Last day of school

Can you believe we've made it through a school year already? Today was Joost's final day of kindergarten.

His teacher, Mrs. Martin, was a wonderful first teacher to have. She gently guided and taught her students in a way that made them enjoy learning.

After school, many of the kids from the younger grades went over to Fort Hunter for a picnic to celebrate the completion of a school year. This is Joost with some of his kindergarten cronies.

Kate and Grace are happy that the year has come to an end. They're excited to see more of Joost each day.

...and she stands!

Yes, believe it or not, today was the first day that Kate stood without holding on to anything. Since I'm the world's worst baby book keeper, I thought I'd at least note it here.

Good work, Katie bird!

My Grandpa Bosworth

I was at my grandmother's house today and while putting Kate down for her nap in the guest room, I found some wonderful old photos of my grandfather. Enjoy these with me.

This photograph was taken around 1924 with his sister, Dorothy. He was three or four years old.

This is Grandpa and Dorothy in the Fall of 1927.

This is a boy scouts' trip in July of 1934. Grandpa is the boy standing on the left. I think the boy sitting on the far right was the brother or cousin of the man Dorothy eventually married.

Finally, I found an old military picture of Grandpa taken sometime in the 40s. He was an air force man stationed in the Philippines during World War 2. His favorite memory that he had from his time there was that he and the other men stationed with him, would find random airplane pieces. Eventually they gathered enough and built there own airplane from it. They would fly around all the islands with it.

Field Trip #3: Indian Echo Caverns

Yesterday, Joost's kindergarten class took a field trip to Indian Echo Caverns. This was the first field trip that I was able to help chaperon.

This was the second time Joost was able to visit the caverns and he had much less nervousness in entering them this time around--in fact, I don't think he walked with me the entire tour. The summer before, when we visited as a family, he held my hand the whole time. It's amazing how much braver a year can make a six year old.


Such beauty hidden underground!

Joost enjoyed the afternoon with all his school friends.

(Many thanks to Nicole for sharing these pictures.)

April in a nutshell

I've been so tardy in putting a new post up. Here is a bit of what happened in April....

First, we'll cover Kate. She is 16 months old today and is still not walking. But, she has achieved some other goals in the past few weeks...

...she conquered the stairs. The impact of this small victory has value for all of us since it happily means NO MORE GATES!

...she has discovered that she can crawl on to any piece of furniture she chooses. This picture is not great proof of that since it is a tiny chair, but I find her often lounging happily on the couch with no help from any of the taller people in the house.

...she has found that books are a great use of her free time. Often I find her all alone with a pile of books greatly enjoying herself. I do hope that this turns into a life long habit.

...the discovery that her cousin, Liam, will happily eat anything that she hands over to him. I think she wishes he was around more often when her veggies are being served.


And then, there's Gracie. She's not always the neatest of eaters and she seems to like to document the fact. Here's hoping her children never get a hold of these pictures when she's trying to train them to use a napkin. ("But mom, evidence supports the fact that you never used your napkin....")






And finally, we had our own little field trip to the State Museum (which my parents were able to accompany us on) early in the month. This included time at Curiosity Connection.