Emily's Pre-K Graduation!

 Emily has been attending a new Pre-K this year.  With her November birthday, she was going to spend an extra year in preschool while her friends headed off to Kindergarten.  I was worried that she would be bored with a year that copied last year's curriculum, so I enrolled her into the county's preschool program as a peer model.  She absolutely loved it! She made some best friends (like Aela pictured above) and is sooooo ready for kindergarten.  She can write out all her numbers and letters, spells words that she's in print, copies full sentences from books and magazines, and can even sight read some short words.  
The graduation ceremony was so conveniently scheduled for noon on Thursday, so Tim and I took off of work early, grabbed the grandparents and other kids, and headed over for what turned out to be a pretty snazzy ceremony.  

Aela, Avery, and Emily

Miss Jessy (left) is Emily's teacher

The whole family!  We don't get to take photos like this often--I'm usually behind the camera!

The proud graduate!

Mini Band Camp!

 The high school recently held a week-long mini band camp to give the eighth graders a taste of what they had in store this fall for marching band.  I've learned through Garrett's last two years that marching band is a grueling, exhausting experience but such a wonderful place to learn discipline, make friends, and bond.  Caroline will start this August in the KGHS marching band and this camp was so much fun for her!  She was truly exhausted when the weekend was over, but she loved hanging out with her friends and seeing Garrett in a different light.  
Caroline is most excited about the competitions (4 hour long bus rides with her friends--wooooo hooo!), marching in the Fall Festival parade, playing at football games, and the 2 out-of-town trips that the marching band takes in the winter and spring.  Garrett just went to Hershey Park last weekend for a marching band competition and trip and the KGHS band scored the highest-- 98.2 out of 100!

practicing field formation

Bubble Fun

 I picked up a couple of bubble guns on my last trek to Walmart and they were a huge hit on a recent day that didn't include all-day rainstorms!  Caroline became my resident photographer and borrowed my extremely expensive nice camera and did a great job of really "capturing the moment"!  I might even put her in charge of some photos for the Christmas card this year.....