Club Invention

I was given the opportunity to get back in the classroom a bit this spring.  Horn hosted a Club Invention school class and I was the 1st - 3rd grade teacher on Tuesday afternoons.  In eight weeks we completed a unit called Castles, Catapults and Coat of Arms.  The students and I explored The Dark Ages, buoyancy and a few simple machines.  Sylvia was able to join me and enjoyed the majority of it although it made for a full day.  A big thanks also goes out to Grandma and Nana for watching the boys, a good friend and fellow PTO member for doing the leg work and getting the class going, the wonderful parents who volunteered in my classroom and my hubby.  Dan helped me in multiple ways from finding a Bill Nye the Science Guy video for me so I could try to understand pulleys to making levers for me to use in class.

Easter

Sylvia and Eric woke up early Easter morning so we sat on the deck and watched the sunrise.  We talked about the first Easter morning and then came in to warm up.  Before church at Parkview, the kids enjoyed receiving a few gifts in their Easter baskets.

We headed over the Nana and Papa's and took a ramble in the backyard before hunting for eggs and eating lunch.  The weather was beautiful.

We dyed a few eggs in the afternoon and played in the backyard.

Grandma and Grandpa had us over for an egg hunt where we invited our neighbors who have a kindergartner in Sylvia's class.  The kids made resurrection rolls with me where you dip a marshmallow in butter and then sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar before wrapping it up in a crescent roll.  While cooking, the marshmallow melts and the roll is empty which reminds us of the empty tomb.

Great Nana came over to watch the kids hunt eggs.

The weather was still nice when we got home so the kids headed outdoors to play with a few new water toys.

Friday Fun (4/18)

We picked up some free "birthday" cupcakes (using Sylvia's HyVee coupon that we misplaced back in November).  Both boys fell asleep on the way to HyVee so my big girl went into the store all on her own to pick out cupcakes and "buy" them.  She was very brave and proud, knowing that if she hadn't gone in we wouldn't have had cupcakes (I wasn't about to wake sleeping boys).  We enjoyed the cupcakes at church before heading in to watch a Veggie Tales movie.

Whether the weather be hot...

Kindergarten students at Horn entertained their families this spring at their music performance.  They have been practicing so hard during music class with Mrs. Hagan and their hard work showed.  I was impressed with how well organized it was and that each students got to do something special like play an instrument or use the parachute.  Sylvia asked a me a few weeks before the performance if I wanted to hear the songs or if she should keep them a secret for the concert.  I left it up to her and she immediately started singing them!  She followed Mrs. Hagan's wardrobe requests and picked out her own outfit that day.

Sylvia's big smile shows how much she loves her homeroom teacher, Ms. Jensen and how excited she was about the spring concert.  We sure are going to miss kindergarten

Spring Dance

Sylvia and Eric finished up another semester of dance class with Miss Aubrey.  Rather than having a spring share, the parents were invited to sit in on a dance class to see all of the activities the kids do.  It was so much fun to watch what both classes have been learning this semester.  Sylvia has been in dance for a few years now and I can really see how much she's grown.  Miss Aubrey does such a great job with all of them and has so much patience for the little ones.

Friday Fun (4/11)

Dan was home a bit early after taking a test Friday morning.  He joined us for some very gooey Fruit Loop treats.

Eric's 4 year pictures

This guy was super fun to take pictures of this spring.  We threw on a nice shirt one day when the weather was warm enough to be outside and got lots of laughing smiles, forced smiles and goofy faces.  This boy's smile, laugh and silliness are contagious.  I sure love him!

Friday Fun (3/28/2014)

Yummy chocolate chip cookies on a Friday after school.

Green Day

Eric's green picture and his class singing the Green Song.

Drake's Buzz

Drake needs frequent haircuts so I decided to pull out the clippers for his last haircut.  I was sad to see the curls go but hopefully his hair will be a little easier to take care of now.

Frozen

Sylvia has recently started saving her money.  For her first "save" purchase, she bought the movie Frozen.  She waited patiently for it to come out on DVD and was very proud to buy it with her own money.  We decided to have a last minute Frozen viewing party during spring break.  A few friends joined us for a snacky dinner and princess crowns while they watched the movie.  I love that she wanted to share her new movie with friends.

Hills Bank Barnyard Day

Dan and I took Sylvia and Drake to the Hills Bank barnyard days while Eric was at a birthday party.  They were both willing to walk right up at feed the cow out of their hand.

Friday Fun / Pi Day (3/14)

We invited Grandma and Grandpa over for Pi Day and enjoyed some peanut butter cup pie from Perkins.

Eric's family party

We celebrated Eric's birthday with our extended family a few days after his birthday.  They joined us for dinner, gift opening and cake.

Sylvia did some videotaping at the party :)

We enjoyed the leftover robot cake.  Sylvia and Eric each ate most of one of the robots feet.  They were very big pieces of cake.

Before heading to bed, Eric tried out his new batman pajamas from Bill & Becky.

Eric's Robot Party

Eric celebrated his 4th birthday with a robot themed party.  I had little bit of trouble settling on a theme because he's not really into one specific thing.  Then I realized that he loves our roomba vacuum.  I decided to translate that into robots rather than having a roomba themed party.

The kids colored and created things out of foil before building robots on the wall with their team.

When our robots were complete, we headed downstairs to pick up lots and lots of balls with our robot arms.

Hayden, Macy, Ryan, Tony, Drake, Eric, Maya, Sylvia

I peeked around pinterest and settled on this cake.  It was so much fun to make and Eric loved it.

Eric enjoyed opening his presents.  He has such a good group of friends.

tumbling

We signed the kids up for three weeks of tumbling at the downtown rec center.  Their classes were back to back from 9:00-12:00.  I went along with Drake to his class but the older two got to go alone.  We played basketball and foosball, checked out the exercise equipment and went to the New Pi for groceries to kill time during sibling classes.

Friday Fun (3/7/2014)

I took the kids to HyVee for Friday fun day.  Eric picked out his free birthday cupcakes and a HyVee employee also gave the kids free cookies (that we saved for later).  Drake slept through the cupcake eating so he got to have a cookie while we did our grocery shopping.

Eric's Birthday Share Day

Erickson enjoyed getting ready to celebrate his birthday at preschool.  He put the sprinkles on the popcorn after I coated it with almond bark.

Eric's birthday share day was also Red, White and Blue day preschool.

Eric had a little trouble deciding what to take for share time.  He finally decided on the Wedgits after we talked about what toys he likes to play with at home.  He also took along his new "robot arm" that we bought for his birthday party.