With Raine out of school so early in May, we decided it would be the perfect time to take a vacation. Sunday afternoon, May 18, we drove down to San Marcos where we spent the night before continuing our drive to South Padre Island on Monday. The total drive time was 8.5 hours but with all the stops we made along the way it took us most of Monday to get there.

Tuesday, we spent the day at the beach, swimming in the ocean waves, boogie boarding, building sand castles, sand-skating (that’s what Raine called it when the tide sucked all the sand out from under your feet as the water receded) and sea-shell hunting. The water was warm — perfect for enjoying those nice gulf-coast waves!

See! I really was there too!

It took a while, but we finally finished our sandcastle:

Just teasing! There were sand sculptures like this all over the island. This one was the largest and was located in front of the tourism office.

Carter really wanted to stop at this gift shop so he could stand in the mouth of the shark.

On the island, we stayed in a nice condo about a half-block from the beach. We loved it! For less than the price of a hotel room we had a full kitchen, two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, washer and dryer, pool, and a closet full of beach toys. (For future reference, this is the link to it.)

I love mother’s day gifts that illustrate what my kids are REALLY thinking. In primary, the kids colored flowers and wrote what they really think about their mother.

This is Carter’s flower — the translation is below.

My mom makes the best: cookies
My favorite thing to do with my mom is: play swords
My mom loves me because: I have a super hero towel
(As I was reading this one I said, “Carty, you don’t have a super hero towel.” His reply came as he batted his best puppy-dog eyes, “No, but I want one.”)

Raine made this flower.

My mom makes the best: bred (bread)
My favorite thing to do with my mom is: play
My mom is good at: cooking
My mom is as beautiful as: a flower
My mom teaches me: the bible
My mom loves me because: I help hr (her)
I love my mom because: she is the best

This was her note on the back:

I love you mom becos (because) you mack (make) the best bred (bread) and becos you let us watch moovy’s (movies)
Your the best

There are no photos to post because I’m the only one who ever takes them and I didn’t bother pulling out the camera. But here is a lovely drawing of me and Raine that she drew in her card for me!

And here is my mother’s day gift. It is a stretched canvas modge-podged with hand prints and captions.

Don’t tell DJ, but I actually asked his second counselor’s wife if her husband had helped him make it (he is very artistic). She said that she was pretty sure her husband didn’t have anything to do with it. It just seemed so unlike DJ to be so crafty. I don’t even own a bottle of modge podge after all!

After Raine’s last day of school on Friday the 9th, we met up with the Browns, Gordons, and Ottesons at Cedar Hill State Park to camp. We roasted hot dogs for dinner and then toasted marshmallows for some yummy s’mores.

Raine developed a love of roly poly bugs, and there were plenty to play with.

Carter found a friend to play football with him.

Daddy cooked pancakes . . .

. . . maybe “cooked” isn’t the most appropriate word to describe what he did to the pancake batter!

Then we went swimming in the lake.

Later that evening, after we were all home and bathed, we started itching. B-A-D! We soon realized that we had been eaten alive by chiggers. This was our first encounter with the little buggers and they are much, much worse than we ever realized. I won’t get into the graphic details, but suffice it to say that they really make you miserable!

Friday, May 9 was Raine’s last day of school. It was a half-day and all they did was play!

Mrs. Stapleton painted their faces (or arms).

Raine and Payton

Raine and Brielle

A quick note about Carty: Thursday, Carter came down with a fever and was sent home early from school. Soon after waking up from a nap, he started complaining about a sore throat. We looked in his mouth and it was nasty — bright red with white spots. Suspecting strep throat, I called the nurse to see if he needed to be seen that night or if we could wait until the next morning. She said that he could probably wait until the next morning but to get him in first thing. So we pumped him full of pain killers and drug him to graduation. He was a real trooper and sat quietly through the whole thing. Friday morning I got him in to see the nurse practitioner at 8:30 for a strep test. Much to my surprise, it came back negative. However, it turned out that he had a raging ear infection, his first. Poor little guy!

In order to have a record of Raine’s creative hand writing and art skills, I scanned some of her recent school work:

Raine forgot to do half of this one (hence the purple marks). That isn’t terribly uncommon. She gets so excited to move onto the next thing that she misses tasks!

Notice the frowny faces? Raine says that they are sad because someone stepped on their ant house.

Raine’s kindergarten class has been working hard on their play for graduation — memorizing lines, learning choreography, and practicing songs. The much-anticipated event finally arrived on Thursday.

But first, Raine came home with a second honor eagle award! The award is only presented six times during the year, recognizing a student who exemplifies the five R’s of behavior (respect, responsibility, relationships, righteousness, and reliability). Receiving it twice in the same year is quite a statement about Raine’s character!

That evening Raine put on her costume and we headed back to the school for the ceremony.

The play was titled “Under the Sea” and was about a snorkeler who was looking for the pearl of wisdom. It was full of fun songs, all adorably choreographed, and plenty of excited kindergartners!

My favorite was the “chicken heart” song. (Unfortunately, our videographer, aka Daddy, failed to hit the record button on that one, so we only have still shots. When I get the DVD from the professional videographer, I will try to upload it.)

Raine was Cindy Snapper, in the Temple Fishing School. Here she is during her scene. I’m pretty proud of how well her and Zoe’s costumes turned out. Zoe’s mom and I worked on them together — she cut out all the scales and I sewed them to the shirts.

Below is a seven minute video showcasing snippets from a few of their songs as well as Raine’s lines in the play. Here are the lyrics to all the songs (as remembered by Raine). They are such precious lyrics and brought the sweetest spirit to the program.

While the kids changed out of their costumes, we watched a slideshow of photos from all the activities they did during the year. It was fun to see just how much Raine has matured during kindergarten . . . and how many teeth she has lost!

The kids came back in wearing their caps and gowns and received their diplomas.

Next, Mrs. Boegner handed out six achievement medals — for bible, conduct, numbers, math, writing, and reading. Raine received the medal for conduct — no surprise there!

She also received the medal for reading. We were really surprised by that. Raine is a fantastic reader, but we didn’t realize that she was the best reader in her class!

She was very proud of her two medals.

Each student received a certificate recognizing a trait that they share with a bible character. Raine received the Priscilla award for being a “teacher by example.”

Raine’s teacher, Mrs. Boegner, received the teacher of the year award. She is a fantastic teacher and Raine really loved her. Mrs. Boegner knew how to make her feel important and made Raine always want to do her best.

We picked up a very happy Raine back in her classroom where we took some photos and turned in her robe.

I’ll be honest, when I first learned about kindergarten graduation I rolled my eyes with a dismissive “Seriously!? Why do kids have to ‘graduate‘ from EVERYTHING! She’s still going to be at the same school next year!” But in the end, I was very glad they held it. The play was so polished and well done and it was such fun to see Raine receive awards for her hard work this year. It really started off her academic career in the best possible way. She loves school and has all the confidence in the world that she can succeed at anything she tries. We walked out of there full of joy and pride and so thankful for the wonderful teachers Raine had this year!

Raine has lost four teeth in the past two weeks, earning herself the nickname of Toothless Lou!

The first one fell out the day before Easter (Saturday, April 19). It was hanging at weird angles until mid-afternoon when it finally gave way.

The second one fell out while she was brushing her teeth later that evening. At first, we thought it went down the drain. But fortunately, Daddy found it on the bath mat.

Less than a week later, on Friday (April 25), the second front tooth came out. We were very happy to see that little snaggletooth go!

The fourth one came out less than a week later on Thursday, April 30. Here she is on May 1 when all the kids got to wear their favorite college t-shirt in honor of college signing day.

The tooth fairy made a lot of visits to our house. (She almost screwed up one, but made it at the last minute.) Now Raine has $12 to spend.

Everything Raine eats now gets gnawed off with her back teeth and she talks with a noticeable lisp! Hopefully it won’t be permanent. This really isn’t the most attractive stage of a child’s life!

Wednesday was Jesus Day at Raine’s school. They dressed up in clothing similar to that worn in Jesus’s time and did activities representative of things people did back then, like making scrolls, sealing letters with wax and imprinting it with a ring, building a castle with blocks, playing with a fabric ball they made, etc. They also assigned each person to bring food that they would have eaten then, like grapes, juice, crackers, olives, etc. I made some delicious naan for Raine to take.

Thursday, was a half-day of school for Raine and they had their class Easter egg hunts. Carter’s class also had an egg hunt.

Friday, Raine was off school so we went to a playgroup egg hunt that was moved into the gym last-minute because of rain the day before.

It was more of an egg “gather” than an egg “hunt.”

Everyone brought snacks to share and I made balloon animals and swords to keep the kids occupied after the hunt — it was pretty chaotic!

Saturday, we went to the Easter egg hunt at Raine’s school.

Several weeks ago, Carter spotted the old inflatable baby pool in the garage. Ever since, he has been asking if it is warm enough to use it. Saturday afternoon he asked again and I distractedly said something about it possibly being warm enough. The next thing I knew, Carter was running toward me wearing his swimsuit with his goggles on his eyes. It was too late then to tell him no, so I filled it up.

Saturday evening we had the Sister missionaries over for dinner and we put together an egg hunt for them. We put things like post-it notes and hair clips in their eggs. I didn’t get any good photos because I had to keep an eye on the ham.

Sunday, the kids found their baskets and then headed to church.

The Easter Bunny obviously loves Momma the best!

Raine is a stretchy-band bracelet maker now.

That evening we dyed eggs, but Carter refused to be photographed.

Conference weekend we decided to take advantage of the lack of church responsibilities and get away for a couple nights. Since Carter and I were coming from Austin Friday night, we decided to meet in the middle in Waco.

The first order of business was to hit the pool. Since the outdoor pool in Austin was so cold, Carter was REALLY looking forward to swimming in the nice indoor pool at our hotel in Waco. HOWEVER . . . that water was like glacial runoff! Apparently they don’t heat it. We couldn’t believe it. The kids were not to be deterred, so I happily sat in the hot tub while Daddy suffered near-hypothermia with the kids in the pool! Raine didn’t mind the water at all and Carter was too excited to swim to care too much about the frigid temperature. Poor Daddy was the truly miserable one, but he was a trooper. He even went back with them again that night!

After listening to the first session of General Conference, we went to the Waco zoo. Here are some photos from our outing:

The zoo had a great playground.

It also had a neat aquarium.

Here is Raine coming down the slide that went through the otters’ pool.

They wanted to take a photo on EVERY animal statue in the zoo.

Here is Carter running across the chimes. Each little square played a different tone when you jumped on it.

We had a very relaxing — and much needed — little getaway!

The first few days of April, I had a trial skills training in Austin. Carter came down with me and Grandma Anderson flew in to keep him occupied while I was in training. I’m not sure where all they went, but they sure had fun.

Carter was set on trying out the swimming pool . . . even though it wasn’t heated. Grandma watched from the side!

The second day, they went to the Children’s Museum.

That evening we drove downtown to the Capital Street Bridge to watch the bats fly out.

Day three they played at Zilker Park and rode the train.

Carter had so much fun with Grandma. He loved having her all to himself! He was maybe even a little TOO comfortable with Grandma. One afternoon he had just wiped himself after a bowel movement and came waddling out of the bathroom with his pants and underpants around his ankles. He turned around, stuck out his backside, grabbed both cheeks and asked Grandma if he had gotten it all! Ahhh, the inhibitions of a three-year-old (or complete lack thereof)!

Raine and Carter took swim lessons during March at a local scuba shop. They made a lot of progress during the four weeks of lessons, going three times per week.

Carter is still a little fish who prefers to spend his time under the water. He only came close to drowning once so I consider that a success!

Raine is not a big fan of having water in her face, but she did really well with the back float. She could float unassisted by the end.