Preschool Graduation 2011

Jilly had another fantastic year at preschool.  She made a few new friends, but mostly enjoyed paling around with the same friends she made last year. The class is only 15 kids, last year Jilly was one of only five girls, this year there were six.  I love that she was able to become friends with these girls, and can only hope that since none of them will be in the same schools next year, that we can keep in touch with them and still have fun.

Here are Brooke, Sarah, and Jilly.  They were inseparable  when it came to drop off time. 

Here is Nicolas, Jilly’s ‘boyfriend’.  Jilly is enamored with Nicolas, but I think she loves his Mom even more!  Jilly will run to Nicolas’ Mom and give her huge hugs and tell her how pretty she is.  It is too cute!

The kids are getting ready to start their program. The boy to the right of Jilly is Reese.  Thankfully for Nicolas, Reese is more enamored with Wyatt.  Everyday Reese has hugs and kisses and tickles for him.  Reese has a younger brother, Quinn, that will be in the same class as Cooper at the preschool next year.

Here is Jilly and Mrs. P. getting ready for her solo.  Jilly chose to sing a song they sang for the winter concert.  She was loud, mostly in tune, and did the little dance to boot.  I really think Little Miss Jilly will follow Mommy’s footsteps and be a ‘drama geek’ as she gets older.

Mrs. P, Jilly and Mrs. Janda after before we headed out to the playground for the picnic. 

Mr. Jamie giving Jilly her purple bear with a graduation cap.

 

We have been truly blessed by the teachers and staff at the Douglass Community Center preschool. They have been witness to many milestones, and great guides and role models, and not just for Jilly but for all of us!

 

Love

Jilly’s 5th Birthday

*Please be advised that we have been experiencing major issues with our camera since the trip to the National Zoo in late April.*

This is the last year that I will be able to take a picture of Jilly on her birthday at the exact time she was born since she will be in Kindergarten next year.

We usually try to keep birthday ‘parties’ to the weekend, but this gets very tricky with Jilly being born so close to Memorial Day weekend.  Jilly asked to go to Chuck E Cheese for her birthday, so that’s what we did.  The kids ran around, played games, rode rides, ate pizza and cake, and had a blast.

They all had so much fun, and seeing as how it was almost deserted on a Tuesday night, we will most likely be going back for Cooper’s Birthday in July.

Love

Mother’s Day photo shoot 2011

I wanted to give pictures of the kids again this year for Mother’s Day.  Here are a few of my favorites, I must say that I love being able to see the kids personalities through pictures.

And here is what I made for my Mom for Mother’s Day using some of these photos.

I covered a 20x20 canvas added photos of all 6 grandkids with a few embellishments.  I can safely say this is one of my crafty projects that I am most proud of.

Enjoy

National Zoo field trip 2011

We had a great day at the National Zoo again this year for the preschool field trip. We could not have asked for better weather, not too hot and just the right amount of sun.  This year we opted to arrive in time for the class lunch and cruise the Zoo for the rest of the afternoon.

Jilly, Cooper and Wyatt adore the teachers, and all have many friends that we chatted and walked with and saw some animals with.

I think it is safe to say that we as a family will keep enjoying these field trips even once the kids are done in preschool.

It's about time!!!

After a trip to the ER, the primary care, and an Ortho, I finally have an MRI scheduled for my knee. It seems that the insurance company is having me jump through so many hoops just to get it checked out. The Ortho is pretty sure I have torn my ACL and it will need surgery, he wants the MRI to see if it's just a quick little repair, or if I will need to have the ligament replaced entirely.

It is near impossible to get around since I can't put much weight on it, and once Jeff gets home at night I have been taking pain meds. So the loopy-ness of the meds has prevented me from blogging, crafting, and well just plain old making any sense what so ever.

I have tons to post, and will try to get to it early in the day before the searing pain sets in during the afternoon or before I take and meds.

Love

Easter 2011

 

As I said, it has been chaos in this house as of late. Once I realized that we have no chickens to lay eggs, and the grocery fairy is MIA, I ran to the store first thing Saturday morning. Thankfully I had already bought the dye, and basket fixing's.

This year the dying was mostly for the 2 little girly monkeys. Courtney has been growing into the teenager that she is and decided she didn't want to dye any...at first. She said "Would it help you if I dyed eggs for Wyatt?" I think she wanted to be part of things, but just didn't want us to know she wanted it....ahhh teenagers. So 2 dozen eggs were dyed, and no one got any in their hair (which is a first....and in all honesty, it's usually me!)

Since we are not big on the church going, we slept in....and by that I mean it was 7:30. With eggs hidden and baskets waiting to be ransacked, the girls descended the stairs and went crazy looking for their eggs. (Since the mommy screwed up and bought 2 boxes of the same type of dye, we had to use stickers to sort out whose was whose...I always have some sort of unconventional solution in my bag of tricks!)

 

Wyatt loved finding eggs (I kept most of his right on the floor). But I think he loved chucking them around the house even more!

 

After all eggs were found, baskets were dumped, candy sorted and toys were being played with we had breakfast. Now only in my house would we decide to have fried egg sandwiches on the one day of the year that we have hard boiled eggs in the house! And it all seemed a little too much for Wyatt who proceeded to take a nap in the play pen the first chance he got.

Craziness

The month of April had been a whirlwind to say the least. Preparing for a big horse show that didn't end up happening, a charity event, a visit from Grammy, Spring Break, and Easter. I feel as if this is the first chance I have had to breathe.

Grammy got here and back to New Jersey (without any speeding tickets this time!) and it was as usual a wonderful 5 days. The little girly monkeys love picking Grammy up from the "home-tell" and getting to hang out and play. Grammy even sat and played some board games with them on afternoon at Granma and Pop-pop's house. They all sat and watched the Phillies win a baseball game.

I have a special place in my heart for Grammy, and always will.

Charming

My kids crack me up every day! Spring Break has given Courtney the chance to be at the barn most everyday, and even a day full of cleaning tack in the rain was enjoyable for her. We have a tradition when it comes to getting Courtney out to Berryville to ride. The little monkeys and I stop at 7-11 and get a snack. Sometimes it's a hot dog, others they opt for a lunchable, but then we either get apple slices or donuts as well. The girls love the mini powdered Hostess donuts in the bag.

Well, we were there yesterday, and Jilly had her bag in hand and was heading to the counter to pay. There was some sort of District Manager in the store trying to show the Store Manager a few tricks to upsell at the counter...one of those tricks was to put some donut holes in a cup and offer them at a bulk rate. He saw the girls with their bag in hand and asked them "Wouldn't you rather have these fresh donuts instead?"

Now most kids would have gone along with this, but not mine! Jilly looked him right in the face and told him "No thank you, I like these." Being a good salesman he tried again "Are you sure, these are some really good donuts?" To which Jilly said "No, I like these ones."

You would think it ended there, but oh no. Still trying to make the sale (and the point to the other manager) he offered the girls a bite "How about you try a bite, then see if you like these too?" Now, when have my kids ever refused a sweet treat...? That's right NEVER. So they each proceeded to pop a donut hole in their mouths.

Thinking he had made the sale, he asked them "So, would you like these now? I can put that bag back for you." And as sweet as could be Jilly said "No thank you, I still would like my powdered ones." Kiddo knows what she likes!

So then I'm sitting there with this manager having opened a container just for my kids that he can't sell now, so I said we'd take them home for Daddy to have for dessert. And without any hesitation in the least he says to me "Oh no you won't honey. I'm buying those for your kids, you make sure they enjoy them...after they finish the powdered bag!"

The man would NOT let me pay for them. I'll grant you we are talking about a whopping $1.29, but it is the kindness he showed to my kids that made me think to myself Why can't we all be a little more like that? A little more about others and less about what we stand to get out of the way we treat others?

As I was getting the kids in the van he tapped me on the shoulder and said to me "The only reason I did that was because your kids have some of the most beautiful manners I have seen in a long time. You seem to have your hands full, but I applaud you for teaching your kids how to be polite." This totally floored me! All I could do was thank him for his kind words.

It is nice to be appreciated in the moment for the things I teach my kids, cause goodness knows it won't happen again until they have kids of their own!

Here we go again...

With the shift in weather, Courtney is home today, Jilly seems a little stuffy, and Wyatt is either getting sick of cutting more teeth. We are really sweating this whole gov't shutdown thing. We would then have no income, unless I go and find someplace to wait tables. (Easy to walk away from once the gov't reopens.) My charity event was a decent success. It was very fulfilling to know that I was part of something that was altruistic. I never feel better about things then when I am doing something for others. This weekend is looking to be pretty packed between horse riding, birthday parties, and another charity event. Not too much else going on right now, hope all are well! Love!

Quickie

I would love to be able to sit here and write about the seemingly 100 things my monkeys have been up to recently, but sadly I do not have the time. So you'll have to just deal with a quick recap. Yesterday, Jilly and Courtney got to go out and ride their ponies, they had a great time. Many thanks to Gran-ma and Pop-pop for taking them! About a month ago on our way home from one of Courtney's dressage shows, we stopped in a 7-11 real quick for lunch. We had some hot dogs, but little did I know what we were starting! Both Cooper and Jilly now think that "11 and 11" is an actual restaurant and we MUST stop there every time we go to the barn now! Thankfully, it's not expensive to stop in for a snack of even to gather supplies for a "Magic van picnic". Wyatt had his 18 month check up, and boy is growing like a weed. Nothing to worry about, right on track for his age in every way. Cooper has had some recent success on the 'big girl potty', she's getting the hang of it. All little Missy wants to do is go to school, read, play board games.....it's hard sometimes to keep her challenged. She's not even 3 yet, but has a better mental capacity then some of the 4 and 5 year olds we know! Boy oh boy, are we going to be in trouble!! Miss Jilly can't wait to go to kindergarten next year....mostly due to the fact that she gets to ride the bus. She knows her phone #, address, birthday, but most of all she is learning that when she uses her "Princess manners" she gets a more favorable result. Courtney is gearing up for high school. (Damn, that is SO hard to believe!) She is on the honor roll, keeping up with a difficult school schedule, and still getting out to ride 3 times a week. She's looking forward to the warmer weather so she can spend more time with the ponies. Jeff....well he's not doing too much that warrants any conversation. As for me, I have been wicked busy gearing up BugnBean for the show season to start up again. (I have to say, how I never went into 'marketing' as a profession is sometimes beyond me!) I also just held my first charity event to benefit Jilly's preschool, and I have been asked to be a guest at another charity event on April 10th. I have made the plunge after many months of debating to open an online store to be able to sell some of my creations ( chrissycurtiscrafts.etsy.com) and I am hoping it will take off. We are looking forward to a visit from Grammy, Spring Break, and Easter, this month. It is getting close to the end of the school year, so Courtney is looking forward to the class trip to Hershey Park, and summer vacation. I say bring on the heat (so I can hang by the pool) and bring on the good times of horse shows, playground play dates, and family picnics! Love!