Gym Friends

Haylie and James love playing with their good buddy Eli at the gym all the time. This was taken a few weeks ago when they apparently weren't up to their normal energy levels!

Daddy's Day Off

Since Daddy was going to be out of town for a whole weekend, including Mother's Day, he took a day off to hang out with us before. Unfortunately Raider had to go to school but Haylie missed hers and we all went to the zoo. We haven't been to the Sacramento Zoo in awhile. The kids liked seeing the animals and just hanging out all together:

Grow!

Daddy and Haylie recently built and planted a little vegetable garden in our backyard. Tomatoes, asparagus, cucumbers, etc - we are looking forward to enjoying the product of their work soon.

Daddy checks out the vegetable garden every day to make sure things are growing well:

Box Beds

The kids have had hours of fun with these boxes. Whether they are beds or boats or houses - their imaginations have been endless, playing with and in them daily for a week now.

On the Job

Today was my first day of my new job of being a full-time Mommy. Although, it isn't a huge difference, since I used to work from home and I didn't work many hours anyways. However, there was a new-found sense of freedom and of course responsibility - I simply adore spending time with my loves and I want to use the time wisely - to benefit my kids, my husband and my relationship with God. Craft projects are definitely one of the kids and my favorite things to do. Today we made this little project for Haylie's teacher, in honor of teacher appreciation day:

I found the idea online here.

I found the printable online here.




I was pretty excited about the little project. In all it cost me about $4 to do. I found the vase on sale at Michaels for about $3 and I got the pencils for a little under $1. I had the ribbon at home and printed out the little sign. Pretty fun - I am looking forward to many more crafts and activities with the kids!!

Only mishaps included a few glue-gun, burnt fingers (Haylie's and mine). Plus the following ribbon unraveling. As I was gluing away James was cracking up. When I finally looked up, this is the picture I saw:

Nanny's Last Day

Friday was Nanny's last day with the kids. It was very sad and very hard to say goodbye after 5 years. She has been here since the kids were babies. We made her a scrapbook of photos from when they were little until now. The kids drew pictures and we all wrote nice notes. It was a tear-filled departure for Mommy and Nanny but the kids weren't sure what to think of the whole thing. They loved Nanny but I suppose they think she will be back next week. Hopefully we will see her again soon.

Jog-a-thon

Haylie had her first jog-a-thon at school. She practiced for weeks, running circles around the pool table and running laps around the playroom at the gym. She felt she was primed and ready to run some major laps!

When they set out Haylie was rarin' to go. She even tried to pass kids who were moving too slow. She made it a couple laps running and then started walking about half of each lap for the next few laps. We loved watching her Nanny, James and Cathy came too. Haylie was SO cute running / walking...y the end she was walking the whole lap and had little interest in running. Mommy jogged a couple laps next to her to motivate her but once I walked away she was back to walking. The funny thing was, not only was she walking but I don't think she could have possibly walked any slower. She was TIRED and it showed. It was so funny to watch in fact, several of the teachers came up and joked with me about it afterwards. Her Kindergarten teacher said she doesn't think she has seen anyone walk slower than Haylie managed to. Guess our last name is deceiving - Haylie loves to run as much as her Mommy does. All in all I think she ran / walked about 10 laps - costing Mommy and Grandma about $10 each. (I didn't do a good job asking for pledges - Haylie will learn that will be on her as she gets older). :)

b

She got her treat in the end and that was good enough for her. She even asked for one for her brother - such a thoughtful little girl!