Preschool Graduation

Last night I had my fifth preschool graduation. My first year I was nine months pregnant with Jefferson and this year he was one of the preschoolers at the program!
I did two separate programs for my younger class and older class. Technically the younger kids aren't 'graduating' but I like to present them with a certificate of completion award.
The weather couldn't have been more perfect!
(This is what it looked like just three days earlier!)

I have no shade in my back yard at night and I've had one year where it was 90 degrees and another year where we held it inside due to weather. This time it was about 70 degrees and a nice cloud cover. I was worried about wind, but it seemed to die down just in time.
I came down with a cold last weekend which made me loose my voice, so that made it hard to talk loud, sing and to keep from coughing, but I survived.
One embarrassment though. I was presenting the kids with their certificates and I also add an award to each one for something outstanding they did that year. In each class I gave one of the students an award for being so careful with their work. They would always make sure they did their best and that it looked nice. I called the award "Most Articulate". However, Tom told me after both graduations were over that articulate means good with words. The word I should've used was "Most Meticulous". Oh, I'm so embarrassed I used the wrong word in front of so many people AND wrote the wrong thing on these students awards! Obviously I'm not very articulate :) Oh well, I've had worse things happen... I've had a child throw up while in front of everyone, I sprained my thumb standing up after a song one year, I had over 100 people crammed into every corner of my house the year we held it in doors, you never know what will happen on graduation night. Next year I'll have three classes to do graduation for!
The next day one of my preschoolers called me on the phone. She said she missed me already and we talked for a bit. It was so sweet and is one of the reasons I love my job so much. I get to become a part of these little people's lives.
I'm now so excited to have summer to look forward to and to do more with my own children for the next few months.

Jeff's 4th Birthday

Saturday was Jefferson's 4th birthday. He had a birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese's. This was his first friend party and it was pretty crazy trying to keep track of a bunch of four-year-olds at Chuck-E-Cheese. The funniest was Jeff trying to blow out his candle.

He also enjoyed the new bike he got.
I love Jefferson so much! he is such a fun, smart, talented boy! He is my buddy and is so fun to talk to. He has such interesting in sites about things and figures things out so well. He is a very independent kid yet loves to be near the ones he loves. I am so grateful Jeff is a part of our family. Happy Birthday Bud!
Here are some pictures of Jeff over the past four years.

For more info about Jefferson, click here.

Double the shopping

A friend of mine told me that "The Children's Place" was having a sale on their kids jeans for only $5.99. Lily is always in need of new jeans since she wears through them so much, so I decided to stop in. The store is located in a strip mall, so I pulled up, walked inside and asked the lady if they still have their jeans on sale. She said they were all out, but all their clearance items were an additional 30% off. So I thought I'd go in anyway. They didn't have much in Lily's size, so I started looking for a few things for Jeff. I usually don't need to buy clothes for my boys because I'm fortunate to get a lot of hand-me-downs, but knowing what he had, I felt like he could use a few more outfits. After spending about $50 on clothes for Jeff (most things were $5 or less, so I felt pretty good about it), I loaded the boys back in the van and started to get in myself. However, as I started getting in the van, I looked up at the sign above the store I just came out of and it said "Carter's". Then I noticed the sign to the right said "The Children's Place". At first I thought maybe they were the same store owned by the same company or something. But as I walked over to the right door I realized they were two different stores, Duh! So I went into "The Children's Place" and asked if they had their jeans still on sale and she said "yes". So I got the boys back out of the van (Jeff was not too happy with the idea) and headed into "The Children's Place". I ended up spending another $50 on a whole pile of jeans, some shorts and a shirt for Lily. I'm excited with all that I got, but I definitely was not planning on spending $100 on or going to two different kid clothing stores today!

My Little Munchkin

Lily participated in a community theater class this year and just had her final performance. They did a spin off of Wizard of Oz/ Wicked. She was a munchkin named Half-Pint. I was so proud of how good she did! I love that you can see her mouthing the other girls lines.

She also did so well with the dancing too. This was definitely a perfect thing for Lily.