5th Grade Field Trip - The first of many

     Let me tell you - they sure treat you right at Redland Oaks when you're at the top of the school! In the last month of school Lillie got to go on 5 field trips! 5! Holy Cow. I didn't go to all of them. 

But here are pics of the first which was the Guadalupe River State Park Nature Day. As a parent volunteer I was assigned to the bird station. The kids went around to several stations and learned all sorts of fun and cool nature-y stuff. I don't know about that though cuz I was with the birds all day. It was a great station! This guy pictured below certainly knew his stuff. They had caught several wild birds in nets and were teaching the kids about them before they were tagged, recorded, and released. One kid from each group got to release the bird. L said it was the best station of the day sooo.... not too shabby I guess!

L and her group of girlies

Sterling, Ava, Holly

Hailey, Lillie, Kenya

BFF'S

Redland Oaks Carnival

     Redland Oaks held their first ever carnival which they hope to turn into an annual event. I hope they do because this was a complete and total blast!

A great turnout!

G with more face paint - they did a great job!

L doin' the limbo - I'm fairly positive there is some SERIOUS rule breaking happening here

The boys with some of their winnings

The 2 liter ring toss was a huge hit. We came home with 6 or 7 seven 2 liters of soda. Unfortunately I let the kids have a glass each and then the rest was given away. I suggested they use 20 ouncers next year. This was just too ridiculous!

Besties - Kenya and Lillie

Little Mr. Chubs was here too - rollin' along like he always does when he's ridin' with his crew

FACE PAINT!!!

FHE - Project Family Proclamation Continued - Temple Construction & Families are Forever

       As part of our ongoing FHE's on the family proclamation the kids constructed temples out of sugar cubes. They did an amazing job! Seriously, I was way impressed with these:

Lillie's rendition of the Hawaii temple

(This one has been her favorite for a year or so now and the temple where she plans to be married)

Samuel's replica of the San Antonio temple 

um..is anyone else as amazed by this as I am?!?! I mean, he even got the water fountain exact!

This kid is a master builder!

And Grant's rendition of the Salt Lake Temple

Here's a close up - pretty exact besides the whole red and blue thing he decided to do last minute. These kids are awesome!

I loved how they turned out. 

The kids loved the project and it was a wonderful way to take some time to discuss temples, their purpose and importance, and how blessed we are to have the temple blessings in our family.

I am so grateful that I have my family for eternity because of the sacred ordinances of the temple!

     And here are the kids with their families are forever lesson project. These were a little hard for Grant to figure out how to do but they turned out great in the end!

Lillie's Spring Orchestra Concert

     Well it was a good year with the Viola but Lillie has decided that an instrument elective is not for her. The lure of all the other middle school choices was just too much. She has decided to forego orchestra and go with her first love - art - and the other semester she is trying theatre. Taking after mom! Well, with theatre at least. The art thing skipped right over me - she definitely gets that talent from Grammy. She did a lovely job at the concert though and it was a lot of fun to hear her play. Great job this year L!

All the flowers from her adoring fans!

Ooop...Missed the Doolittle/Burwell dinner

     While Harry and Dianne were visiting for the landscape project we went over to my parents house for dinner. Loved these pics and wanted to make sure they were included: 

These kiddos sure are lucky to have two such awesome Grandma's!

Grandad's fabulous new car! The kids love riding around with that top down!

So, so sweet!

Fiesta at Redland Oaks

     And it's time for San Antonio's annual 2 week long Fiesta! Redland Oaks knows how to party right along with good ol' S.A. and here are pics of the kiddos to prove it!

     As a long standing tradition the 5th graders at Redland Oaks do a chili cook off. They split into teams, choose a recipe, gather the ingredients, and then make it on the morning of. The school smells sooooo good on Fiesta day! Last year I was jealous of that smell. This year I got to enjoy not only smelling it but eating it and voting on it too! All of the chili's were pretty good - however - even though my opinion is certainly biased towards "my" team using my recipe - it was definitely the ABSOLUTE BEST CHILI THERE!!! What a fabulous and fun activity!

Lillie and her team the Chili Warriors

L to R: Aliyah, Katie, Lillie, Kenya

Samuel and his Best Pal Teancum playing outside at the 3rd Grade party

Some of Ms. Rohr's 3rd Grade class

    The Kindergartener's at Redland Oaks also do it up right for Fiesta. They put on a mini carnival on the Kinder playground and Grant had a blast.

Ms. Gina (our neighbor) giving him a face paint

This boys loves snakes!

Gotta love that spin art

Mi Poquito Cientificos

     Oh how I love my curious little scientific children. Here are the three big ones making use of the bug collecting kit they received from Uncle Jason and Aunt Becca for Christmas. They collected gobs and gobs of snails. In Lillie's notebook they named them each and wrote down their personality traits. So AWESOME! They were totally bummed when I told them that they had to leave the door to the cage open at night so they could... Oh, I don't know... keep living! Fortunately for them it was an unusually rainy spring and there were lots of snails out every afternoon. They had a week full of fun with this project. I love the creativity that I see spring forth out of these people!

     The cold hung on for awhile again this winter so it was actually the end of April before we had our first fun water day. But here they are!

     Here's Mr. I. at 4 months!

Like all Doolittle kiddos he is loving that wisk!

Chillin' with G'Ma