Noah Graduated!

We have a kindergarten graduate! Noah graduated on Thursday night. It was such a special evening for many reasons. Olivia was also in the program because the Pre-Kers had a part in the program. Both sets of grandparents were so sweet to travel long distances for the occasion.

The program was a mock day of kindergarten. One of the little girls in Noah's class was the teacher. They did a demonstration of the pledges, reading, math, etc.

Olivia's PK class made up the class. This picture cracks me up because of how they are crossing their hands on their hearts for the pledge. The little girl second from left has both hands crossed just to make sure she's at least doing one right. :) Olivia is in the black dress.
Noah is so serious walking down the aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance".
This was taken right after Noah received his diploma and his teacher moved his tassle.
So happy!
Noah and CarmenNoah, Evan, Jadon
Noah and Rachel (the girl he's going to marry, so he says!)
Noah and the grands

We were so excited for him!

Celebrating with ice cream and cookies

Recent Happenings

Noah and Olivia completed another year in the Awana program at church. Noah finished his first book in Sparks, and Olivia finished her second year of Cubbies. They were so excited to receive their little awards!

Olivia discovered she had a twin.
My piano students entertained their families and friends at the annual spring piano recital. I had twenty students participating this year. I was so proud of them! They're such a cute bunch.
Our tree is in full blossom. Last year the tree didn't blossom. I wasn't quite sure why it didn't, but my sneaking suspicion was that some little hands picked off all the berries before they had a chance to flower. This year the rule was "The berries stay ON the tree!" And we were rewarded with this.

Happy spring!

Little Birthday Girl

Two years ago yesterday God gave us our second little girl, Chloe Elizabeth. We are so thankful to God for her and for what she adds to our family.

This lucky girl had two birthday celebrations this year! We had a party last weekend with the grandparents (who were visiting for grandparents day at school). The second party was just our little family celebrating yesterday.

Chloe loves Dora the Explorer, so this was one of her favorite presents - a Dora picnic basket. It's also gotten a lot of play time from Noah and Olivia! Isn't it great when a sibling has a birthday?

She was sooo tired by the time we had cake and ice cream. I think she was watching to make sure Swiper didn't swipe anything (or, of course, Noah and Livi)!
This was her little cake she had yesterday, on her birthday. Noah is pointing his finger "Happy birthday to YOUUUU!"

Yummy cake!

Let's Go Fly a Kite

The whole family gets in on the action

Olivia learns how to keep the kite flying


It also makes a nice hat!

Grandparent's Day

Last Friday was Grandparent's Day at school. We were so excited that both sets of grandparents could come again this year. Grammy and Grandpa Peterson won the plaque the second year in a row for coming the furthest! And I think Grandma and Papa Ice were in second place! So we are very blessed to have had them all come.





We all met for lunch at our usual celebration restaurant, Logans! It was a fun day.

Sushi Sweetie

I have been getting into sushi lately after some friends of ours had us over for a sushi party a month or so ago. I think it is so yummy! And Paul likes it too. So I had this same friend over yesterday to show me how to roll my own sushi. We had lots of fun and the sushi tasted delicious!

Olivia rolled her own little sushi roll

She was very pleased with the results!
Olivia and Micah (the friend's son) who loves sushi
Trying out the chopsticks - Olivia preferred the strawberries over the sushi. :)
The finished product - we rolled in rice, egg, carrot, cucumber, and cream cheese. Also included tuna in some and a mystery fish in some, which I won't disclose for the sake of the weak-stomached among us.
It was yummy!

Spring Break

We enjoyed a nice little getaway earlier this week. The kiddos are on spring break from school, so we took advantage of the time off and headed to the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells. Paul made my day on Sunday when he said we could leave early (we were going to leave on Monday) and stay a night in Madison to visit Adam and Kelly Love! We had so much fun at their beautiful house. We even stayed up until about 4 am playing Settlers - these are people after our own hearts! :) The kids had so much fun that I even heard one of them say "Can we just stay here and not go to the waterpark?" Now that is high praise!

All the kiddos (except Chloe) had a slumber party

The marble run was a hit

We made it to the Great Wolf on Monday and enjoyed three days of swimming and water slides. My body was so sore from going down countless water slides with Noah. He is just tall enough to go down the big slides, and he had a blast! Noah and I went down one water slide about ten times in a row, and there were 79 steps to get to the top (Noah counted :) ), so I was one sore mama.

Accessories make the outfit

Olivia loved the wave pool

It was hard to get a clear picture of Noah because he was in constant motion!

Chloe especially loved the chairs. :)

Sharing a bedtime snack

Daddy and the kiddos