I can’t believe Anna Kate has finished her last year at Mrs. Paula’s Preschool!  She had so many wonderful adventures and couldn’t have had more fun!

 

On this particular day, they had crazy hat day, among many other exciting activities, as you can see!  Anna Kate wore an awesome white/purple zebra fedora hat, but of course, she only wore it for a few seconds.  I’ll have to take a picture of her wearing it sometime for you guys to see how cute she looked in it. 

 

Before their field trip to the museum, Mrs. Paula took the kiddos to take pictures in the bluebonnets—so thoughtful!

 

 

 

 

 

Someone is ready to treat her patient! 

 

 

You go girl!

This is what preschool is all about!

 

 

Lol!

 

Park play date!

 

Ella and Anna Kate always have a blast together!

 

Anna Kate loves a good pretend store!  She is always up for playing shop or store and will talk you into buying most anything!

 

On her last day of school, Anna Kate and her classmates got to make gingerbread muffins!  Anna Kate picked out this beautiful butterfly sundress to wear for her last day.  Unfortunately, play clothes are best for school because the ruffle ripped right off the bottom of the dress not too far into the day.  Rara is figuring out the best way to mend the dress right now and is always so sweet to help me with our mending. 

 

Picnics are a staple at Mrs. Paula’s!

This is the place our girls will think of when they remember their days in preschool…

And these are the sweet faces!  What an awesome Pre-K adventure for Anna Kate!!! 

Thank you so much, Mrs. Julie and Mrs. Paula, for making pre-school so uniquely special for our middle!  She has been free to laugh, play, run, sing, sound out letters, count, get messy, make art, jump puddles and everything in between in your loving, learning environment!  Although we will be seeing much more of you as Rose begins her adventures here, we are sad Anna Kate has finished her journey in your magical little school.  Thank you for teaching her the fundamentals for everything she will explore in life and nurturing her sweet heart all the while.  We love you!

Anna Kate, we love you through the cosmos and are so proud of you, always!  Your heart is pure, and you desire to do good and make the world a better place; That’s who you are deep down!  Thanks for being so perfectly you!  You’re such an awesome kid!  It’s pure bliss teaching you and watching you learn new things.  You are such a special gift to the world, and we are so happy you are here with us on this little journey!  Xoxo, Mommy and Daddy

*Patriot wasn’t having it any other way than being in the picture, bless his heart!  He’s a very important part of MPP!  Also, Mrs. Paula lovingly made Anna Kate two full-out scrapbooks of her time in pre-school (one handprint letter book and one photo/activity scrapbook).  They are amazing, and Anna Kate will enjoy them for the rest of her life!  What a gift! 

As always, these are Mrs. Paula’s pics she so graciously shares with us!

 

 

Ms. Kim has been so wonderful to our family this entire school year!  She has loved Rose to pieces and taken such good care of her when we had no one else to turn to.  I will forever be grateful for the fun and watch care she has given Rose.  And check out these cuties, all dressed up for picture day!  Rose’s school friends pictured are Emmalee, Lauren, Ms. Kim, Rose and Grace.  What a sweet little time for our wonderfully active toddler! 

 

The girls had a blast jumping at Lindy’s birthday party a few weekends ago!

  

 

 

 

We love us some pj days!

 

A couple of weeks ago, we got locked out of dance class.  It turned out to be pretty fun!

Sweeties at Fuzzy’s!

 

 

 

I used my 6th sense “gut feeling,” a few weeks ago when things didn’t feel quite right, and ended up being super thankful I did!  Never ignore it; It saves lives!  “Obey Your Gut!”

I have the privilege of helping out with a super special program called Girls Laugh for our 4th grade girls at school.  I absolutely love hanging out with such sweet girlies each week! 

Happy 5th Birthday, Avery!  The Pond Princesses had a lovely time at your birthday ball!

 

Avery’s Momma is super creative and all the treats were princess themed!

 

Rapunzel’s Braids and Snow White’s not so poisonous Apple Juice

 

Anna Kate and Malia always have the best time hanging out!

 

 

This.face.though!  Lol!

 

Dancing with my diva!

I bet I’ve made this face a million times; It’s the OMG! it’s really no big deal, stop screaming face.  Every (girl) mom has to have humor with all the drama!

 

Princess Rose was on the go today while Daddy was having fun taking selfies in the mirror, lol!  #caughtya

 

Noelle and Avery, energy and spunk to spare! 

 

Payton, Jackson and Anna Kate

 

Jackson couldn’t stop staring at Noelle; He thought she was a real princess.  They danced all afternoon, and he couldn’t stop looking at her.  It was the most adorable thing ever!

 

In live time, I was watching Anna Kate playing with a balloon on the left until I saw my little princess on the right was having a hard time!  Bless her heart!  Don’t worry, I went and scooped her right up.  Her halo, I mean crown, got a little crooked!

 

 

These two crack me up!

 

Noelle’s dress is from Cinderella’s wedding collection, so she wore her glass slipper necklace to match!  I forgot we even had that necklace.  She doesn’t miss a beat! 

Avery’s little sister, Livi, is so cute!  She’ll be one soon!

 

Happy 5th Birthday, Avery!  It was a royal one!

 

There is just something super special about having little girls everywhere!  Rose has the spunkiest spirit we could ever hope for in our baby girl.  Our girls’ birth order matches their little personalities perfectly.  From the moment Rose was born, she has always enjoyed being our Pond family baby!  Right now she’s wearing green mary janes and a tutu asking me to hold her.  Gotta jet!

 

Fun little bonus shots I found!

I love these early morning pictures of the girls waiting for a very special photo shoot with the entire Banks/Ebert/Pond family, all 16 of us, one morning at GWL!  More on that to come, but these pictures where no one knew I was taking a picture except Anna Kate make me smile!  She’s such a goof ball!  In the mornings in the PondFam5, everyone is in their own little worlds.  Sweet times for sure!

This is one of my absolute favorite faces Noelle makes, but I’ve never captured it on camera until we sang “Happy Birthday” to her this year!  I’m so tickled about this shot because I want to remember this face forever.  Noelle LOVES being silly, light-hearted and having fun!  She was being such a goof ball in this picture, and I just can’t tell you how much I love her.  I’m all teary-eyed now!

For those of you that don’t know what Dairy Queen is, let me tell you!  It’s a low-key burger joint with awesome desserts here in Texas!  Most Dairy Queens are located in small towns.  When Mike and I first moved here, we would drive 30 minutes each way to get a Blizzard every now and then.  Blizzards are ice cream with a topping stirred in with a machine.  My favorite is Reese’s peanut butter cups and the rest of the PondFam5 loves Cookie Dough.  Over half of the girls hadn’t ever been to Dairy Queen.  When we pulled up, they were like, “This is it!?!”  I think they thought it would be a lot fancier, lol!  I told them not to judge a book by its cover and wait until they try it!  It was a fun experience for all of us!  Oh, one more fun fact about Dairy Queen is they always turn the Blizzard upside down before they give it to you to prove that it is still cold and fresh.  They even do this if you order one from the drive-thru before they hand it over.  They used to say if they forget, it’s free, but I don’t think they do that anymore.  If you’re in Texas, it’s a fun novelty to try!  Cold Stone and Marble Slab are cool but nothing beats a DQ Blizzard!

I told the girls to pose for their Mommas.  It was fun taking their pictures in such pretty light and seeing their cute expressions!

Happy 8th birthday, Noelle!  Hope you had the time of your life! 

This year we made these cute shirts, got birthday blizzards, and had a sleepover for Noelle’s little birthday party!

 

I’m usually more organized, but Easter and GWL and so much more threw me off my game!  I went to Wal-Mart the night before and got the table decorations with a few balloons added the day of the party from Party City.  Zebra is so easy to throw with another color.  I do this a lot if you haven’t noticed… makes it super fun and festive!  Everything turned out super cute, and most importantly, all the girls were excited and had lots of fun enjoying everything! 

 

First up, making shirts!  The crowns and names were both iron-ons, but it was a steep learning curve.  If I ever do this again (lol), I’ll probably do all vinyl and no fabric… that was a mess, but they turned out super cute!  Brianna was adorable ironing on her name!

Here are the girls after dinner going over house rules and rules for our little “field trip” to Dairy Queen.  Going somewhere with Mike and me and 10 girls was a little crazy, but they did great, and it was a whole ton of fun!  These girls are great! 

Emma-P and Noelle-y!

 

To settle down before bed, we did a fun little quiz all about Noelle.  They loved it, and it made the birthday girl feel super special!

 

After lots of snacks, a bedtime movie, silly stories, and me having to sleep on the couch to get everyone to quit giggling, we finally fell asleep!  We were on a strict bedtime schedule because the next day was Mother’s Day, and I promised the girls’ mommies I would have them rested.  Crazy fun!  Would I do it again?  Definitely… in a couple of years!