end of the 2017 school year

Here are the highlights from the rest of the school year.  These are the days I spend counting down to summer vacation.

May Crowing at SSJ...

And a fun rosary craft with friends.

 
Francie joined me for a retirement party for my boss at Phoenix College...

We took Frances to the store Frances...

We pretended it was already summer at a splash pad with the Burches...

We wished we got to go Disneyland, but settled for this customized decal instead...

And we played lots of dress-up...

Dad had his birthday.  The kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes and we put on a Star Wars play for Dad as a present (The video of the performance will probably stay within the family).  They also made him a Star Wars cake and gave him Rogue One and The Force Awakens. 

Gus dressed just like Dad for his last day of school...

They had a special Kindergarten Prayer Service.  Gus walked in with his 6th Grade Buddy, John, who Gus loves so very much.

He also loved his teacher and she might have told me in secret that he was her favorite.

He had wonderful Assistant teachers and a classroom Grandma who was just the best at doing special religious crafts with them.

We loved having our dear friend Madeline in our class.  They still love competing at everything, but they are still great buddies.

He has a pretty good group of little buddies, too...

Gus had a great first year of school and we are very proud of how well he did.  

And at eight months Francie is just as cute as ever!

We are all exhausted and ready for school to get out!!!

baseball season

Somehow Mom got suckered into letting all three kids play baseball this year which meant three different teams and three different practices to go to.  Now normally, I would not let my three year old little girl play sports at all yet, but last year when I coached Gus' team I let Nora join since she was already there every day and she was interested.  Ever since then she would ask when t-ball started again.  I thought I would be able to convince her not to play this year, but I had no luck bribing her with anything.  So I caved.  She loved it again.  She is pretty darn good for such a tiny little girl.  As I have said before she does not get that from me.  She is following in my mom's foot steps and being a sporty little sister so that she can  keep up with her brothers.  So anyway, sports are slowly taking over our lives more than I like, but the kids all seem to happy about it.  Here are some highlights...

Even though Nora only had one friend on her team, we ended up having practice at the same time and place as bunch of other friends so we would usually stay afterwords to all have a picnic dinner together.  These evenings made it much more fun for Mom.

Jimmy was on the same team as his friend Sampson and his cousin Finn (not that I got one picture of them together!).  His team did pretty well and won one playoff game.  Jimmy always tries hard and does his best which makes me so proud of him.  He got two triples which was pretty exciting.

Gus had three buddies from school on his team and always had a good time.  

Nora and Francie were also good little spectators at many games...

And the best part of all is when the season was over!  Nora was excited about her trophy... and the snacks.  I think the snacks were her favorite part.  She will definitely keep playing for many years as long as there are snacks.

And a special thanks goes out to my grandfather, Don Woods, for founding the St. Francis Baseball League over 60 years ago.  

He is surely loving seeing all his great grandchildren still being a part of it.