Last Two Weeks

During the last two weeks we celebrated two birthdays (Kourtney's and Jessica's), started school and went to the circus. Kourtney also had her first field trip-an adventure in picking apples at an orchard that will be documented in a later post.

Kourtney was excited to turn 5 years old this year and ecstatic to start kindergarten. She has adapted well to all day school and loves her teacher and classmates. I turned 30 years old on my birthday and celebrated with a relaxing day spent mostly at home and then at Maggie Moo's for some birthday ice cream. Later that week we celebrated Koco's 5th birthday for the second time at the circus (I returned home from Colorado around 6:oopm on her birthday). Kris and I remember going to the circus as children, but never under a big top like this one. It held our attention as well as it held the kids. The highlights of the circus included the trapeze artists and the elephants.


Take notice that Kourtney is wearing the dress I wore for my first day of kindergarten...Seems like Alyson just wore it on her first day of school! Well, enjoy the pics!

Kourtney's Birthday

(Thanks for making the cake Jade...It was a pleasant surprise and Koco loved it)

Jessica's Birthday Told you it was a relaxing day!

1st Day of School

Koco was so excited to find her name at a table in her classroom.

The Circus..Fun, fun, fun!.

Alyson's Week

A piece of Alyson's school artwork was chosen to be displayed in the Michigan Education Leadership Group office for one year. We were excited to attend an opening reception and recognition ceremony tonight because we had never seen this particular piece before tonight, a pastel sunflower. She did a fantastic job! We also had the chance to meet her art teacher, Ms. Roltsch. She seemed very excited about Alyson's creative talents and hopes Alyson continues to enjoy painting and drawing, as do we!

Alyson also celebrated her 6th birthday this past week. We held a family party and ate Cherry Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake (one of mom's specialties that I occasionally recreate and what Kris calls 5 C's cake), let Alyson open her presents from us, Nana and Papa and Oma, and then the girls and I watched the new Barbie Thumbelina. movie The following night we saw the theatrical version of "James and the Giant Peach" performed by a local children's theater group. It held Alyson and Kourtney's attention and they seemed to enjoy it. Kris and I both agreed that theater may be right up Kourtney's alley.

Alyson also performed a science experiment for the school science fair. She took bean plants and fed one set of plants with water and the other set of plants with apple juice. The bean seeds fed with apple juice obviously didn't grow. And of course the seeds fed with water "grew like a bean". It was fun getting the whole family involved in Alyson's science project.

So, that was our week, and more specifically Alyson's week in a nutshell!

Alyson's Announcement Joke

Alyson was so excited to tell the joke in announcements at her school yesterday. They tape record the weather forecast, lunch menu, joke and other things and then broadcast it to each classroom. Here she is telling us about it when she got home from school.