Preschool Graduation

Last week was Samuel's graduation from preschool. I went a little overboard taking pictures and videos, as you can see below.

Here are Becca and Memere before the ceremony started:

The ceremony:

The class walking in to "Pomp and Circumstance" and then reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:

One of his teachers said what she would remember about each child. Here's what Ms. Chris will remember about Samuel:

Here the kids are singing some songs:

After the ceremony, we went back to the classroom for some snacks:

Here is Samuel with his teachers - Ms. Carol and Ms. Chris:

Moms Day at Preschool

Last week Samuel had a special day at preschool where all of the moms came in to school. The kids showed us around the classroom, gave their moms presents they made (a paper flower and a painting), and did centers with us. We also listened to a story, sang songs in chapel, and had to guess which picture about "what my mom likes" was by our kid (more on that below.)

Here are some pictures from the day:







Samuel and his friend Caitlyn doing neat shape puzzles:

This was Samuel's "what my mom likes" picture. Apparently the teacher wrote down verbatim what each kid said about their mom, and then the kids drew pictures to go with it. All of the pictures were up on a bulletin board with no names on them. You had to read each one and then flip it up to see if your child's name was on the back. I think if you click on the picture, you can see a larger view of it to read Samuel's words. His cracked me up, especially the part about not being sure what color hair I had, and the part about me liking to sleep because I get "woke up all the night." So true!

Easter pictures

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to take the kids to have their pictures taken with a real bunny and chicks. Of course I jumped all over this because I know in the (not so distant, probably) future, Samuel will balk at me wanting to take cutesy pictures of him like this. Becca is a HUGE animal lover so she was in heaven patting the bunny and chicks. Samuel, while he had fun looking at the animals, was most amused when the chicks pooped on the floor. 100% boy, I tell you.

Many thanks to Abbie from Keepsake Portraits and Designs for doing such a great job! There's a good chance that if you read this blog, you got an Easter card made from one of the images from this session. Here are some of the other shots from that day:

Messy

Yogurt: it's not just for eating anymore.

Recent Pictures

Here are some pictures of the kids from the past few weeks:

Becca playing in the big box of rice we call the scooping box:

If you look closely, you will see she is trying to eat some of the rice here. She is WAY more of a biter/taster/eater of non-food items than Samuel ever was. We are constantly telling her not to eat things like crayons, paper, etc...

Samuel working on spelling names with some blocks:

Becca wants to do EVERYTHING that Samuel does. In this picture, he climbed up on a chair to reach something on the counter, and Becca decided she needed to be up there too:



Here they are watching a movie on the computer. Becca has become obsessed with Little Einsteins lately and asks all the time for "annie? june?" However, she only wants to sit still for the theme song, then she gets bored, or asks you to play the song over and over and over again. Thank goodness for shows being available through disney's website or through netflix. It makes it easy (although hardly enjoyable to the adults) to play the theme song 500 times in a row.

Cousins

I took the kids to South Bend this week to see Meg, Lilly, and baby Zach. We attempted to get a picture of all 4 kids together, but that was easier said than done. Becca clearly did not want to sit on the couch to have her picture taken. Here is what we ended up with:

Becca did not want to sit on the couch because she was in love with this little play kitchen that Lilly has. She wanted to play with it for almost the entire time we were there. She loved opening and closing the microwave and saying "ding dong, ding dong." I am definitely going to look for one of these at garage sales this summer.

Here is a picture of Samuel and Zach. Before we got there, I kept reminding Samuel that Zach was going to be really little and that we would have to be very gentle with him. So then Samuel asked me - "is he bigger than a banana?" Um, yes, I think he is.

Family Fun Night

I have been awful about posting on our blog lately. I think it's because we have been the house of germs for the past few weeks, with everyone getting colds/ear infections/coughs, etc... and there is nothing fun to write on the blog about that. Darn you preschool, with your insistence on sharing everything - including germs!

We did manage to go to Family Fun Night at Samuel's school last week. It had a carnival theme with lots of different games set up where the kids could earn tickets. At the end, they could cash their tickets in for little prizes. Here are some pictures:

Making a mask by scratching off the black part to reveal colored paper underneath:

I'm not really sure what these were, but Samuel seemed to like them:

Visiting Clifford:

This one is hard to see, but it's Samuel in the bounce house. I think this was his favorite thing:

Choosing his prize at the end of the night: