Graduations Galore

This past week my two boys had their graduation programs. Dalton graduated from Kindergarten and Colby from his 3 year old preschool class. Dalton's class put on a full program filled with songs, recitations, and Bible verses they had memorized, and Colby's class sang about 4 songs. Dalton and Colby have both learned so much over this past year. It has been neat seeing their little minds soak up so much information. I can't believe my little boy is going on to 1st grade next year. It just doesn't seem like he should be old enough. The year has gone by fast, but we are all so ready for the summer break!

Here is a little slideshow I put together (and Shane helped) of some pictures of the graduation programs as well as pictures from this past year.

Awana Awards

Dalton and Colby have been participating in the Awana program at our church this year on Sunday nights. While Shane and I are at our life group, the boys are at the church participating in Awana. This past Sunday, our church had its annual Awana awards program. It was totally raining like crazy outside and of course we were running late, and Colby fell asleep on the way to the church. Colby was one unhappy little boy when we arrived and woke him up. I had forgotten their vests in our rush to leave too. Colby was being unusually clingy to me and wanted to sit in my lap the whole time and didn't want to go up to the front when his name was called. Dalton and Colby had a fun time in Awana this year although by the look on Colby's face you probably wouldn't believe that. After the awards the church provided pizza for everyone and inflatable jumpy things for the kids. Colby's mood definitely brightened with the pizza and inflatables.

Aw, such big tears

Dalton receiving his certificate

Colby's First Visit to the Dentist

Colby made his first trip to the dentist last week. He hadn't exactly been looking forward to going. Every time I tried to talk to him about going he didn't act very thrilled about the idea. When we went though, all 3 of us ended up getting our teeth cleaned. Dalton went first, then me, then Colby saw that it wasn't all that bad so he reluctantly got up into the chair. His favorite part was "Mr. Thirsty" sucking up the water out of his mouth and of course being able to choose a couple of toys out of their treasure box. We all had a great visit with no cavities. :)

Strawberry Pickin'

Recently, Colby was invited to a birthday party at Lane Packing. He had a great time picking strawberries and playing, so I really wanted to go back and pick some more strawberries and let Dalton and my mom come as well. We went back to Lane on a beautiful day last week and found tons of beautiful, sweet strawberries. My boys absolutely love eating fresh strawberries, especially fresh ones from the field. We all had so much fun looking for these big, red, treasures! I think we ended up with about 10 pounds of strawberries among us. My mom made a yummy, strawberry pie with most of hers while we ended up just cutting them up and eating them. Mmmm!

"Here's a perfect strawberry!" ~Dalton

Me and my boys

Enjoying the fruits of our labor

Colby having fun on the playground

Field Day and Wacky Wednesday

A few weeks ago, Dalton's class had their annual Field Day at his school. The kids had really been looking forward to this day and the day turned out to be absolutely beautiful. The students participated in many activities including a soccer kick, carrying a wet sponge to fill up a bucket, hoola-hoop games, playing with a parachute, and all the kids favorite, the dunking booth.




The students had a wonderful time and wrapped the morning up with a little lunch from everyone's favorite, Chick-Fil-A. Mmmm!


Colby's class recently had Wacky Wednesday where the students were just supposed to wear crazy looking clothes to school. Colby's not all that into looking too wacky in public so this attire was about the best we could do.

After coming home on this Wednesday, I went out to work in the flower bed in the front of our house and Colby came walking outside wearing his firefighter costume over his "wacky" outfit. He wanted to help me in the flower bed so I gave him his instructions on what he could do and he of course went and found some gloves to wear as well. He was just too funny in his firefighter suit, "wacky" clothes and gardening gloves. Here my little helper is showing off his clipping from an old flower that needed cutting.

Easter

Easter at my parent's house

Easter is such a fun time of the year and one of our favorite holidays. We love to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord! It has been neat to continue to teach the boys about what Easter is all about and to see them, especially Dalton, understand more about what Easter really means. We also enjoy coloring Easter eggs. It has become a bit of a tradition around our house to color the eggs. I've realized though, that this must be a dying tradition. It was difficult finding the egg coloring kit this year. I guess it's so easy to just fill the plastic eggs, but the boys have come to love coloring the eggs and the family time and fun that it entails. The boys had lots of practice with egg hunts this year. I think they went to 3 of them this year.

After church, we had a family get-together at my parent's house where we enjoyed tons of food and afterward had a big egg hunt for the kids. Here's a couple of shots of Dalton and Colby in action.

Spring Happenings

Spring has arrived and it seems like there is so much going on around here. There have been tons of activities happening around here. Dalton and Colby have had Spring Break on different weeks, which is kind of crazy, but also kind of nice in that it seemed like I could enjoy two spring breaks with the boys. While Shane was off for spring break he was able to begin a lot of work around the house. He borrowed a tractor and worked on bush hogging more of our property. We almost have all of it finally cleared off now. Yay! Dalton and Colby love it when Shane gets the tractor. They have so much fun riding on the tractor and "helping" their daddy.

Almost a couple of weeks ago while in the back of our yard I found this nest with eggs in it. When I saw it there was a big black snake practically wrapped all around this nest and I figured the eggs were goners, but surprisingly the snake left the eggs alone and a few days later the eggs hatched. The boys have really enjoyed going out and checking on the baby birds and seeing them grow.

The baby birds on the day they hatched.

The birds at 3 days old.

Mama bird wasn't so crazy about us checking out her babies. I believe the birds are brown thrashers which are the state bird of Georgia.

Colby checking out the birds and the nest.