Jackie, Hillary & Ben: More End of Year- Field trips and talent shows and grad parties.

We are seriously loving our backyard area- and the fact that a lot of it is driveway means its nice and dry and bug free, etc... Let's face it. I'm not much of a nature person. We had Ben's buddy, Sam, over to play. Ben gets a little over-hyper when his friends are over sometimes so I have to put him in line with embarrassing time outs that anger him. This was just before a time-out.

So while Ben sat in the slammer, Sam played with our fair and free-spirited maiden, Hilly. Ben just said to me as I write this, 'Hillary, I don't like when you play with Sam.' He was sooooo jealous.

After the last soccer practice, a few girls hit up Rita's. This group all goes to St Ann's together. The one on the far right is from Italy- is leaving for the summer actually next week- and they own the pizza place nearby so a lot of gatherings and pizza end up being from there. This is the lady that threw the Easter party.

A class mom took this pic of Jack and her friends at Coverdale Farms on a school field trip.

Benny at the pool w his ninja turtles. He was hoarding them bc he was having trouble sharing w strangers at first. Proud to say he made friends w said strangers.

Hilly and Em swam like mad-women. It was awesome.

Benny and baby Kate chilling.

We accidentally came across the Home Depot free kids' craft time. Jim was searching for a special kind of nail so he wasn't there at first and I was breaking a sweat hammering these little boxes together.

But he showed up like a knight in shining armor and helped me out. Whew.

The kids LOVED it. I already secretly threw away the craft they made bc it was too many small pieces, etc... but the act of making it was what really counted.

Last Saturday our last soccer day was actually a double header. In between games the girls played at the playground.

And Ben hung w his buddy Billy. My takeaway from coaching this level of soccer is that I will never not at least assistant coach again. I really loved getting to know the girls and making sure things were fair and that everyone was included and having a good time. I am a complete control freak at heart and this played right into it.

Emily's graduation party from IHM! She won a leadership award and we were so proud.

This kid is Ben's TWIN. I've been staring at him for weeks and I kept thinking "God, he's such a handsome little guy." Even Ben when he saw this picture was like "That looks like me!" This is in the waiting room at Jack's ukulele lesson.

I had my blood drawn and Ben cried as he watched. I think he was just worried he was next.

Hilly made a raft. This girl is constantly creating complicated art projects with random things around the house. I love that she's so creative, but the mess sometimes overwhelms me. I am pretty good at being patient about this though.