Donut Party

Thomas is four!  We celebrated his June 1st birthday with a party at The Donut Hutt in Collierville and it was SO much fun!  We had never been to this donut place before so we didn't know what to expect for the party, and it was way better than we could have imagined.  The kids all loved getting to make donuts and the owner that ran the party was so good with the kids and make it so fun and energetic.

To begin, the kids decorated their paper bags that they would take their donuts home in.

Once all of the guests arrived, we headed back to the kitchen to get to work.  Each child got their own piece of dough and we worked to knead them and fold them and add in yeast and roll them out and cut donuts.  

It was really cool to get to see the big machines work to roll out the dough and then cut it into perfect nut-shaped doughNUTs.  

While our host got the donuts ready to cook (read: switched out the germy kid ones for fresh ones), we went out to the lobby for pizza. 

We also got to sing to the birthday boy and enjoy a giant donut cake!  His big donut with candle was the hole from the giant donut cake.  :)

Finally, we got to watch the donuts cook.  It was fun seeing them float in the fryer and then be flipped over midway through.

The last steps in donut making are adding chocolate icing and sprinkles, lots of sprinkles!

It was the best way to celebrate our sweets-loving little boy.  I still can't believe he's FOUR!  

Here's to many more years celebrating him!

Beach Days are the Best Days!

We love hitting the beach the week before Memorial Day to beat the big crowds and, more importantly, the sweltering heat!  This is our last year not having kids in "real" school, so it might be the last time we get to take advantage of going that week.  Who knows, maybe we'll skip one of the last weeks of kindergarten next year...

For the third year in a row, we invited our friends, the Rikards, to join us.  Our kids play so well together and we've gotten in the groove of how to vacation together.  I think this year was probably our best one yet!

I know I've said it before, but it's so much easier when we leave on Friday and drive a little more than half way.  Plus, the kids think staying at a hotel is the best.  We stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel and had to do some porch rockin'. 

I bought the kids each a pair of headphones for the trip and they wouldn't take them off.  They carried around their "ipads" (Leap Frog Tablets) so they could listen to music.  Teenagers already, I tell ya.

Our vacation is getting predictable.  When getting close to the beach house, we first stop in Seaside for pizza and our first beach sighting.  And then we always take a picture in this cutout board!

Our biggest goal for the trip was just to really get into vacation mode.  So we tossed any kind of schedule out the window, ate ice cream or candy every night, didn't force naps, and generally said yes to most things.  It was fun!

One pineapple, four straws!

Beach Bums

This year, Matt and Laura dug two really deep holes in the sand and then connected them with a tunnel.  It terrified this mama, but Katie Wynn and Levi loved crawling from one hole to the other!  We let them do it a few times before collapsing the hole so no one else could go in it.

Pool Sharks

Coordinating Cuteness

If you know me at all, then you know it wouldn't be vacation without plenty of matching outfits!

I don't know where they get all of their "coolness" from.

Here is our family picture from the evening we spent at The Hub.

And this is the "goodbye" photo taken on the front steps of the beach house before we drove away after a super fun week.  Might be my favorite picture of all four kids...even if they don't all match!

The only bad thing about vacationing the week before Memorial Day is that it's over too early in the summer!  We really have to figure out a way to spend another week at the beach at the end of the summer too.  Not too much to ask, right?

Spring Semester 2018

Like last fall, here's a roundup of pictures taken by Aubrey Grace Photography for the spring semester.  Mr. Scott, the photographer, is the school secretary's husband and he snaps pictures of the kids in his free time and then posts them to facebook.  It's so fun to get a glimpse into what they're doing each day!

The return from Christmas break was kicked off with a Grandparents Luncheon.  Our kids were lucky enough to have 3 of their 4 grandparents attend.  Katie Wynn had actually stayed home for the day thanks to a fever the day before (darn 24 hour rule) - that's why she's in "civilian" clothes. 

Still learning the proper way to wear the uniform headband...

In February, the kids had a free dress day and got to play bingo with the big kids.

The kids got to take confetti eggs to their classes on Easter Monday.  Looks like Katie Wynn's class enjoyed cracking them on their heads!

Mr. Scott always captures cute faces on Thomas, no matter what he's doing!

Katie Wynn is much more serious and stingier with her smiles.  Sometimes I wonder if she hides from him and his camera because days will pass with no pictures of her.  Wouldn't surprise me!

I enjoyed seeing Katie Wynn on her bike for the St. Jude Trikathon.

My sweet boy doing his hand motions during music class!

I have learned that on Wednesdays - ice cream day - Thomas always picks a popsicle, while Katie Wynn chooses an ice cream cone.

Fun on field day!

The kids (and teachers) treated us Mamas to a Mother's Day Tea.  It was a fun way to spend my afternoon!

The last day of school for us was a family fun day at a family farm.  The kids climbed tractors, jumped in bounce houses, rode horses (not my kids), ran in sprinklers, slid down water slides (also not my kids), and gobbled up pizza.  It was a fun end to the semester!

Wyatt's High School Graduation!

Last month, Wyatt graduated from high school!  It's hard to believe that he's old enough to be done with school.  Wasn't he just playing little league basketball and sleeping in the top bunk?

His graduation was on a Saturday afternoon at an enormous church.  He had to rent his cap and gown and would only have it (and be available for pictures) for about 45 minutes before the ceremony started.  So we took some quick pictures with him before heading inside to get seats.

Katie Wynn recently lost her first tooth and saved one of her dollars to give to Wyatt as a graduation present.  She was mostly excited about getting to wrap it up by herself.  Of course, that morning Thomas needed a dollar so he could do it too.  Wyatt was really good sport opening his two dollars and thanking them.  :)

After securing a row of seats, the littles and I killed time in the lobby.  They can only sit still and quiet for so long and I didn't want to waste any of it on waiting for the service to start!

Wyatt was one of six graduates that got to sit on stage for the whole ceremony.  He and two other boys (twin brothers!) tied for salutatorian so they were all included in the order of events.  Wyatt was the second student to speak and he introduced the president of the school to come speak. 

Thank goodness for the big screens since the students sat in the very front section and we couldn't get very close.  From where we were sitting behind the sound booth, we got to watch him on the big screens, live on stage, and through the little screen in the booth.  Here he is accepting his diploma and perfect attendance award. 

We are so very proud of Wyatt and all that he has achieved thus far.  If you noticed in the pictures above, he was wearing a Georgia Tech tie - the school he has committed to attending in the fall.  With his fun personality, sharp thinking skills, and incredible work ethic, we know he will do great things there over the next four years.  We can't wait to visit him in Atlanta too!

I'm not sure if Wyatt was tired by the end of the day, but graduation sure wore these two out.

Now with one child out of school, we have one (Katie Wynn) who will be starting in the fall.  Next year, just the girls will be in regular school!  

Trips to the Dentist

I know that I've talked about Katie Wynn's fear of the dentist on here before, and this is just another quick post so that I can remember this checkup.  She is at the 5 and a half year mark and I've been taking her to the dentist every 6 months since she turned 3, and she has yet to actually have her teeth cleaned by the hygienist.  Partly because her first visit was so traumatic (pediatric dentist - got pinned down - sticky fluoride everywhere - etc) and partly because she just has this irrational fear of all things teeth, dentist, hands-in-mouth related.  So anytime a checkup is approaching, I start brainstorming what I can do to make it a successful visit.

This time around, I decided to take Thomas with me on my checkup day so that I could take pictures of him getting his teeth cleaned to show Katie Wynn.  This was his first official time getting his teeth cleaned and he was SUCH a champ.  He was scared at first and wouldn't go at the same time as me (in a different room), but they were able to wait and do him after I finished and he was perfectly fine as long as I could be in the room.  Coming from my experiences with Katie Wynn, I was blown away by how good he was and how EASY the visit was. 

He was not a big fan of the fluoride being painted on at the end and I totally get it - it's sticky and texture-y and tastes weird.  I had to really work to get half a smile after the dentist, but toys from the prize chest and a trip to McDonald's before going back to school definitely helped.

Katie Wynn's appointment was scheduled for the next week, also at my dentist's office.  (We ditched the pediatric dentist in town after two visits, hoping that going with me would be better.)  Leading up to the visit, we practiced playing dentist every night.  We looked at all of the pictures of Thomas and watched the videos I had taken.  We prayed about it and really talked through every step of it.  And still, this face shows how the visit went down:

There were so many tears.  So much fighting and bribing and begging just to get her halfway into the seat.  She did let the hygienist and dentist both look at her teeth and count them, but girlfriend hopped out of that chair and hid in the corner as soon as she saw that spinning toothbrush come out.  I can't even begin to really describe how frustrating and stressful and embarrassing and sweaty these visits are for me.  And I feel so helpless because nothing I say makes her feel less afraid.  It frustrates me and breaks my heart all at the same time.

We have known for a while that she has two teeth where the enamel didn't form correctly in utero.  They will definitely have to be fixed at some point but we've just been watching them as best we can for now.  During his very short peek into her mouth, the dentist noticed a cavity in a back molar and thought it might be good to have it looked at as well as the two with bad enamel.  He referred us to a different pediatric dentist that would have the tools and equipment to work on a terrified child.  The idea was tossed around that she may need to be put to sleep and this mama nearly lost sleep from worrying over it.

Two days later, we made our way to Katie Wynn's new pediatric dentist.  This was the first time ever that Matt has accompanied us to the dentist - we were all hopeful he would be the magic trick to taking her fear away!  

Sadly, she was still terrified so I don't have any action pictures since it was an all-hands-on-deck situation to get her to open her mouth (without scarring her for life), but here is a big smile after her teeth had officially been cleaned for the first time ever!

We learned after these last two visits that part of her fear was coming from what the toothpaste would taste like - and this dentist office won her over with flavorless toothpaste.  Hallelujah! The hygienist was incredibly patient and sweet with her.  Matt and I did have to go through all of our bag of tricks, but I think now that the first time is behind us, she'll hopefully do much better!

After the cleaning she was feeling brave enough to do one of the xrays.

Not quite brave enough to do the other one, but that's ok.  Baby steps!

The best part of the whole visit was that after the dentist examined her, he said we could wait a while on fixing the bad enamel teeth and we could just watch the cavity a little longer.  YAY!  This was such a huge answered prayer.  It is still something that will have to be addressed eventually, but I'll put it off as long as we can!

I know this has become a long post for a silly trip to the dentist - something everyone does twice a year! - but I'm just so proud (and relieved!) of my girl for finally getting through that fear.  I think she was pretty proud of herself too.  She couldn't wait to tell Thomas all about her new dentist and how it's where she goes now.  :)