graduation, I thought I would post a poem that Ashlyn wrote this week, just for the fun of it.  She continues to surprise me with her talents, and writing poems seems to be one of them.   She hasn't written a final draft yet, so you'll have to read through my corrections, but hopefully you can still read it well enough.  Then down below are the rest of the pictures from her party.

Congratulations, Ashlyn!  God has blessed you with many abilities.  I pray that you will use your gifts to glorify and serve the Lord.  We love you!

Happy Mother's Day!

Here are some pictures that we took on Mother's Day. We were in Kansas City with my family, so we got a picture with Nana and the girls and then my girls and 3 of their cousins.

Fun Meet Time!

Today was Ashlyn's annual meet for her gymnastics class, and she did great!  She was very excited about it, and went out there and did a very good job.  She has really enjoyed her class this year and loves learning new and challenging things.

Here she is with her two good friends, Amee and Erinn.

 

And here is her coach, Hillary.

Her favorite part of gymnastics is the bars, so here she is doing her bar routine.

We're so proud of you, Ashlyn!

Big News! Ashlyn lost a tooth!

Well, it may not be big news to you, but to my 6 year old, this is huge!  She's been working on it for quite some time, and it's her very first tooth to lose naturally, so she was very, very excited.  (She's missing one of her top front teeth from an accident at the age of 2, but this is the first one to come out on its own.)

She had a pretty hard time settling down at bedtime (she kept shaking with excitement), but I reminded her that the Tooth Fairy woud not come if she wasn't asleep, so I think that helped.

(I just hope the Tooth Fairy isn't on vacation this time!)

Ashlyn also wrote me this sweet May Day note today, so I thought I would share it too.  Ahhhh, she's growing up!