Katie, Princess Warrior

Earlier today Katie asked me to help her put her baby in her sling. After getting her baby tucked safely in the sling, Katie proceeded to add a couple of much needed items. First you must put in the baby's teddy bear. Then you must put in your trusty dagger because no well bred girl goes anywhere without a dagger.
After uploading the pictures from Bryan's camera this evening, I found these pictures and just felt they were perfect for Katie. She is a huge fan of Queen Lucy from Narnia and has to do everything the boys do. She's just likely to do it with a touch of class while wearing a skirt. You just have to love her style.

Camping

Alan took the older boys camping last night with their Blue Knights group.
As the only adult with scouting experience, Alan was elected to start the fire. He managed to get the fire started with only one match. I must admit that leaves me a tad impressed. The only way I can mange to start a fire with wet wood is to use nice greasy Fritos as a fire starter. Hey, with a gaggle of Girl Scout campers watching impatiently a counselor must get creative.
Someone caught a weird looking toad.
They saw lots of geese.
Just hanging around waiting to go fishing.
When you don't own a fishing pole, you can fake it with a stick. Maybe we need to buy fishing poles sometime soon.
The report back I got this afternoon was that everyone had a great time.

Confirmation

Bryan was confirmed last night. One of those wow kind of moments that forces you to sit back and acknowledge that your child is growing up. Here is a picture of Bryan with his sponsor (Grandma Hitchings) after Mass.
We are all very proud of the young man Bryan has become and are sure there are great things waiting in his future.
Yes, it is sometimes hard to get a picture with all of us looking in the same direction at once. At least this is proof that the crew cleans up well. Congratulations Bryan!

Lego Creations

Sean picked out a Lego kit with his birthday money earlier this week. He's been working rather diligently on putting it together ever since. Here's the finished product. I am rather impressed since typically the kids loose interest in these larger creations before they are able to get them completely finished.

Graduation Day

Katie and Liam graduated from kindergarten on Saturday night. This year has been interesting with them and makes me somewhat fear what lies ahead with teaching these two together. I'm just hoping that their competitive nature leads to pushing each other ahead and not getting annoyed with each other.
Alan was elected to hand over the diplomas and give a short speech this year since I handled it last year with Kieran. We must share in the truly fun stuff here. A fun time was had by all. Congrats Liam and Katie.

Recent Pictures of the Kids

Company Came

We had some visitors from Virginia earlier this week. They came to see the newest member of the family and spent some time spoiling all the kids. They also brought along a new table for the kids which should make finding space for everyone to work just a tad easier.