Caleb turns 6

It is hard to believe, but in June Caleb turned 6.  Our family tradition is to let the kid’s pick where they would like to eat for their birthday and this year Caleb picked Chuck e Cheese.  It was a great time for all and offered us a time to reflect on how much Caleb has grown over the year.  He is turning into such an amazing young boy and we are so blessed to have him in our family.  

Lighting the candles 

So excited and for the first year he waiting until we were done singing to blow out the candles.

Blowing out the candles

Digging in!

 

Opening presents







Dancing wth Chuckie! 





Big hugs!




This picture says it all!



Summer = time for a Family Vacation

Taylor spent several months of 4th grade learning all about Colorado and as a result she started asking if we could visit a few of the places she had studied this summer.  After a family vote we settled on riding the Durango Silverton Train, visting Mesa Verde and going to the North Pole Santa's Workshop in Colorado Springs.  We had a wonderful time and are already starting to plan our next Colorado getaway!

This free scrapbooking design generated with Smilebox

May Day Baskets

One of the things we miss most about Iowa is our neighbors.  In an effort to love on our neighbors and hopefully get to know them better we made May baskets this!  Thanks to Pinterest we found some great ideas for paper flowers and with 90% off Easter basket sale we were able to make some cute baskets for under a $1.00 each!  The kids had fun helping fold the flowers, but even more fun delivering the baskets! 

New addition ~ Tyler the rabbit

We decided to find the guinea pigs a new home and get a rabbit for Taylor. She has expressed an interest in getting involved in 4-H and so we thought this might be a good place to start. After helping Grandpa at a rabbit show, Taylor did lots of research about rabbits and decided she would like to have a polish bunny. Polish bunnies are a miniature rabbit that only gets about 3 lbs. We found a couple of breeders in the area and she used her birthday money to purchase the bunny. She decided to name her new little "blue" bunny Tyler.

End of the Year School Programs

This spring Taylor, Brandon and Caleb all had end of the year school programs. Taylor spent part of the year learning all about Colorado and did a research paper/presentation on three cities in Colorado - Silverton, Telluride and Ouray. Along with her presentation she also danced (squared danced since it is the official dance of Colorado) and sang at the school program. She did a great job and thanks to my Dad’s girlfriend Bobbie Taylor was all decked out in genuine square dance clothes!

Taylor in the red dress and yellow flower hair clip singing

Taylor square dancing - they were awesome and did tons of different moves!

Taylor with her Colorado Destinations project

Brandon had an end of the year music program as well and he did a great job. His class sang several different songs all centered around bugs!

Brandon playing the triangle

 Two 2nd grade classes - Brandon is in the front row!

Caleb’s end of the year music program was incredible.  It was amazing to see how much he has grown over the past year.  He played 3 different instruments, sang, danced and transitioned after each piece all on his own.  He knew right where to be and what to do all on his own.  It brought tears to our eyes as we watched Caleb perform with his peers and radiate with pride and excitement. 

Caleb and his music teacher ~ Mr. Maley. He is an awesome teacher!!