It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

...it's not Christmas...IT'S THE END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR!

Again I realize that I haven't blogged in 10 days...10 DAYS...but in all honesty, I have spent almost every waking moment either with my kids or working on school stuff when they go to bed.  For those of you who are teachers you know how busy this time of the year can be!  It's filled with with report cards and grades, finishing up those end of the year scrapbooks I made for each child in my class, printing out 100's of pictures of my class throughout the year, and to top it all off, many of us have to pack up our entire room and move to a new location in our building.  I do stress myself out a bit with all this....but I keep telling myself, "It will all get done."  One thing I will never do is jeopardize the time I have with  my family.  I could be at school tonight packing up my room or glued to my school computer to work on grade cards, but there is no place I'd rather be on a Friday night than with my family...having pizza...and enjoying a cozy, rainy Friday with movie night. 

To change the subject a bit...here are a few pictures of last weekend.  Ava went with me to get her flower girl dress altered.  It's absolutely adorable.  

I've never seen a bow sideways like this but I really like it.  It gives the dress some spunk and it's very unique.

I love how they altered it to be "poofy" around her knees.  Lindsey's Mom, Lori, bought a cancan to go underneath it so it's extra poofy.

How cute it that?  They will be wearing these cute socks and adorable off-white shoes.  Lindsey is having Ava and Maddie (Lindsey's niece who's a flower girl as well) get their hair done the morning of the wedding.  Ava will absolutely love that!  Isaiah was fitted a few weeks ago for his tux.  He looked adorable!  We can't wait for the big day!

Last Saturday the Vermeer's came over for dinner and to play.  The weather wasn't the greatest...pretty cold...so we stayed inside and played.  Here are a few pictures of that..

Cale loves the Cars Geotrack set.  The kids were driving around Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson, and Towmater.

Miss Elliana...she was entertained by everything!

She loved "cooking" in the kitchen.

Cale driving the Lightning McQueen car.

More pictures of the kids and Andy.

Eric was giving Elliana a new hairstyle with the little blowdryer.  It actually works!

I was teasing Marissa and Eric because they both liked playing with "Spike" the dinosaur.  Elliana wasn't too sure about it but eventually threw Spike a bone.

Eric liked him too!

My Mom's retirement party was last night at Moore Park and I have some pictures of that to post later this weekend.  It was nice to see so many people come out to support her.  I enjoyed visiting with some old teachers and friends.  My Dad's party is in June.  Congrats Mom and Dad!

 Tomorrow it's off to Sesame Street Live in Des Moines and Ava has her ballet dance pictures...it's going to be one busy Saturday.

My Three Happy's today will turn into why "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year:"

1) School is out at 11:00 on Wednesday!  I really like my class this year but am looking forward to summer vacation.

2) I got my list for next year and it looks promising too!  Yeah!

3) I can't wait for the endless days of staying in our pajamas for as long as we'd like, not worrying about bedtime...it's summer, camping out in the backyard (we're going to try that this summer), small vacations, and time to just PLAY!  Ava and Isaiah are at such a fun age...I have so many ideas for this summer!

We hope you all have a fun weekend!