May 2016- Kindergarten and 5th Grade Promotions

 Both Evan and Aaron "graduated"  this past year.  Evan graduated from Kindergarten first.  His class sang some fun songs and Evan did a great job.  I was lucky enough that even though he is really tall, he was in the front row.  :)

 All of the Kindergarteners ready to perform for us.  Aaron and Amber got to come watch with Barth, Katelynn and I.

 They also got Accelerated Reader tags for doing a great job with their reading during the year.  And then it was time to "graduate" and get their diplomas.  Here he is with the Vice Principal, Ms Hennage, and his teacher, Mrs Mason.

 Afterwards there was cookies and lemonade.  It was a fun morning. 

 Evan and his awesome teacher, Mrs Mason.  We were so thankful to have her this past year.  She was phenomenal with everything.  It was a very up in the year school year with surgeries and mini strokes and she was excellent.  Evan had a fantastic year.

 Standing in the balloon arch with his diploma!  Way to go Evan!

 The next night was the 5th grade graduation.  Aaron is there towards the back without the funky glasses on.

 He got a few awards for things, but I can't remember what they are now.  That is why I should blog right away when it happens.  I can't remember anything.  :P

 He was so happy that day and was happy to have the spotlight on him.  He really is such a great boy!  We are lucky to have him in our family.

 His teacher for homeroom and science was Mrs Hatton.  We loved her too.  My older 2 boys also had her, and we loved her just as much then as we did for Aaron.

 Aaron was so cute.  He paused after getting his "diploma" to look back at us so I could be sure to get a picture!  Cute boy!!

 At the very end.  He's on to middle school!!

 There was also a reception for him afterwards. 

 They always let the outgoing 5th graders sign their names on the wall.  Aaron showed us where his name was.

Hooray for the last day of school!!  It was a great school year, but we were ready for Summertime!!

May 2016

May was a busy month, but then again, it always is!  Everything gets crammed in at the end of the school year.  :)  Weston had one last band concert.

It seems that Evan likes to take selfies!

Katelynn being cute in the car one day.  She is always asking me to take her picture.  :)

At the end of the year, all the kids have field day.  The only way that Evan's doctors allowed him to participate was if I was there with him the entire time.  He and Katelynn had a great time and I was so thankful that he was able to participate.

Katelynn was Evan's partner for the 3-legged race since there was an odd number of kids in his group.  They had a great time together.  Seniors from the high school come over and run all the groups and stations for field day.  It is always so fun!

I think they were sorting balls by color at this station.

The kids absolutely loved the huge parachute!  It was a fantastic morning together.

Barth and I only got to one Red's game last year.  That was okay.  They traded all of their good players so they were pretty bad last year.  It was still a nice break to get out together and have fun!

Somewhere in that mass of kids is Brian.  He had one final concert too.

Another sleeping baby.  Because those are some of my favorite types of pictures.

Brian played in a concert that just did solos and ensembles at the high school.  That took place in the middle of may.  It lasted almost 4 hours.  But he and his partner did a great job.

The day after Brian's concert, Evan had another TIA.  This one was on a Friday and even though we got to the hospital in plenty of time for them to scan him on that day, his main neurologist, Dr Taylor, was out of town.  That meant his care was left to his Fellows and they hemmed and hawed around and so they didn't get a request for a sedated MRA until too late.  So, we spent the entire weekend at the hospital. (And then some.)

So, we hung out in the playroom as much as we could.  We did lots of painting.

He ate lots of dirt cake- his absolute favorite thing that they serve at the hospital!!!  :)

We took lots of naps.  Those are my favorite because they always wake you up 5 zillion times at night in the hospital.

One of the days all of the buddies came up to the hospital.  They brought Evan's favorite game of Munchkin and they all enjoyed a great game.  That really lifted Evan's spirits.  :)

And we can never go to the playroom without playing a game of pool.  He never uses the white ball to shoot, but just goes for whichever ball he wants to hit in.  Since we want him to be happy, we just play whatever way he wants. :)

What a sweetheart.

A couple of nights a week they play Bingo on the hospital's TV/radio station.  Evan won and so he got to pick some prizes.  After 5 days he finally got his MRI and an echo and EKG and some blood work done.  Then we were free to go.  Hooray!  Both of the stays in April and May we got to have our favorite nurse, Audrey.  She was his day nurse and is soooooo sweet.

The next week, just days before the end of school, Evan had to follow up with his doctors again to decide the game plan.  Since kindergarten here is just 3 hours, and his appointment was at 9, and it was short, we decided to go to Smale Park on the river in downtown Cincinnati after his appointment and play!!

You can't tell in the picture, but this is a giant flying pig.  That is one of the Cincinnati-type things.  Every year they have the Flying Pig marathon.  So, this park has a gigantic flying pig for the kids to climb in and on.

Katelynn wanted to climb it too, but was too scared to go inside.

They loved all of the cool and different things that they have at the park.

The rock climbing wall was pretty cool.

And so was the gigantic slide built into the hillside.

Evan loves to play chess with his brothers, so he loved setting up this huge chess board.

This is looking away from the park toward the river.  It is right on the river.

Since Barth works downtown, we joined up with him and ate lunch at a place close by.  The kids really loved that part!  :)

Daddy being silly and acting like a walrus.

Evan the unicorn!

Now trying out being a walrus himself. :P

We ended out outing with a ride on the carousel.

Katelynn and Evan both had a great time.

It appears that Evan isn't the only one that likes to take selfies on my phone!!  :)  Silly Brian!

And Amber had a spring recital as well.  She sure does love taking lessons from Sis Greenhalgh!