Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Picking Peaches

A couple of weeks ago the Bluths came for one of our temple weekends. They come and sleep over and we take turns serving in the temple. 
Saturday after they got back from the temple we headed out to the peach orchards to do some picking. The weather was beautiful and the peaches were delicious!  Followed up by Chick-fil-A made it a perfect day!







Good-bye School

I can't believe another school year has flown by.  This was our first official 'having a child in school' year and it was fabulous.  We were completely spoiled by Cyrena's incredible teacher.  Her first school experience exceeded our expectations in every way.  She had a special kindergarten singing program and then we went back to her class for an awards ceremony and slideshow.  Cyrena did a great job singing in the program.  I held it together just fine until they sang a song called "Everything Grows"--the tears were threatening at that point.  I'm not ready for her to be done with kindergarten! 

Cyrena has grown up so much this year and as David and I watch her we can't help but feel so fortunate that she is ours.  She is so smart and very aware of those around her.  She has become super helpful and cheerful.  Now that she's been home for summer the last two weeks I told her I just might not let her go back!  But she insists that she must go on to first grade.  Cyrena was tested and found eligible for an Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) which will give her teacher some extra materials and tools to challenge her a bit more.  I'm anxious to see how it all works out.  She sure loves learning and received the "librarian' award in her class because of how much she loves to read!


Her amazing teacher, Mrs. Jones.  I'm crossing my fingers that she will continue teaching until Natalie gets to have her!

Cyrena also had a wonderful student teacher, Mrs. Sapp this year.

It was also the end of my preschool year!  This year I had 9 boys in my preschool and then my Natalie.  She was literally the belle of the ball and the boys loved her.  Preschool can be pretty stressful for me and I'm lucky to have an understanding family, especially David.  It can really take over the house.  Even though it's just 2 days a week I put a lot of thought and preparation into what we do.  I love it though, it gives me the focus I need and I also love teaching my own kids.  Next year will be Natalie's first official year in preschool since she now has 2 years until kindergarten.  She learned a lot this year though, I was proud of her. 

This is Natalie's favorite friend, Jonny.  His family lives just up the street but they are moving this month.  These 2 love to play together and are also in the same sunbeam class.  They are going to miss each other!

Here's me with my favorite student.  We had a fun program and some yummy refreshments and then I sent them off!  It's always a bittersweet feeling.

Monday, May 28, 2012

And she walks!



 On May 10, Anna decided to take her first steps-FINALLY!  She still isn't walking full-time but she can go pretty far and turn on a dime!

Around the house part 2

The girls helped David clear out the grapefruit tree




The girls let me practice on them for my preschool pictures

See Cyrena's bandage?  On Mother's Day as she was going to bed she tripped and cut her eyebrow on the edge of her bed.  There was blood everywhere, it was crazy!  We contemplated stitches but decided it would probably heal alright without them.  It's much better now!

Around the house

Anna finally started standing on her own! She now gets up in the middle of the room and starts to dance then falls over. She's a crack-up. 

She's so proud and you can see those other 2 behind her; always, always dancing.  Pandora is on at our house a LOT.

She pushes this around ALL. DAY. LONG.  We have mostly tile downstairs so she goes all over the place no problem.

She discovered this perfect-sized cupboard in the kitchen.  I asked her to grind some wheat while she was in there.

 For about a week we set up our small tent in the living room and the kids had a lot of fun playing in there.  Cyrena and Natalie tried to sleep in there one night but they lasted about 30 minutes before they were too scared.

We bought a small pool to kick off the summer right.  I used this for preschool water day and then we've been using it a lot since.

Natalie loves to help mop--this is the entryway.  One day she was in trouble for something and all of a sudden I hear some grunting and sighing and realize she is mopping.  I think she was trying to get back into my good graces.

Natalie learned how to pump on the swings!  Cyrena just learned about 3 months ago...haha.  So now we only have to push Anna.

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day was an amazing day full of lots of love from my wonderful family. Cyrena was SO into it, the gifts just kept coming. David had them make adorable cards and he made some tasty food. My favorite part was the puppet show that Cyrena wrote for me. You can see the script below for her and David to follow. She wrote this while I was taking a LONG nap! 

Me and my beauties

The stage for the puppet show


The script

Cyrena Basketball Spring 2012

Cyrena just finished up her first season of basketball. She loved every minute of it. She was the youngest, smallest and most inexperienced on the team. The team was made up of kids in kindergarten-second grade but I think she was the only kindergartener.  There were some really talented kids on her team! It was fun to watch. Of course there were times I had to hide behind David so I could giggle freely.  Her coach was wonderful and gave her lots of chances to handle the ball.  She did make a couple baskets in the games and was quite proud of that!  She's not a natural athlete but she sure loves it!



One of the moms took the pictures so we didn't have to have those icky studio pictures.  You can see her work here:www.greenappleimages.com


The Deans

My photo
Life as we know it is full of laughter, fun, stress, love, faith and surprises. What more could we ask for?