Wedding weekend

One of my favorite photos of K was taken upstairs at the chapel waiting for the wedding to start. She and her cousins were pretending to do ballet in their slippers and flower girl dresses.

This slightly blurry shot of Izzy showed the sweetest expression on her face, so I decided to post it.

I probably should have cropped this one so you didn't get Alice's blurry arm in the foreground, but she was excitedly showing me the different colors of flower petals the girls would drop as they walked up the aisle. They took their job very seriously.

Erin made fabulous mustache cufflinks for all the men in the wedding party. They were awesome!

Star Wars Birthday Party

Kaylee's friend had a birthday party with a Star Wars theme. It was awesome.

I wish I had taken pictures of the invitations. They were based on the opening title sequence from the original Star Wars. Kaylee and friends were invited to attend Jedi Training.

Foam pool toys were lightsabers. 

Padawans trained with their light sabers by popping bubbles . . .

. . . so they could later defeat Darth Vader (as a piñata) in battle.

The best thing I didn't get a picture of was a classic. They had the Padawans use their Jedi mind powers to open the garage door. The kiddos concentrated sooooo hard that I'm convinced they actually did use the Force. I applaud Mom and Dad (aka Darth Mom and Daddy Wan Kenobi) for the awesome effort. It really was a blast. (And not just for me, but for the kiddos too.)

Family treasures

"Wow, Jesus sure said a lot."

After looking through Rae's hope chest, the girls came across Great-Grandpa Ray's Bible. (Complete with notes and bookmarks and random clippings.)

Scenes from a comic con

This mermaid got K's attention by shooting her with a squirt gun.
And then let her choose a treasure from her chest.
Her other chest. Pervert.

Also known as" no one can resist a cute little girl asking if they can take a picture with her."

I walked away empty-handed art-wise — but scored big daddy points because I was friends with all these awesome characters. Bonus points for the fact that every one of these photos was her idea. She actually wanted to get her photo taken with the big scary "I'm going to eat your face alien.

She's a dork by osmosis. And dad couldn't be prouder.

K sought out the Preadator.
She's come a long way from being scared of stormtroopers.

What can I say? She likes Batman.
Even this Batman.

And she likes Catwoman. She takes after her father.

I think she's finally taller than R2-D2.

I'm not sure what I liked best about Spider-Man.
The fact that he jumped all over the place and made my girl laugh — or the fact that he was one of the few male cosplayers who understood that it's best to wear some kind of undergarment with your spandex.
There are some things that just better left unseen.

Even Thor can't keep a straight face when K brings out the gun show.

Funny that one year ago this weekend we were in Disney World trying to get photos with all of K's favorite princesses. And the one we couldn't find was Ariel. 
Who knew she'd be in Phoenix this weekend?

Again with the black leather. I swear this was her idea.
C'mon, look at her face and tell me she's not eating this up.

We still haven't let K watch the Star Wars prequels, so she only kind of knew who this was. But hey — cool dress.

We put K into a storytelling class where the kids got to offer up ideas, learn basic plot structure and put it all together with the help of an illustrator.
Somehow K was the one he pulled out of the crowd to show how to make something ordinary into something fantastic.

And thus the mermaid theme is continued.

Doing the Graduation Hula

Ham runs in the family.

It's official. She has donned the traditional plastic flower head dress and craft paper grass skirt. She has danced the Graduation Hula and grabbed her diploma.

She is officially on her way to Kindergarten.

It feels like we just enrolled her in the preschool program at this school — but that was two and a half years ago now. She's grown a lot in that time — I think she's going on 30 now. I seriously have to fight the urge to treat her like an adult.

Happy graduation day, kid. Pass the poi.

Dig the banana hats, guys.

Warning future educators — It's going to be hard to beat Ms. Wanda out for the favorite teacher status. Those are big shoes to fill.

Once upon a time ...

It's Fairy Tale Week at school — an here's the kid's take on it all.
Bonus points for "porage." Based on the spelling you know she came up with that herself. Either that or school needs to spend more money on books of higher quality for her to copy from.
And yes, Lumpy should be capitalized as it is a brand-name porridge.

Meeting the New Elephants at the Zoo

Surprise! Neighbors were at the zoo too.

Feeding the giraffes was one of the highlights of the trip.

But we were really all about the new elephant family at our city's zoo. There are five of them, including a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old sister and brother.

Kaylee and dad with the papa of the elephant herd. He weighs 10,500 pounds!

Spring Performance

Time to get funky y'all

Getting ready for the Cha Cha Slide...

Doing the Cha Cha

Angry pants and space aliens

Kaylee doesn't wear pants.

It's not that she doesn't like them – she hates them. She's constantly complaining about how uncomfortable they are and how they hurt her belly.

Being good parents, we chalk it up to her just wanting to only wear her dresses and ignore her.

Ow. My belly hurts.

It does not.

Yes it does. Look!

Now imagine our surprise when we find, not ten minutes after having her put the pants on, an angry red line cutting across her mid-section.

The pants! They're too small! That's the problem!

To Target!

Now, nothing excites me more than hanging out in the clothing section of our local department store and watching my wife pick up every pair of pants.

Every. Pair. Of. Pants.

Seriously, I don't think she leaves a stone unturned. If there is a 5T pair of pants to find, she's going to have them in her hands. And half of them aren't good enough. I personally don't see much difference between this one or that one – but then that's probably why she's the one doing the looking.

So I do what every other dad does. I wander.

I usually find myself drifting over to the boys' clothing section. Let's face it – 6-year-old boys and I are practically the same demographic when it comes to our interests. Monsters. Legos. Super heroes …

So it was no surprise when I grabbed a Star Wars shirt off the rack and showed it to my daughter. And since she's my daughter, she was actually interested in it.

It was a nice shirt. One of those vintage-looking numbers with a long-sleeved tee sewn inside. On the front there was a grid of various characters from the original trilogy.

Being the good dad that I am, I began to quiz her on the various droids, bounty hunters and scruffy-looking nerd-herders.

She did pretty well …

That's Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight.

Princess Leia. (Of course she knows the princess.)

Han Solo. He's friends with Chewbacca.

Ummm … Star Wars alien …

IT'S A TRAP!*

Someday, this girl is going to be so embarrassed to admit the things she knows. But right now, I'm so proud of my little geek.

* Basically, the point of this whole post was to get to this punch line. If you don't understand this, or didn't find it humorous, I can't help you. In fact, you are probably my father.**

** NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!***

*** C'mon. Even my Dad has to get that reference.

Bikin'

She's getting harder and harder to keep up with. At least on foot.

Pals

I'm too lazy to crop and/or tone (or even caption) these today. But I figure the cuteness of it all overshadows that.

Yeehaw

I think we finally found a way to get her to wear blue jeans. Unfortunately, I don't think we can let her wear the same shirt every day. (And mom's hat is a little big on her.)

Even if it would make her smell like a cowboy.

Lipstick for elephants

Dad, look what I did. I put lipstick on my elephant. You should take a picture of it and put it on the blogs. That's why I did it. So you would put it on the blogs.

Random Collection of Kaylee Photo Fun

Hanging with Uncle Chuck and Erin at Sabino Canyon

Hanging with two girlfriends at the cupcake shop

Hanging with her bestie at the comic shop

Being "Ladybug Girl" -- a character from one of her favorite books

Playing "bug squad" with bestie and new friend made at the zoo

Showing Uncle Chuck and Erin it's brave to put their feet in the water

Trying not to get her dress wet

Watching out for her toes

Feeling the big splash

Warming up in the sand at Sabino Canyon

Taking the lead

Putting on the sunscreen

Singing...

Singing...

Cracking herself up