Memorial Day @ Bay Beach

We went up to Bay Beach amusement park in Green Bay on Memorial Day and spent the afternoon riding rides and eating treats. It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. Here are some pictures of the kids doing their thing. Maggie is big enough to ride the rides now (yeah!) and Lia and Jax were both pretty nice about riding the tiny rides with her.

Maggie showing jax how to give a cheesy smile....I'm not sure he's got it ??

mmmm...snow cone

& cotton candy :)

Maggie is such a daddy's girl - I love these pics of her and Ty

on to Kindergarten

Jaxon "graduated" from preschool this past week. It is so bizarre to think he will be gone all day next year. I know he is going to have a great time in elementary school..

I'm just not sure how he got so old all of the sudden.

Here are some pics of the graduates...caps/gowns and everything. It was a fun night-the kids sang some songs, walked across the stage to get their diploma and had refreshments afterward...what's not to like??

Here's Jax busting out a big yawn in the middle of the program - we had just come from swimming lessons and he was a bit sleepy :)

Jaxon and his friend Nick

the name of the school is Apple Valley church preschool..hence the head in the apple bit
and afterwards...cap and gown off eating some cookies and bugging his sister
the day after graduation they had a end of the year picnic- Jax had a great time hanging out with his preschool buddies one last time

some video footage...mostly for the grandparents of course :)

Mother's Day

i used to think that when my mom told me her favorite gifts were the ones that I made for her she was just trying to make me feel good...

turns out she was telling the truth...
the kids made me some treasures for Mother's Day

and I was thrilled

jax with the hand print tile

lia with the ceramic picture frame - glazed and everything...awesome

it was a great Mother's Day

I love being a mom -

I'm so grateful for my mother and all of the wonderful women who have been such good examples to me in my life (happy late mom's day to you all!)

she's been waiting

After missing her first two games due to rain/illness Lia finally managed to get on the soccer field! She was thrilled - she definitely has her dad's competitive nature.

GO sis - it was so much fun to watch you play!

week in review

I'm a bit behind on the blogging at the moment...these pictures are from the first week in May :)

Every year as soon as the weather gets warm enough Ty likes to take the kids to fly kites - it is often windy where we live so the kids usually don't have to much trouble getting their kites in the air. Maggie was pretty sick on this particular day, but she still seemed to enjoy herself. The sky/clouds were so pretty - so I think the pictures turned out kind of fun.

Here's Lia showing us her bar crossing skills -

I could never do that as a kid, so I was easily impressed.

Here she is showing me how she can skip..love the determination on her face

The kids were sick for a few days towards the first of the week...here they are watching a movie together on Lia's bed - poor sweeties.

Grandma Lynn sent a few $ for each child in the mail - so we scored some fun Wal-Mart items!

I chaperoned Jaxon's field trip to the Children's Museum on Thursday - the kids had a fantastic time - I was so glad they were feeling better by then.

Maggie loved the painting...is is me or does her blob of paint look a lot like a footprint?
Jax and his buddies in their Apple Valley Preschool T-Shirts :)
This was all the same week as Teacher Appreciation so by Friday night everyone was pretty wiped out Maggie fell asleep in her oatmeal around 7pm...

I made it to about 8pm and feel asleep on the couch...

i hope they appreciated our appreciation

Last week was teacher appreciation week at Lia's elementary school. I was in charge of the PTO's efforts to make the teachers feel loved. I was a fun, but completely exhausting week. We fed the staff breakfast Monday, a dessert bar Wednesday, lunch on Friday, and each morning we gave them a small gift in their box. The principal was also nice enough to give me some wall space so the art teacher and I could help the kids paint a mural honoring their teachers. This was the best part of the week for me. It was hard to think of a way that 380 kids could all participate in the project - but in the end I think we pulled it off.

The house looked like this all week...complete disaster

treats for the teachers boxes

here is the wall of the cafeteria before....scary blue guy, no one seemed very sad to see him go

a fresh coat of paint :)

I painted the design on the wall and the kids filled it in with hand prints (for the grass and around the flowers) and fingerprints (to fill in the leaves and petals and globe)

looking a little closer to finished

Lia was sick the day her class put their fingerprints on the wall so I took her later on in the week to put her hand print on. Her hand print is the dark pink one in the middle of the brown/pink/purple flower. She got a fairly prominent spot..... what can I say??

and Lia was nice enough to take my picture as well...looking lovely in the 7up shirt and super old Nike pants...
I still have a bit of finish work to do - I will be sure and take a photo when it's complete

*the quote on the wall says
A teacher...takes a hand, opens a mind, touches a heart... and shapes the future
just in case it was a bit hard to make out in the photos :)