This morning Harper put a backpack on Patton and led him with a flag to “school.” Patton followed her around like a puppy, then she closed him off into the “school” using chairs and proceeded to recite the Pledge of Allegiance! Patton was not so cooperative, however, and chose to chew on the other “students” (baby dolls) instead. Also he wasn’t wearing a diaper. This was a very non-traditional school.

Roman made this card for me for Mother’s Day. I’m so glad he loves me for what I really do… laundry!

Check out Ada’s entrance about 30 seconds into this:

Summer has arrived in Virginia, and along with it came ice cream in the yard. I love long summer evenings when the kids just run around after dinner!

On this particular evening, Harper organized the kids into a show:

We are winding down to the end of Harper’s Kindergarten year. Last week she had “Parent Appreciation Day,” where we got to see a presentation in her classroom and spend some time hearing about all what they’ve done this year. It was a really nice way to end the year. That day I also took Roman and Ada to have lunch with Harper. It was Roman’s first time eating in the cafeteria, and I wanted him to experience it before he goes to KG in the fall!

Harper was SO excited to have me in her classroom. She could hardly contain herself, and kept looking over at me and waving! It was so sweet.

Harper and her BFF Isabelle wrote a book for their teacher, Mrs. Ruiz-Ramon. Harper was the “ather” and Isabelle was the “ilastr”. They had zero assistance (as you can tell by Harper’s spelling!)

Giving the book to Mrs. Ruiz-Ramon:

Roman graduated from preschool last week! My first baby boy is off to Kindergarten. We had a cold, rainy day for graduation, but it didn’t spoil our fun. Roman and his classmates sang adorable songs and received their “diplomas,” then we dined on barbecue and played on the playground. He had such a wonderful preschool experience. It has been a great 4 years for our family, and we’ve made many friends through preschool. We are going to miss CEP!

Roman and his teachers, Mrs. Barker, Mrs. Timmons and Miss Linh:

Our proud graduate!

We had to hit up the cherry blossoms one last time before we moved. It was a sweltering 90 degrees the day we went, so we skipped our usual picnic. We ended up going on my birthday, which was less of a birthday celebration and more of a confluence of events that enabled us to all go. Our big parenting mistake was thinking that surely one of the big kids could walk the whole way. Boy were we wrong! After about 30 minutes we were deep into a whine-fest, and Portman ended up pulling all three big kids back to the car in the wagon. It was not our finest moment as a family, and later that evening I demanded a “do-over” for my birthday!

Nevertheless, the trees were stunning as usual. Starting off… Harper pulling Ada in the wagon. All is good.

Then we saw some pretty trees…

Then we moved on to the real fun. Ada pulling the biggest kids… And Daddy pulling all three of them. Check out the look on Harper’s face. Holy tired and cranky!