Animal Presentations

Savannah's class has been working hard on gathering information on animals for the past few weeks. They had an at home art project that they worked on and also an in school project where they worked with a partner to develop an oral presentation on a different animal.  Savannah was paired with Rylee and they researched the Tiger.  Today was the day that parents were invited in to see the presentations.  I was amazed at their work with Microsoft paint in drawing the animal on the computer and also in their presentation skills.  It was very cute! 

Here is Savannah's at home project that she completed on the giraffe.  She worked hard, alone, and was quite proud of her work. :)

Spring Challenge Run

Luke and Preston warming up for the challenge run

Savannah and I running hard!

Mrs. Safran's class picture

Yummy popsicles for everyone :)

Cooling down after the run

Today was the Spring challenge run for Savannah's class.  The PE classes have been preparing and practicing for some time now to get ready to try to beat their number of laps from the Fall.  Our family was super excited to be able to participate with Savannah today.  I ran with her the entire 8 minutes and Preston was able to watch (and cheer) with daddy from the sidelines.  He was really more excited that Luke, his best friend from WEE school, was also there to watch his brother Jack.  It was such a fun morning!  Oh, and Savannah ran 5.75 laps (about .8 of a mile) before time was called. Way to go Savannah!!!

He Finally Gave In To Naptime

Lately Preston has pretty much given up nap time . . and rest time for that matter too.  But this afternoon I noticed that it was super quiet upstairs and when I went to check on him this is what I found.  He was passed out on the floor with his B on his chest, some gold play coins in one hand, and the train table pieces all over the floor.  Silly boy!  I guess he had done all the playing he could handle and just fell asleep right where he was.  Oh, and you gotta love the socks with shorts look, I guess he wanted to keep his feet warm. :)

Easter & Spring *Break* 2013

 

Savannah and Preston in their Easter outfits

Spring Break started this year with Easter.  Well, we had Good Friday off too, but I used that day running around trying to find Easter shoes for the kids outfits and doing various other errands.  We also enjoyed a friend's birthday party at Monkey Joe's on Saturday before Easter.  Then we woke up bright and early Sunday to see what the Easter bunny left, packed the car, headed to the early service at church, and then drove to Burlington for the day.

 

Great Grandma with Graham Cracker himself!

How sweet is this picture.  I LOVE it!!!

Easter family picture

Pawpaw with Savannah and Preston

 After a long day of travel on Sunday, but much fun, the Spring *Break* week began with My Gym camp on Monday morning.  Both Savannah and Preston went and had a blast! 

Tuesday we met some friends at Space Kidets for a morning of jumping and playing.

Wednesday we ventured to Carowinds for the morning.  Thanks to Grammy and Papa we all have season passes again this year so we started early with enjoying a day there during Spring *Break*!  It was quite windy, but super sunny and fun!!  The kids had a blast with the Poplin boys and I have to say I enjoyed being able to talk to Elizabeth too. :)


Snoopy photo shoot

Preston was chosen from the audience to participate in the peanut show

Thursday we enjoyed a day at home!  We invited some friends over for dinner and loved being entertained by their 2 year old twins before the daddies arrived for dinnertime

 

Friday was Charleston time!!  We woke up and got all packed up and hit the road for Charleston so Dave could run the Cooper River Bridge race.  The kids were over the moon excited about staying in a hotel (I won't post the picture of them jumping on the bed or the one I should have taken of Preston falling out of the bed in the middle of the night) and loved the mini vacation.

Savannah wanted a picture with the horse that pulled our carriage

 They enjoyed their first carriage ride on Friday before dinner.  As we walked down Meeting Street we found a Peanut shop that had tons of delicious samples.  Here is our Peanut with daddy.

Then we woke up Saturday and could see the race from the window of our hotel.  We watched for a bit from the warmth of the hotel and then ventured down to watch for daddy to race by.  He did great and finished the 10k in under 50 minutes!  Of course there were tons of freebies and food afterwards that we all enjoyed.


Savannah and Dave with their "hotdogs"

Way to go daddy!!

Ending out the Charleston adventure with a trip down Waterfront Park

 We met up with some friends, the Annans, at the park under the bridge where the kids enjoyed playing and getting out some excess energy before we hit the road to head home.  It was such a fun trip!!  So it's Tuesday now and I'm still trying to recover and catch up from our Spring *Break* and wondering why they call it a break at all . . . other than no school, it was more work for me and super busy too. 

Happy 8th Birthday Alyssa!

This past weekend we were able to celebrate our sweet niece Alyssa's 8th birthday with her!  She and her mommy went to a concert in Charlotte on Friday night and then came to our house to spend the night.  Of course my kids were up WAY before she was on Saturday so we decided to surprise Alyssa with a birthday banner and balloons.  Then we all got ready and headed to Greenville for the cupcake decorating party!

Preston was very serious about decorating his cupcakes

The Beautiful Birthday Girl with her 3 cupcakes

It was such a fun party where we all decorated cupcakes and then got to eat them!  Afterwards the three little kiddos found the coin toy machines . . . it was Preston's first time using one so it was funny watching him figure out how to put the money in and turn the knob to get the prize.

Grammy helping Preston, Aiden, and Ashley

Alyssa, thanks for inviting us to your party. We had a great time!! Our prayer for you is that your year is filled with lots of fun adventures, great friends, and blessings too many to count. 

We Love You!!!

Just Nuts!!

That's what I feel like the past two weeks have been, just pure nuts!!  I have been trying my best to gather and tag all of the consignment items for the sale tomorrow ( I dropped off almost 350 items today) and trying to keep up with everything else around the house too.  Just last week I did 27 mystery shops and then another 10 this week, plus had my regular tutoring students and volunteer time at Savannah's school.  After my 4 hour volunteer shift this afternoon at the consignment sale you'd think I'd be able to sleep well .  . but it's well past midnight and I'm still wide awake so I thought I'd get up and be productive. :)

Along with the craziness, last Saturday Preston finally got to start his soccer clinic!  He was one happy boy.  Dave and I are probably a bit biased, but we think he did a fairly decent job, especially compared to the other kids.

Preston front and center ready for SOCCER!

Doing a great job dribbling the soccer ball

Savannah has been staying busy too.  She has been a great help watching Preston while I tutor and keeping up with her homework too.  Both kids are now to the point that they play well with other neighborhood kids so that makes the afternoons a bit more fun for them.  Although I do have to say that some of the older neighborhood kids need more supervision than my own . . . last week they took the screens out of the shed and got the spigot turned on to spray each other with water.  Ugh!  Preston thinks he is one of the big kids and plays right along with them. 

One final cute thing to share.  One morning as Savannah was leaving for school she told me that she left me a note on the treadmill.  I guess she knew I'd find it there. :)  Here is it:

Hilarious!  She is taking my message of keeping stuff picked up seriously!  Mama has no time for messes lately.  So, here's to an awesome consignment sale tomorrow, where I sell a lot of junk and find a lot of treasures to bring home too.

First Soccer Clinic ~ Cancelled

Soccer clinic Day 1

For weeks now Preston has been anticipating this day, his first soccer "game".  Actually it's just a soccer clinic at the YMCA to teach little ones the basics of soccer.  We had his shin guards and cleats all ready and he talked about it non stop yesterday.  Then we looked out a bit before the 10am practice this morning and it was pouring down snow!!  As I type this it has been snowing for about 2 hours and it just beautiful . . . but not pretty enough to take away the disappointment from Preston's face when we got to the Y and realized they had just cancelled the clinic. :(   We were there just long enough to get good and muddy!!


 

We were wearing our PJs as one layer because Bruster's has free waffle cones today if you wear your jammies, but unfortunately that too was a bust because since the clinic  was cancelled, when we got to Bruster's they weren't open yet.  Oh well, at least the snow is a nice, pretty surprise!