Preschool Graduation

We are just racing toward summer. In fact, it has already come for Andrew. Yesterday was his last day of school and today was preschool graduation. It is hard to believe how much he has grown and learned this year.

Here he is in August.

...and in May.


This is Andrew's class.


The family picture.


Our graduate.


Andrew with Miss Lisa and Miss Chris...wonderful teachers.


The ceremony lasted about 45 minutes. The kids processed in and sat at the front. Then, each kid received a "diploma." They then performed about 6 or 7 songs. They had been working very hard on the songs. Andrew came home every day this spring singing.










Amanda watched from the floor. She was fascinated with the program.

A cake that was enjoyed by all.

A future seamstress?

Spring is passing quickly and summer is on the horizon. The temperatures are rising and my calendar is clearing. The bible study that I attend is over for the year. Andrew finishes pre-school this week and Scott only has 10 more days of school. I've been itching to sew some dresses for Amanda and decided to spend some of my extra time last week to attempt one for her. It is the first dress I've ever made for her and I thought I may be in over my head. But it really wasn't too bad.

Amanda was very excited. I pulled out several pieces of fabric and she selected what she wanted. Here she is measuring herself while I cut out the pattern.



She played with her counting bears while I sewed the dress.


And, found some scrap fabric to try on her baby while I tried the dress on her.




It was much easier to sew with these eager clients. Merry was excited to get a matching dress. As you can see, Ella Christine received the matching birthday dress that my Mom made, so it was Merry's turn to have a matching dress. Ella Christine was hanging out in hopes that I would measure wrong and make it too small. Merry is a bigger baby, so Ella Christine would get the "hand-me-down." And, she almost got it, but I pulled out a seam to make it fit over Merry's head and all was OK again.


Here is Merry modeling her new dress, with Amanda's draped over the chair. This was taken late on Wednesday night.



Amanda put on her dress first thing Thursday morning. She put it on over her jammies.





Amanda poses in her new dress with Andrew and his friend Bubba. Bubba is a friend from preschool that we are caring for this weekend. We will return him tomorrow, along with a journal entry about what he did this weekend.

Ants!

My brother and his family gave Scott an ant farm for his birthday and it has been one of the best and most interesting gifts we have ever received. We love watching the ants. We watch them every day to see what they are eating and what new tunnels they are building. I have never known how fascinating ants are.


Yes, they sit on our kitchen counter. Yes, I check on them every morning when I get up.


And, yes, I see great irony as I gaze at them and then smash a few sugar ants that scamper across the counter. I can handle them in the cage, but not free on the counter.


And we also have another experiment on the counter...a shark that is supposed to grow 600% in water. We'll see how much he grows, but my counter space is starting to get low.

Fernbank

Scott's birthday present from us this year was a membership to Fernbank Museum of Natural History. He was thrilled. We have already been twice and also been to the Discovery Place Museum in Charlotte. We plan to use it often this year.










































On our second visit, we just took Scott. He basked in the light of being an only child and really enjoyed seeing the museum at his own pace.

He took this picture of Derrick and me. I was impressed with the fact that it was centered and clear.

creating new words

On Monday I picked Andrew up from preschool and took him and Amanda to run errands. He was so excited that Tuesday was the day he was going to play at his friend David's house. He was just overflowing with plans for their time together.

"Mom, I think we are going to play tag. Maybe Freeze Tag or maybe regular tag. I guess we'll play regular tag, since there will only be two of us."

I replied, "Yes, it is hard to be unfrozen when you are only playing with two people. Where did you learn to play freeze tag? Was it at school."

"Yes, we were playing on the playground with a whole junk of kids."

I said, "What is a "junk" of kids? Where did you learn that term?"

"I made it up. I know a junk yard is where there is a big pile of stuff, so a junk of kids is a whole bunch of kids."

I'm a mother of a boy...

One day this week, we met the bus at 3:00 and just stayed outside to play.

[Actually, that's what we did most days this week. It is our afternoon routine to meet the bus at 3:00 and stay outside for an hour or so and then go inside for snacks and homework.]

On this day, I was working on the hand sewing for Amanda's dress (more on that in another post), so we had an extended play time. Scott was digging in the dirt and exploring the yard. Andrew was zooming around on his Razor Scooter. Amanda was playing with her babies - swinging them, going down the slide with them and pushing them in her stroller.

Suddenly, Scott called out, "Mom, I have a Mother's Day present for you!" I smiled...how sweet. He ran up to me and opened his fist to reveal a huge handful of earthworms....wriggly...slimy...earthworms. Yuck. I politely declined. He ran off to continue to explore.

A few minutes later, there was another delighted cry of "Mom, I have another present for you!" This time, he gave me a centipede. Again, I thanked him and politely declined (after giving him the definition of what 'decline' means.)

He ran off again. A few minutes later, "Mom, this one is perfect!" This time he came back dangling a snake skin that he found in the compost pile. Before I could decline he said, "Something dead is much better than something slimy or something with 96 legs. Now, I wonder if I can find something for Father's Day..." And, off he went to search.

Amanda's funny comment

This just cracked me up.

The other day, Amanda was insistent that she wanted "duck-duck" for lunch. The only "duck-duck" I know is a favorite lovey of a good friend of ours. At first, I was surprised she wanted to eat the cute little stuffed animal. But, she insisted, "Duck-duck! Duck-duck!" As the frustration levels rose, scoured the refrigerator looking for anything that was close.

Then, I spied it...she really wanted "goose-goose"...or as the rest of us refer to it..."couscous," something she had enjoyed greatly the night before.