Last day of Preschool!

Can you believe that the school year is coming to an end? I still have two more weeks, but DD#1 finished today. I was able to go to her "promotion" (thanks Lisa). It was a bit chaotic with having the 4 kids tagging along, but it was worth it. DD had a wonderful year and learned a lot this year. It definitely was worth taking all the kids along to get her to school. She is already asking to do her homework that is in her bag.

Miss Haymeth (aide)

Miss Dina (aide)

Miss Dora (teacher)

I made these gifts for her teachers. We made the flowers with cookies and gumdrops. The fillers are paintbrushes, crayons and pencils. They seemed to love them. They turned out pretty cute. I usually have great ideas in my head, but when I try to get them out, they don't quite seem the same. These did turn out pretty close to it.

Bees Game

A while back we went to the YMCA Healthy Kids Day. The kids had to complete certain things at different stations. At one of the stations, they were giving out free Bee tickets. We gladly accepted and made it a family home evening night. We went with our good friends, the Minsons and had a great time. The kids did really well for about 4 innings and then they had it. Luckily, they have a play place with a park and some bounce houses. That was the best part for the kids. The girls were sad to leave "the bee" at his house the beehive. It was a great night for our family.

5th Grade Music Production!!

The years that I have to teach general music, I decide to put on a music production. This way, I only have to teach songs and dances and don't have to teach rhythym and alll that jazz. Well....once again it is my year to have general music. So, at the beginning of the year I put together a "Music Through the Ages" show. I got the theme from a previous production put on by a good friend of mine. I started from scratch with the music and the dances. It is slowly coming together. I had a coworker say that it is more work to do the production than to teach 3 months of general music. True, but I like to cause major stress in my life. :)

We always make our costumes. We don't have any funds coming out way, so it is something that all of us can do and not too expensive. Three years ago, we did a Disney Production and we painted Mickey Mouse on their t-shirts. It was a lot of work. I made stencils of Mickey's face and we sponged the paint on. This year I thought I would do something a little less stressful (or so I thought) I thought I would tie dye t-shirts to represent the 70's. It was a great idea and I didn't think it would take 3 hours to do. But like all of my productions, my grand ideas are a lot of work. But in the end, it is well worth it.

Here are some of the pictures of the time spent doing it. We are putting on the production at the end of this month. It is coming along really well and the students are doing a wonderful job. My stress is turning into excitement.

PS....Remember the Healthy Habit Challenge? My family and I are on week 5 and it is going great! Posting is a point in the journal entry. Hooray for a point!

Happy Birthday Little Man!

At 8:18 AM this morning we sang to DS for his birthday. A year ago today we were in the hospital having this little man. We went in at 6:00 AM and had him in our arms by 8:18 AM. He was the first of my three children to make it to their C-section date. It was really nice going in and having a baby in your arms 2 hours later.

We are so grateful that a year ago this little man joined our family. He has been such a great addtion. His first 5 months were really hard, but since then he has been so fun. His little personality is shining through. He now has a voice and says, "dada, mama, what's that, down, up, taytay (my niece Taylor), bye and uh oh". He signs, "more, all done, food, milk, please, thank you and drink". It is so nice when they can communicate. It helps both of us.

We had him in the Instacare a few weeks ago and he weighed 22.3 lbs. We don't have his year visit until June.

The girls are in love with him and enjoy helping him. DD#1 gets yelled at by him quite a bit because she gets up in his face. He is done having his personal space invaded. He is crawling all around and loves to follow his mom. He has finally started to sleep most of the night. He has only been getting up once a night lately. Phew....that was long and coming. My girls slept through the night at 6 weeks and then started waking up after they turned one. Hopefully he will follow the same pattern, but only reversed. Maybe he will sleep through the night now that he is one??

Happy Birthday sweet boy. I love you more than you will ever know!!

**I took his month pictures in my dad's recliner chair. I missed 9 months. I don't know how that happened. :(

1st Birthday Party!!!

We celebrated DS's 1st birthday this past Saturday. DH has to work midnights this next week, so we decided to do it a few days early.
I was going to have a bear theme because we call him Brother Bear, but chose to go with a Mr. Potato Head Theme because we also call him "Nater Taters". It was perfect.
Well, we all know their was a huge chance of rain, so we called and reserved the church. We are grateful that we did because it was pouring rain. It worked out perfect for us.

My sister in law made the awesome Mr. Potato Head birthday cake. It was so great. She did a wonderful job!!

We decorated with red and browns. We used actual Mr. Potato heads as centerpieces and Sugar Babies as the candies to represent potatoes.

We set up a table for all the kids to color while we got everything going. It seemed to work out pretty well.

We served a potato bar for lunch. It was really yummy and fairly easy. This was the whole basis of changing the theme.

We showed our traditional first year slide show. It gets me everytime. It is amazing how fast these little ones grow up. I can't believe it. It just seems like yesterday that we were off to have him in the hospital and now he is crawling up on my leg saying, "mama".

DS was so cute when he was eating his smash cake (cupcake). He wouldn't pick it up with his hands, he would just lean over and take bites out of it. It took him about 5 bites before he would touch it. It was so cute. He then was given some ice cream and decided to eat it using Mr. Potato Head's hand to eat. He was so cute with it all.

He really enjoyed opening presents. There were lots of kids around to help. He enjoyed getting new fun toys to play with. He even reacted cute with giggles when seeing the new things.

It was a great day. We played basketball and had fun until it was time to go. I know it is a first birthday and he will not remember it, but I love to celebrate their first year with a bang.

We had a great time and we are so grateful that DS joined our family a year ago. We look forward to many more years and parties. We love you little Nater Taters.

Thanks everyone for making it a great party.