Bouncy Houses Rock

We spent part of Saturday at the Plant City Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Show.  Free admission, $5 to park, and lots of fun.  The boys were a little disappointed because they couldn't climb in the cars and trains and airplanes, but they did get to see some model trains (always a hit) and watch airplanes take off (another hit) and there were bouncy houses.  Can't go wrong with those.

 

Plant City is famous for its strawberries, hence the free styrofoam strawberry hats - which actually made for a cute picture of our cute boys.

Arts and Crafts

One of the things that Micah has really taken an interest in during the last few months of preschool is arts and crafts. He's never really cared about them before and in fact, at the beginning of the year when he had assignments to color certain objects that started with the letter of the week, he would only circle the words and refuse to color them.  But cutting is totally his thing.  He likes to cut everything, including bulletins in church, which I found out when I left him for five minutes with pair of scissors last Sunday in church.  Don't ask.
Here he is cutting up tons of construction paper so that Liam...

...could make collages out of the scraps.

 Breaking out the glue.

And here's the finished product!  What a very cheap way to have fun and create artwork.

Taking Advantage of Mother Nature

A beautiful March night, Curious George t-shirts, a new (to us) wagon, sunglasses, and Valentine lollipops.  Does an evening get any better than this?

"Say Anything" for the preschool set

Children's Choir in Church

The boys sang in children's choir this morning in church.  It was the "This Is" performance - "This is the Day" and "This is My Commandment".  They love to sing, and are really loud in the car and bathtub, among other places.  But when you put them in front of a group, I find that a bribe works best to get them actually singing loud enough that they can be heard.
Here's the whole group, minus a few that didn't make the rehearsal prior to the performance.

The lyrics of "This is My Commandment" say, in part, "This is my commandment that you love one another..." Micah took that a little too seriously during the actual performance.

But Liam was rocking, by his own fashion choice this morning, his Steelers socks so he was setting himself up for a great performance.

Here is "This is My Commandment".

Here is "This is the Day."

They may not always be totally organized when they sing together, they may not always face the right direction, and they may occasionally yell, "Get out of my space!" right in the middle of a performance.  But I'm so glad our church has a place for these little singers so that they can learn tunes that will stick in their memory and remind them in the simplest way that God loves them and wants for them to love other people.  I still remember and cherish all of the songs I learned in children's choir and VBS growing up, and I'm glad our kids are having the same experience now.  And, as a bonus, there is no better way to be welcomed into worship than through the voices of the children that Jesus treasures.  Thank you, FPCB!!

Spaghetti faces

How cute are these spaghetti faces and hands?

It actually did stop being cute about four hours after I took these pictures when we saw all of Liam's spaghetti again.  And again and again and again for 12 hours.  But hey - you take the bad with the good, right?

Aunt Heidi Visited

In the last few months, I have become completely lame with the camera.  I used to always have it close by and I would grab it at even the littlest moment in the kids' lives to catch on film what I knew, despite a multitude of promises to myself, I would never remember without pictorial proof.
But lately, I don't think to grab it.  Part of it is wanting to make sure I'm in the moment and not watching the moment as a spectator, and part of it is forgetfulness in the midst of busy lives.  I do wish I could re-capture my old habit though.
Exhibit A: Aunt Heidi came to visit and I have one - that's right, just one - picture of her.  Granted it's super cute.  We took the trolley from Ybor City (which, unbeknownst to us, was hosting a beer festival that weekend) into Tampa just for the experience.  And to get to the Cold Stone that was at the other end of the trolley line. :)
Liam hung with Aunt Heidi for the trip.

Micah sat with Daddy.  The boys were completely enthralled with this new (to them) form of transportation and spent the remainder of the day playing with toy trolley cars that Tim had bought them the last time he was in San Francisco.

Just a cute shot of my baby on the trolley.

Are there any cute pictures of me with the boys on the trolley at all?  Nope.  But there is a completely unattractive picture of me with the boys as they're giving me a congratulatory hug after I arrived home following my nine mile "run".  (Really a walk/run, but who cares?  I moved nine miles that day.)  They were kind enough to hug me despite my grossness, God bless them.

Catching Up

What have we been doing in the month since I blogged?  A few things.  We caught the kids in weird sleeping positions.

We had Valentine's Day parties at school, and since I helped to do Micah's party, I took pictures.  The room was all decked out.

They dined on strawberry Jello with pink whipped cream.  Mom of the year here forgot the actual strawberries, but at least the Jello was sugar free.  You know, before I added the whipped cream.

The highlight of the party for the kids was undoubtedly getting to play the musical instruments that were the consolation prize after they lost at musical hearts.  They loved it so much that none of them actually wanted to win at musical hearts.  Clearly Micah is not my child given his lack of competitive drive.

Micah had an "All About Me" derby.  Such a fantastic idea.  All the kids in VPK spent the month learning things about themselves - their phone number, address, birthday, how to spell their name, etc.  They made their own cars and "drove" around Mauldin Hall at the church, and giving their stats at each pit stop.

This is how it looked before the kids got there.

Here's an example of the pitstop asking the kids for their phone number.

Ms. Michelle and Ms. June were referees (probably not the right title) for drivers.

There was even a gas station that they could fill up at!

And they're off!

One happy driver!

No stopping him now...

There was even a car wash for them to run through!

Happy boy at the end of the derby.

He got a certificate congratulating him on a job well done...

...and a medal for being such a great sport!

He even got his driver's license.  I shudder to think that it will be only twelve short years before the real thing comes along. 

 That catches you up on February.  Now we're on to March...