Trike-A-Thon!

This week at preschool Sophie participated in a Trike-A-Thon to benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospital. The event was during her regular weekly PE time and so they also learned about biking safety. The ride was originally scheduled for last week, but was canceled due to rain. This week was beautiful & a great day for a ride!

We were supposed to help the kids decorate their bikes/trikes at home. Sophie wanted to ride her little pink & purple tricycle. Jeff had the great idea to plant flowers in the little basket on the back! Sophie & I decorated the bike with Leis (left over from a birthday party) and I helped her make a sign with her name on it, which she decorated with stickers. 

Here is last week's bike...Jeff mainly used flowers growing in our yard because we forgot about the race until the night before (ooops!)

Since we had to wait a week, the flowers didn't last so Jeff brought home some new flowers...

(The bike did get left out in the rain for a few minutes, so her name washed off the sign, but it was salvagable...so we just wrote right over it & it had a fuzzy, halo effect!)

Looks pretty good, huh!

Sophie posing on her sweet ride!

Get ready, get set, GO!

And they were off! 

Sophie really was not concerned about getting anywhere fast. 

I think she was just happy to look pretty on her bike (and have the cutest trike out there!)

Darcy giving Sophie some encouragement!

Darcy was Sophie's biggest fan!

Drew also was cheering Sophie on from the sidelines!

Great job Sophie!

Early Mother's Day Fun!

Today I got to celebrate Mother's Day a little bit early! I was cordially invited to a Mother's Day Tea with Jack's class and also a Muffins with Mom in Sophie's class. The unfortunate part is that both events were scheduled to take place at the same time at two different schools. This also happened at Christmas & I went to see Sophie's Christmas program, so this was my turn to celebrate with Jack. Thankfully my mom was available to step in and attend Sophie's class party in my place. 

Jack greeted me (and Drew--I think Jack was even more excited to be able to show off his baby brother to his classmates!) at the door to his classroom & escorted me to his chair. His desk was covered with special artwork & stories written about Mommy! My favorite essay that Jack wrote goes like this:

"My mom is pretty. She looks like a tresher box filled with silver and gold! 

She's filled with love for me! Her eyes look like stars glimering on her face. 

She looks like juwels made of silver and gold."

(Cute note: Jack used little hearts to dot the i's & for the periods or exclamation marks!) 

What a precious, sweet guy I have! He wrote about 7 of these little essays complete with illustrations. Each essay was 3 to 4 sentences on topics like:

My favorite thing to do with Mom is....snuggle!

Thank you Mom for helping me....do the right thing!

I know my mom is a Christian because...she goes to church with me.

If I could give my mom anything I would give her....her monny back if she bout something for me like a Webkinz dolphin with a Webkinz sine under its fin, a fluffy tail and a rilly soft body. (The illustration on this one included a hidden pictures for me to find!)

Next, the kids opened our time with pledges to the American & Christian flags & the Bible and a prayer. They sang a few songs and then half of the class recited a poem about Mothers Day & the other half recited individual poems about moms.

Jack's poem sounded like it was written just for us, but when I asked him he said it was just the one assigned to him! Here is the poem that he memorized & recited:

I have two younger sisters and one baby brother, 

And the one who keeps us all in line is our precious mother.

I wonder how she stays so kind after all we put her through.

She's never mean and acts so excited about everything we do!

I think when I'm older I'll be blessed if I can find--

A woman like my mother who will help keep me in line.

Last each child served his or her mother a yummy snack of muffins, donut holes, fruit, cheese & crackers. And of course, hot tea! 

I was so blessed by the fun morning with my sweet Jack! (The only downer is that I forgot to have a picture of just Jack & I taken with my camera! The teacher took one with her camera!)

Later in the afternoon when Sophie got home, she had her own Mother's Day presents to share with me. A cute painted flower pot and several poems and fill in the blanks that she had completed.

Sophie with all of her Mother's Day gifts

Here is Sophie's fill in the blank poem:

"My Marvelous Mom"

My mom is 15 years old.

Her hair is dark brown and her eyes are brown.

My mom is prettiest when she dresses up for church.

My mom likes to make cookies.

My mom always says, "I love you."

My mom is funny when she tickles me.

When my mom shops, she loves to buy yogurt.

Her favorite TV show is I don't know. 

(We really don't have the TV on during the day except for the occasional Dora or Barney...thankfully she realized those aren't my favorite shows!)

Her favorite song is Jesus Loves Me.

(I do sing this one an awful lot, but it is good for us ALL to remember!)

It makes mom happy when I obey.

(Well, I think she hit the nail on the head with that last one! My little Sophie knows me well!)

My sweet Sophie & I!

Thanks kids for a very special day! 

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! 

I hope you enjoy a day of hugs, kisses, hand-made cards, and 

kids who obey all day long (and hope you find time for a nice long nap, too!)

Pony Rides + Birthday parties = 1 FUN weekend!

This was another busy, but fun weekend for us. It all started with a carnival at Jack's school on Friday evening, complete with pony rides for the kids! This was the first thing the kids wanted to do. We rushed right over to wait in line for about half an hour so each kid could take a 2 minute ride around the little grassy area on the pony. But for Jack & Sophie, it was well worth it! Darcy was less impressed by the pony, but at least she didn't scream when Jeff put her up there (like she did when we put her on rides at Carowinds!)  She just kind of had a look on her face like,"Why on Earth would anyone find this remotely entertaining? I would prefer a stroller ride any day!" 

Ready to ride!

Ready to dismount!!

Giddy UP!

Look Ma, No Hands!!Drew enjoying the festivities!

Sophie enjoying the bouncy slide!

Ready to go again!

Saturday started off bright & early with Jack's football game once again. I must confess that as hard as I tried to get there in time for the game, between nursing & getting kids dressed & wrapping presents, etc...I pulled up just as the game had finished! Thankfully both sets of grandparents were there to cheer him on, so I don't think he even realized I wasn't there (I hope!) 

From football we headed straight to a birthday party for some good friends' whose twin girls were turning 2! It is such a blessing to celebrate the birthday of babies you have prayed for from even before their conception. God is so good! The theme of the party was "Monkeying Around" and they picked the perfect location--a pretty park--for some true monkey business. (Thankfully, there were not any actual Monkey Bars! Although, I don't think Sophie will be heading back up on those for a while after breaking her arm!)

Monkeying around!

Drew hanging out at the party!

Here are a few of my favorite things, by Darcy...

Balloons!

Juice boxes and....

CUPCAKES! (Look Ma, no hands!)

Mmmmmmm, Yay for birthday parties!!

Drew agrees!

Pretty girls!

Who IS that silly guy?

Looking up to big brother Jack!

Gotcha!

That's all folks! See you later!

Tummy Time & other fun!

Here it is Friday already and once again I've been working on this post about what we did last weekend ALL week long! Goal for next week: Master the "short post", just a picture or two & a couple of paragraphs. I don't know why that is so difficult for me! I guess I am just thorough!

So anywho, LAST weekend was wonderful & busy! We started with Football on Saturday

 morning, immediately followed by choir practice for Jack & then a nice drive down to check out the progress of the Lake house (and stick our toes in the water!) Hopefully all will be ready in the next few weeks & we can begin enjoying it in earnest!

Family Room View

Family Room/Dining RoomFamily Room

Kitchen

Toes in the water!

(Shhhh, don't tell Mommy that her hair looks like a rooster!)

Sunday dawned with beautiful clear blue skies & warm temps! Perfect weather for the pot-luck picnic lunch our Sunday School class had planned for after church (thank you Lord for answering our prayers!) Our class is growing both by new families joining & new additions to existing families, so we had over 50 people including LOTS of kids! We had a great time of fun & fellowship.

Kids at the fence looking at a black snack on the other side!
 We were only home a short while Sunday afternoon when we headed back to church for a mini-musical performed by the Elementary age children's choir that Jack sings in. The show was titled "God is in Control" and was a detective story reminiscent of Detective Friday, Joe Friday...except Joe Sunday was our school ground sleuth helping guide wayward kids using the Bible. It was a wonderful performance with a message for us all! The grandparents enjoyed coming to watch & everyone enjoyed the refreshments after the show!

And here getting to the title of this post, here is little Drew enjoying a little "tummy time" on Sunday evening. I put him on his tummy by a mirrored toy, which he studied for a little while, but before I knew it he was sound asleep on the floor! We have always followed the "back to sleep" rule, but I do think this little guy prefers to sleep on his tummy.

He's getting SO big already, he turned 6 weeks on Saturday...here he is enjoying the lake views!And now we are gearing up for another busy weekend ahead! Hope that yours is wonderful, too!