Last Day Of Preschool

Haylee's last day of preschool was yesterday.  Every year (well, this year and last - since that's all we have experienced) Haylee's school puts on an end of the year program and potluck.  The parents are invited to play in their child's room before the actual program, then the kids sing to us and then we have lunch.  They practice their Bible versus that they have learned throughout the year and then there are always a few songs that they learn just for this program.  I love going to her school and seeing her interact with her friends and teachers.  She is such a big girl.

Here are some pictures of Haylee from yesterday.

This is Haylee and her two best friends.
The girl in the brown is Lauren and the girl next to her is Haylie.
The three of them are ALWAYS together and are such great friends.

Here are some videos of their singing!

This was the last song they sang for us.  It made all of the parents laugh!  They did great!

After the children were done singing, the kids came and sat with their parents and the teachers said that they had one final thing to show us.  The video is fairly lengthy, and I couldn't get it to upload to the blog, so I will just have to tell you about it.  Beth and Michelle asked for a baby picture of our preschooler.  They then took that picture and put it next to a current picture of our child.  They mixed in that slide with pictures of the kids throughout the year.  It was wonderful.  They even made us a copy of it.  What a wonderful keepsake not only for us, but for the kids as well!  Ms Beth and Ms Michelle are amazing women.  Everyday they come in and teach our children their numbers, letters, colors, and the basics of what our educational system should, but they also teach her about God, about loving each other and about being a better person.  I know that Byron and I had a hand in this - we've been her parents for 5 years now, we must have started and done something right!  But Beth and Michelle continue our expectations and love onto Haylee while she is at school.  It is so hard to find teachers who are truly good at that.  I trust Little Lights; the women who teach there to continue to love and "grow" my child while I am working.  I have been struggling lately with the thought that I work and someone else is there to help raise my child.  Haylee said that she wanted to go home with us after her program was over and both Byron and I had to tell her that she had to stay because mommy and daddy had to go back to work....she said that all of her other friends got to go home with their moms, why can't she come home.  I cried the whole way back to work....I know that Byron and I could make the choice to change our lifestyle so that I could stay home with our children, but I also know that I love what I do for my career, and I know that I am good at what I do.   I also know that I love seeing my daughter and son come home from school and daycare and tell me about what they learned that day; painting with spaghetti, going on a treasure hunt, playing dress up with her friends.   It is a balance that Byron, Haylee, Carter and I will have to continue to do.  It is events like the program that I cherish, that I will hold onto as tight as I can to see that my child has and is changing and growing.  I am a good mom, my husband is a wonderful father.  We are making our way through life as a working family - my children are happy healthy and are beautiful....I guess I can't ask for more than that!  I love Little Lights and I am so thankful for Beth and Michelle, they have been phenomenal teachers, and I can't express my gratitude to them for carrying on for me when I drop my daughter off.

Thank you to Little Lights and Ms. Beth and Ms. Michelle for everything!

Mini Green Thumb In the Works

It is no secret that I really don't have much of a green thumb, but I am slowly learning.   Haylee loves to help dig in the garden, water the flowers, follow her daddy around when he mows the lawn....

Haylee's preschool was learning about spring time and how things begin to grow again in the spring.  They sent home a bean in a plastic bag, and trying to learn from your 4 year old what you are supposed to do with a bean in a damp paper towel sealed in a plastic bag is not that easy!  Just because she can talk, doesn't mean she can transfer what she learned from school to us!

We decided to plant the bean in dirt in a pot (since I kind of have the hang of that!).  We let her keep the pot in her room as a special privilege for her, and she made sure, every morning to look at her bean and to make sure that she told us it needs to be watered.  We let her water it herself and take care of it.  Below are the results of her hard work!  I am so proud of her...I know it isn't like having a pet, but it is teaching her to take responsibility for things she wants.

*On a side note, she did amazing at watering the plant and it got so tall that the stalk actually broke.  We are now trying to figure out what to get her so she can start again!

What the Heck Mother Nature?!?!

I have worked so hard to get flowers to bloom in the backyard, to get our flowers planted in the pots early in the year so we can enjoy them, and then MOTHER NATURE steps in and decides to dump rain and hail and wind for over an hour at my house and completely destroy all of my flowers and trees!  I used to have pretty blooms and now I have green sticks sticking up from the ground with no color!

We are hoping that once we dead head them they will grow back - let's put it this way - they BETTER grow back!

Here are some photos of the damage and the hail left in the grass.  I appreciate the rain water (helps to keep our water bill down and it makes everything beautifully green!) but mother nature can keep the hail and wind!

If you look back a few posts, you can see what the flowers USED to look like!  Here's to hoping that they grow back!

Old School

B and I were grocery shopping this past weekend when we came across a Colorado Rockies display in the grocery store.  In the display there were tons of Rockies gear, baseball related things, and then....as you got to the middle of the display, we saw:

Big League Chew!  Does anyone else remember Big League Chew?!  B and I immediately started laughing with each other and remembering how when we were younger we would feel like total bad-asses when we would chew Big League Chew!   It doesn't taste as good as it did when we were kids, but we couldn't pass up buying it!

So, the question we pose to you: what do you remember from your youth (however young you want to go!) that you loved at the time and it has totally faded from your memories?!  Banana clips?  Snap bracelets?  Pogs?  Think, and then post your favorite!

Too Young?!

I went out with my very good friend Kimberly for pedicures today....it was lovely!  Its sooooo good to catch up with her and to just sit and visit.  The weather was cold, so I bought us some Starbucks and we met up at the salon to have our toes prettied!  After having a wonderful pedicure, I was joking with both Kim and the girl who did my toes, saying that I was going to have a hard time trying to duplicate the flowers on my toes, onto Haylee's toes, since I told Haylee I would do her toes when I got home.  That's when the trouble started....the girl told me that they did pedicures and manicures for little girls...thinking it would be outrageously priced, I asked her how much....I wish it were outrageously priced, because now I have started down a path of getting pedicures with my daughter - and she's only 4 1/2!  I decided to take her back today and get her nails done.  She picked out her color (thank goodness she picked a pretty one - there were some WILD colors there!) and sat in the pedicure chair.  It was so adorable; she held still while getting everything done and even walked with her hands in the air as we were leaving so she didn't touch anything.  It was so funny, half the women in there had looks of "I can't believe that she is having her daughter's nails professionally done" and the other half's look said "that's so adorable!"  

I think it is totally worth it, and I look forward to many pedicures with my daughter!

Here are some pictures of her first professional pedi and mani!

Sean May Memorial Run

This morning was the 3rd Annual Sean May Memorial Run at Barr Lake.  It was a chilly run!  After the previous two races that I convinced family to join, they didn't even fight when I brought up this race.   Mom was stuck at work this morning, so Dad volunteered to push the kids in the stroller while B, Erin and I ran it; he got a better work out than he was expecting!  Byron finished first out of all of us with a time around 28 minutes, I came in second with a time of 30:06, Erin finished with a time around 31:40, and Dad finished up at 41:19.  

As I posted in my running of the green post, I challenged Dad to beating him in this race.  I am going to give him props and say he won again.  He not only pushed the stroller with both kids in it, but he RAN while pushing the stroller!  I bow down to him and give him kudos!  He did great!

They held a kids race too that Haylee participated in....she got a medal and a ribbon - it's her 1st!  She did great running with all the other kids!

No pictures of this race...it was too cold this morning and we wanted to get home!

Here's to next year!

New Favorite Game

As Carter gets older, his personality comes out more and more.  He LOVES cars (shocking, given who his dad is, I know!) We have about 20 monster trucks and cars lined up on all of the ledges in our house.  He has a few tools that he loves too.  I love that he can say "hamma" (hammer) and he likes to pound on things, fixing and hammering things.  But perhaps, his most favorite new game (and we have had to start hiding it as he throws AWFUL temper tantrums when it's time to put it away) is Don't Break the Ice.  In this game, you have little plastic squares that are suspended in the blue outer frame.  In the center of the ice rink is a guy.  You have mini hammers (can't figure out why he likes the game so much!) and you carefully hammer out each of the plastic squares.  You don't want to be the one that makes the little guy in the middle fall down or "break the ice".   Carter gets the idea of the game (as best as he can) but once you let him hammer a little bit, he can't stop and take turns....

Take a look at the videos!

Spring Has Sprung

I had a phenomenal Mother's Day this year.  B let me sleep in (I slept until 8:00am!  Can you believe that?!)  and while I was sleeping he took the kids to the store and bought donuts and flowers for me....sounds silly, but donuts are a treat in our house!  The kids were nice enough to save me a heart shaped sprinkle donut.

After we got changed we headed out to Lowe's where we bought flowers for the year.  The kids are old enough to actually be a help, so we got home and flower planting began!  Haylee was a terrific help, and let me plant and then watered the heck out of the flower pots.

Our yard is finally coming together.  The last few years have taken a lot of hard work in getting old plants out, building the patio, the planters, and finally the last two years putting in perennials....the yard looks beautiful.  I took some pictures of the flowers that we have and that Haylee helped me plant.

We have even more flowers that have come up all over the yard...the Clematis is on year number three and is flourishing!  I might have a small green thumb forming! 

After the kids woke from their nap we headed over to my parents house for a BBQ.  My mom is retiring from her job in July, so to help her make it through the last few months of what has turned into a chaotic job, Haylee made Grandma a countdown chain.  There were 64 rings on the chain, and Grandma was very excited to have something help her count down to sudo-retirement!

Hope everyone enjoyed their Mother's Day as much as I did!  Thanks to all you beautiful strong women who have paved the way for those of us just starting!  You are amazing role models!