End of the Year Breakfast

Mackenzie's Kindergarten Graduation is tonight! I'm guessing that will be a whole separate blog posting, so I'm posting some pics from yesterday and today right now. Mackenzie received a Willow Tree Angel, Courage, as a part of her graduation present from Nona (my mom). She is extremely proud of her special gift!
This morning we (David, Mackenzie, Josiah, Granna, Z-pa, and myself) attended a breakfast at school for Mackenzie's class from 8:00am to 9:00am, and then one for Josiah's class from 9:00am to 10:00am! What a memorable morning! Above is a picture of Mackenzie with her friend, Avery. All the kids signed each other's year books today.

Here's a picture of Mackenzie receiving her award from Mrs. Haluska. She was presented with an Almond Joy as she is always joyful. She comes into the classroom in the mornings with a smile on her face and seems to always be smiling. Neat award! I am proud of her.

Mackenzie with Mrs. Haluska, her wonderful teacher. This was the last day of Kindergarten. Actually, yesterday was the last full day. Today is simply the breakfast (out of dress code!) and graduation tonight. Big day, indeed. We presented the Shutterfly book I made for Mrs. Haluska today, too. I think she likes it. :) Each child has a page in it, full of pictures from the year. The last few pages of the book are quotes directly from the children. Kinda like interviews with them. I have a copy for Mackenzie, too. All the kids signed the inside page of the book. They were proud of that!

Then we headed to Josiah's breakfast. I like this picture of him with his best buddy, Kameron. Brady is the girl on the other side of Josiah. They, too, are buddies.

Mrs. Missi with Josiah.

Mrs. Missi with her whole class full of kids! Aren't they cuties?! Back row from left to right: Brooke, Kenley, Ava, Mrs. Missi, Lexi, Josiah. Front row from left to right: Brady and Kameron.

They have a great class and have had a wonderful year in the 3's MDO.

Mother's Day and Grandparents

We are enjoying a visit from David's parents this week. It was convenient to get some updated pictures of us all together at church this morning! I was pleased with how they turned out. The six of us together.
Z-Pa and Granna with Mackenzie and Josiah. I love how this one turned out of all four of them!

Here's a picture of David and me that Mackenzie took for us today! Not bad for a 5 1/2 year old! She didn't even have it set up on the tripod or anything. :)

Thanks, Mackenzie, for a great picture.

Here's my two boys. Aren't they handsome?! We have to "catch" Josiah for pictures these days. He's always on the go and seldom stops long enough to pose. :) David scooped him up and we snapped the picture of the two of them laughing. I like it!

And, since this past week was the last full week of Kindergarten, Mackenzie invited some friends over to play. (We'd been meaning to have them over for quite a while, but the year nearly got away from us!) Above is a picture of Mackenzie and Savannah. Sweet girls!

They enjoyed decorating their own shirts.

On Mother's Day (yeah, I'm behind on my blogging) we ate lunch at Sam's Club after church and then went swimming! The evening before David and the kids took me to eat at The Butcher Shop. We figured it would be too crowded to eat out on Mother's Day! Anyways, we had a wonderful day.

And since I had not had any recent pictures with my two precious kiddos, David snapped some for me...in the parking lot at Sam's Club! We forgot while we were still at church with all the nice greenery around us. :)

I like how the quick ones at Sam's turned out, though. :)

David made a collage picture for me, gave me a picture frame that says "Mom" and has the scriptures from Proverbs 31 about her children and husband praising and blessing her. I cried. I love those verses and am so humbled that he found a frame like that and bought it for me! He also gave me some new (really nice!) flip flops and pajamas, too. It was truly a wonderful day. I feel incredibly blessed and loved. (Josiah was too busy playing to come join us for the above picture.)

I suppose my next post will be about Mackenzie's Kindergarten Graduation, which is this coming Tuesday night...followed by Josiah's 4th Birthday later this month! Busy times, but wonderful.

Mother's Day Tea

Here's a quick update of our garden. We even have some tiny green tomatoes growing out there! Another view of the garden.
Green beans, okra, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, and peppers.


Today was the "Mother's Day Tea" for Josiah's 3 year old Mother's Day Out class.

When I arrived, Josiah was sitting at his table with two pieces of paper made especially for me!

Here's Josiah and his best buddy, Kameron. These boys are just a little over 2 months apart. As hard as it is to believe, Josiah will be 4 years old on May 24!

Here's Josiah with his WONDERFUL teacher, Mrs. Missi. She has done an amazing job of setting a positive tone for Josiah's whole educational career! We love Mrs. Missi!

Sweet pic of Josiah and Mrs. Missi.

Here is one of the two papers Josiah made for me. You may have to click on the picture to make it big enough to read. It is priceless!!! They were told to draw a picture of their mom. The one in the middle is me as a baby. The one on the left is me as a little girl. The one on the right is me all grown up! That's how Josiah explained the picture to me today. I love it!!!

Above is a hand print flower of Josiah's hand with a sweet poem, too. My favorite part is that I now have a laminated copy of Josiah's signature! He's been writing his own name, all by himself, for quite some time now (at least since last semester). Pretty impressive for a little guy who's still 3 (for a few more weeks)!

I loved the interview so much that I typed up one with Mackenzie after school today. The above sheet of paper is hers. Her answers were precious, and you can see her signature and her drawing of me, too!

This is a picture that Mrs. Missi had saved from August 2009. Josiah drew it himself. He told her that it was him with his soccer ball. (The assignment was to draw a self portrait.) Well done! He was 3 yr 3 mo at the time!

This picture (above) is of Josiah "all growed up." He drew this self portrait this week (May 2010)! Kids are hilarious and totally priceless. I have had a wonderful Mother's Day already!!! I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day, too! :)

Tiki Pineapples

Several years ago, when David and I were in Cancun, we enjoyed some type of fruit drink out of a "tiki pineapple." Today, a grocery store was selling pineapples for .99 cents each! We were excited about the price, and David surprised us by buying four of them! Mackenzie, our crafty kid, LOVED getting to help her daddy build the tiki pineapples!
And since the price on pineapples was SO good, David and Mackenzie made one for each of us!

Then David let the kids choose between chocolate or vanilla milkshake. Josiah chose vanilla, and Mackenzie chose chocolate. The kids loved drinking their milkshakes from the pineapple head!

Two very busy kids. :)
What fun for all of us! Thanks, David, for taking the time and energy to do something special like that for us. Love ya!

H2H and Reading Together

Last night as I was cleaning up the kitchen, I could here Mackenzie say to Josiah, "Do you want me to read you a story?" He excitedly said yes, and the two climbed up onto the love seat together to read. Josiah sat and listened while Mackenzie read to him. It was so precious that I grabbed the camera to capture the moment. Too bad I didn't think to grab the video camera! Her reading abilities amaze me daily.
Here's some pictures of our H2H (home Bible study) group that I snapped last night. I thought the kids were so cute all circled up in our living room! They were listening intently, at least when I took this picture, to Cindy M. and the lesson. Fun group! That's 14 kids, in case you're trying to count them. :)

Zoomed in on our two. Josiah was holding the ball that had been tossed to him as a part of the lesson about being thankful for our blessings.

Here's a picture from the other direction of our group. We are thankful to be a part of this neat group of people!

Our Yard

Our yard is looking better by the day! We are enjoying the gradual process of planting things in various and asundery locations. This post might bore you if you're not family. Just warning you! (Actually, even random readers might enjoy the froggy pictures at the end of the post!) Josiah, while playing with me in the yard today, asked for me to get the camera out and take a picture! Needless to say, I RAN for the camera. You have to be fast or you might miss that photo opportunity with him. :) I was delighted that he sat still long enough for me to snap some new pics of him. So, above is a picture of my cute little boy who is growing up too fast!!!
Here's a couple of pictures of our garden boxes. These are the same ones we used last year. We just added a little more compost/topsoil to top them off this year.

David has added some nice stepping stones in between them, and I planted cucumber seeds, tomato plants, yellow squash seeds in the box on the right. On the left, I planted okra seeds, green bean seeds, and a couple of pepper plants. It feels good to have the planting done! Now for the watering and watching it grow....(the kids were great little helpers in planting, too!)

If you look closely, you'll notice a new Autumn Princess Encore Azalea in the corner of the fence, just beyond the swing set.

And, in the corner by the gate, we have another one just like it! The two new azalea's add some much needed color to the yard.

Here's an up close of the blooming azalea.

Here's my crepe myrtle from my Grannie New's yard. It is still in winter-mode but will be pretty before too long! I took this picture because I have a surprise from my Grannie's yard...the heart shaped leafy plant with tiny purple flowers that sprang up at the base of the crepe myrtle!

Here's an up close pic of the surprise plant.

Last fall, David and the kids planted tulip bulbs on one side of our house. What fun for all of us to see them growing this Spring! (Also, notice the lights David added along side of our house. They are a nice addition to the yard. He put some across the front of the house, too.)

I love the pretty purple tulips! I was pleased with how this picture turned out, if I do say so myself! The fact that we have a Creator God seems so obvious in the Spring, doesn't it?!

Here's Josiah checking the mail box. Notice the daffodils we planted beside the mailbox. That crepe myrtle will look better this summer. :)

And...this afternoon the kids found a frog! Josiah named it "toad." He wanted to keep it, but we talked him into setting it free. ;)

Up close of Josiah and his new friend, "Toad."

Mackenzie enjoyed holding "toad," too, but he jumped right out of her hands. She was happy to let Josiah hold him after that! :)

We are enjoying the wonderful weather these days. I hope you are, too!