VPK Graduation

It is so hard to believe that the boys' first school year has already come to an end. It was a long school year in some aspects but it also flew by. The boys have grown & learned so much over the past 9 months. They loved school, their teachers & their friends but drop off was hard every single day until about 6 weeks ago or so. They started VPK knowing their shapes, colors, letters & numbers (up to 10) & finished knowing so SO much more. I'm usually entertained in the car by them coming with compound words or doing math equations. Caden loves to show us how high he can count, I think he's up to 160+. They know lots of sight words & are sounding out words beginning to read. They know their months, seasons, & how many days are in a year. They learned about the planets, fruits vs vegetables, all about their teeth & lots of other stuff. They are all social butterflies & think everyone they meet is their friend. 

Kellan, Caden, & Garren, the last day of school.

Their classmates

Caden, Garren & Kellan with their teacher, Mrs Inez.

Caden, Garren, & Kellan with their beloved asst teacher, Ms Justine.

The boys' graduation was the very next day. They were so excited leading up to it! They each learned a line for graduation & a dance routine to the song What I Am. They also sang a song in Spanish.

Here they are walking in to receive their diplomas...

Kellan

Caden

Garren

Walking across the stage...

Kellan

Caden

Garren

All Graduated!

Caden, Garren, & Kellan with Mrs Inez

(We didn't get an after picture with Ms Justine because her oldest graduated too & she was busy with him)

 From NICU Grads to VPK Grads, here's the best photo of the whole year!

Kellan, Garren, Caden

VPK Spring Pictures

I wasn't expecting spring school pictures but I guess those photo companies take every chance they get to make money, so when they came in to do graduation pics, we got spring photos too.

It's amazing how much they have changed just since the beginning of the school year. I'll be on the verge of tears for the next week or so leading up to the last day of school & graduation, just fyi...

Caden

Garren

Kellan

We'll go ahead & call these their 5 year old pics too. I think we've spent more on school photos this year than we ever have with any of the photographers we've used.

5 - The Celebration!

The boys have talked about turning 5 & their birthday non-stop since Christmas! They knew the order of all the birthdays & holidays that came before their birthday & counted them down one by one. 

Their requests were not over the top in the sense of a single child birthday but a bit overwhelming when it came to all 3 of them.

They wanted a pool party at first, I was not up for the responsibility of a bunch of 5 years at the pool, plus the end of April is still unpredictable as far as weather & water temperature. Their second choice was to have ALL their friends over to our house. Seems innocent enough... ALL their friends included their entire class & t-ball team along with neighborhood kids, family friends & of course family. By party week 29 kids had confirmed for the party, YIKES!!! 

The night before Donna's BFF & her girlfriend came up from Tampa. We went out for an official birthday dinner. The boys of course chose Buffalo Wild Wings, their favorite restaurant! Dinner was great & when it came time for singing & dessert, the manager let the boys choose any dessert they wanted, dessert nachos of course! & wrote down each of their names in the order they would say them when the staff sang. I thought the attention & personalization was pretty impressive! 

HUGE dessert!

Aunt Rhonda's lap, best seat in the place!

Double fisted is the only way to eat this dessert!

The next morning I woke super early! I had a ton to do before the party so just got up & headed out...

Publix for last minute groceries. Panera for bagels & Starbucks for the coffee required to pull everything together in time for 30+ kids arriving at 1pm.

Thank God for my bonus mom, otherwise I wouldn't have pulled it off! She pretty much got all of the food & cakes ready for the party while I set up tables & chairs outside. I also set up a bounce house, kiddie pool, water table, squirt guns & a slip n slide for the kids. We very suddenly had a 90 degree day on our hands!

The kids had such a blast!!! They pretty much played non stop without interruption for almost 2 solid hours.

Trenton, Caden, Shania, & Violet

Chandler, Savannah, & Kellan

Helen, Cherish, & Trenton

Chandler

Trenton, Amy's son who's name I suddenly cant remember, & Lily

Caden, Helen, Camden, Beau, Garren, & Shania

Garren, Trenton, Beau, & Shania

Chandler & Canan

Beau, Helen, Garren, Liam, Violet, Bella, Shania, & Trenton

The boys of course chose 3 different themes again this year. I couldn't find one place to make all 3 cakes requested, actually no one outside of a custom bakery could make a Miles from Tomorrowland cake. So I decided I would just bake 3 cakes & use some of the boys toys to decorate them. They aren't the most beautiful & baking really isn't my thing but they tasted great & the kids loved them!

Kellan's Minion cake

Caden's Hulk Smash cake

Garren's Miles cake which apparently had a little accident that my mom corrected

Singing Happy Birthday...

Garren, Caroline, Savannah, Kellan, Beau, Cherish, Bella, Lily & Caden

Savannah, Kellan & Beau

Garren & Caroline

Blowing out their candles

Part of the crowd

Baby Jude, & Kellan showing off his DVD collection to Lily

OMG! The piñata! The boys have not had one before but the kids were all SO excited for it!!! We didn't hang it ahead of time because of all the water activities & my plan to unhook one of the swings & hand it on the hook didn't work out (hook rusted closed) so we improvised with the pole from the pool skimmer. While we were figuring it out the kids were all chanting "Piñata! Piñata!" It was quite hilarious!!!

Everyone got a turn at hitting but I grabbed my camera late in the process...

Helen

Violet

Chandler

Camden

I've never seen kids hit the ground so fast! LOL...

I have to say, WE WILL NEVER OPEN GIFTS DURING THE PARTY AGAIN!!! Lol
It started out innocently enough, but 2 seconds later all the kids were handing out gifts & the boys were just tearing things opened all over the place! I have no idea, who got them what with the exception of a few. It was total chaos!!!

Meanwhile in the next room...

and back to the chaos!

After gifts everyone cleared out pretty quickly. Rhonda & Wendy had to head back to Tampa to work the next day.  My parents headed back to GA & friends went home. Liam was the last holdout in the backyard along with Caden & my nephew. They hadn't had enough yet but check out the water in that pool...

Chandler, Caden, & Liam

We ordered pizza for anyone who wanted to stay for Dinner but it was just my sister & her family & my bonus mom left by then.

It was a super fun day & I think the boys had the party of their dreams. After dinner we had one more birthday to celebrate though... Grandma's!

We love grandma & we live celebrating her birthday which just happens to be 2 days after the boys. Last year their party fell on my birthday, this year it was on grandma's.