K to the Third Power

My friend, who also happens to be the art teacher at school, made these amazing shirts for the trio. She came up with K to the third power! I absolutely adore it! The kids also seem to like wearing the shirts she made them and showing her at school. :)

First Day of Young Fives!

The trio started Young Fives today and had a super day! They all three can't wait to go back! I had to be a teacher today so Josh captured a few pictures from their morning! All dressed up and ready to go to school!

Each morning our school serves a free breakfast to all students. Here is a shot of them all sitting and enjoying their first school breakfast!

All three started and ended the day without tears....and mommy made it through without too! I'm going to love having my 'big kids' at school with me this year!

A Visit to a Castle!

While staying in Petoskey, we traveled to a nearby city to visit a real life castle...www.castlefarms.com. We weren't sure what to expect or if it would be a good place for the kids, but in the end it turned out to be a great place to visit. It's mainly known for a wedding venue, but they have a self-guided tour that you can take and they have a questionnaire for kids to kids to complete too. We had such a good time and took so many pictures that I really had a difficult time narrowing it down. Enjoy them! Josh and the kids feeding the fish.
My mom trying to feed a turtle. She didn't believe me that it was a turtle statue! lol

Malachi, Madelynn, and Aiden by the pond!

Joshua and his mom!

Grandma Callahan and Madelynn.

The castle! Isn't it beautiful!?!?

The bridge and stream from one of the gardens.

Group photo!

Aiden and Madelynn playing chess. There were chess board all over the castle...some small and some big.

Malachi checking out the chess game.

This was one of four giant chess sets around the castle!

There was a children's alphabet garden. There was one plant for each letter of the alphabet. Aiden plant was Astilbe.

Malachi and Madelynn's plant was the Money plant...if only it really grew dollar bills! :)

I loved this picture of Madelynn and Aiden. They truly are best friends!

Malachi and daddy down in the train garden. We were up in the top of the train garden.

Malachi pretending to eat watermelon.

The trio was getting tired and Malachi crawled up in this chair and wanted to go to sleep. How sweet is that!

In one of the rooms, they had two carriages that you could climb up in and explore!

The butterfly garden.

The pond

The Queen's garden.

Aiden and Madelynn playing checkers. We're starting to learn how to play checkers lately. There is one at the library that they love to play!

Aiden and Madleynn walking through the Enchanted Forest. We were looking for fairies!

Lavendar Farm

We recently spent a weekend in Petoskey with the main purpose of going to the Lavendar Farm to get family pictures. I'm happy to say that we have lots of choices and will be narrowing them down to the final ones which will be given out around Christmas! Here are some of the other shots that are out of the running. These two pictures are the view from the road as we came to the top of a large hill and were overcome with the beauty of the purple fields!
Madelynn...the wind kept blowing her hat off and she was determined to keep it on.

Aiden not so sure about being in the fields.

The best of the 5 family shots we got on our camera. I wasn't extremely thrilled with any of them so we'll try something else. This one wasn't too bad.

The boys walking up the hill through the lavendar. I love the big red barn in the background!

Malachi loved wandering through the lavendar. We had a hard time getting him out when it was time to go.

Madelynn

Malachi sitting among the flowers!

The trio in the fields.

I love this shot of them wandering away from us!

Aiden

Aiden and mommy!

More fields of lavendar in various stages of growth.

While the women visited the gift shop, Josh took the kids to play on an airplane swing they had hanging from a tree. I want one of these in our backyard!

We had such a great time! The trip was so worth it and the sights were amazing! Look forward to my next post with pictures from the castle we visited!

Malachi's ISD Preschool Graduation

Malachi has now completed his second year at his special education preschool and has made fabulous progress. We are so proud of all the achievements he's made. June 23rd marked his final day of school, graduation, and sadly...the day we had to say good-bye to those people who have worked with him for the past 2+ years and have done so much to improve his life. We're very sad to say good-bye to those people but we know that we'll still see them around. They played the 'graduation song' as the kids walked in. I nearly fell apart, but managed to hold it together! He looks like such a big boy. I can't believe my babies will be starting Young 5's in the fall.
Shaking his teacher's hand and getting his 'diploma'.


All of the kids sang songs and shared some poems. They each got to take a turn leading it. Malachi lead the poem about the oval!

Sitting like a proud graduate!

Malachi's teachers also had a family picnic earlier in June where the kids and families play on the playground, have a cookout, and the kids are honored with certificates of achievement. This is Malachi with his certificate his "academic skills and improved independence".

We could not be any more proud of Malachi and although he still has a delay, we know that he'll continue to make progress in a regular education classroom next year. He will still recieve speech and OT through pull out services and he'll have a great teacher/friend who will not let him "fall through the cracks".