Elijah turns 4!!!

I can't believe that my little boy is four already!!!! He never ceases to amaze me and I love him more today than I did then!!!
Happy 4th Birthday Elijah!!

We celebrated in the morning by having a few of his buddies over for a breakfast playdate! Yummy food and friends...what better way to celebrate!!

Presents!

My parents were traveling through and so we waited for them to open presents after naptime. So much fun!!

Of course, for dinner we had to go to Big Bubba's! Elijah ate a rib of gramma's!!! yum yum!

The Birthday boy with his sticker.



Blowing out the candle of his birthday treat.



Afterwards we went to Rite Aid to get ice cream!

The Little Gym

Elijah had his showtime class at The Little Gym. He got to show all the parents and families all the skills he's learned! At the end of class they had a little ceremony. Here's Elijah waving to us after he got his medal. He was so proud!

Showing off his medal! The other night I found the medal tucked next to him in bed-so sweet. :)



Here's his class!

Sports camp showtime!

Here is Elijah doing the SPIDER WALK on the bars! He does it pretty good!

He learned lots of sports skills in class: hockey, baseball, frisbee, soccer, volleyball...and golf. Here he is putting the ball. Daddy was proud! :)

Just a cute one!

They also did some gymnastics skills. This was mid somersault.

Elijah's favorite teacher: Miss Taylor!

Sewing Bug

I've done some sewing over the past few weeks. It's been really fun! And I have a few more projects left to finish. I've come a long way since Jason's parents gave me my sewing machine in 2005!

I made these Mickey shirts for my nieces to wear on their trip to Walt Disney World.

This is a nursing cover for a friend of mine. This was so much easier than I thought it would be. I followed an online tutorial.




And here is my most recent creation. I made this tonight in about an hour. I didn't have a pattern, just an old cover to base my "measurements" on. :) She does have some issues....but she really cute and she'll do the job covering my Kitchenaid mixer! She's a great addition to my countertop!

The countdown begins...

Elijah's 4th birthday is on May 31st! We put this up today on our pantry door...and will tear one off each day until he turns 4!!!!!!!! He's so excited.

Jam!

I've been thinking about aking jam for a few years and this year was the year! I was supposed to make it yesterday, but ended up in bed with a migraine. So I tackled the strawberries after church! It was so quick and easy...I was shocked. I'm really excited to taste it.

I stopped by the local strawberry stand on Shirk and got my strawberries. YUMMMY!

I used the Sure-Jell freezer recipe. This seemed fairly easy so I figured I'd try that first.



The hulled strawberries. I used my little Pampered Chef strawberry huller.

Mash, mash, mash.

After adding the sugar (I decided not to show you how much sugar went in) and pectin...TA DA!!! Here's the final results. AND I have so many strawberries left that I need to go get more jars and pectin. But the next time I make them-Monday or Tuesday- I am going to have the kiddos help me. Elijah was especially bummed that he didn't help me. He's a little helper in the kitchen. Maybe he'll be the next Emeril! haha.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day weekend we spent Friday night and saturday in Sacramento visiting my friend Chris Daughtry :) and visiting our good friends, the Quayles! We had a blast!!

All of our kiddos!!!

Faye and I treated ourselves to a Daughtry concert on Friday night. We went out to dinner and then to the concert. It was GREAT!!!!!!! to say the least :)



Silly Alia hanging from their tree.

A close up of all our kids. They are all paired up age-wise and it was so cute to see them all play with their "pair". They matched up nicely. Now to see which pair marries! :)

Daughtry!!!!!!

OH YEAH!!!

Happy mother's day to me! :)

Open House!

Alia had her first Open House on friday night. We all went and had dinner there and enjoyed Tricky Tray-a school raffle fundraiser. Although I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have...I didn't win a darn thing! :)

As we looked around the room Ethan found the perfect spot to sit.

Then...he decided he was ready for kindergarten! :) Who's open house was this, anyways? He is sitting in the chair that the daily star student sits in.

Here is a picture and story that Alia wrote. You can't see the picture all that well but she is sitting on top of a sea turtle! Girl after my own heart! I hope I get a picture of one of those next month when Jason and I are in Hawaii!

They've been growing these little grass catepillars! It's so cute and Alia loves hers. :)

Thanks a TON!!!!!

Elijah finished his first year of preschool on Friday! I can't believe it!!!! He's getting so big. As I was looking through the packet of stuff they sent home I started to get emotional thinking about how big he's gotten this year. He's learned so much...I'm so proud of him!

As a thank you gift for his teachers we made these plates. I wrote the words (obviously!) and Elijah made all the flowers with his finger. I loved how they turned out!

Here's Elijah on the last day of school with some of his first school friends.



Thanks Miss Gracie for letting Elijah love on you!

And thanks Mrs. Judy for being a great teacher to my kids! I wouldn't want any other teachers for their first school experience! You hold a special place in our hearts!

Elijah's preschool picnic

The preschool always has a picnic for the kids who aren't graduating and Elijah got to be a part of this this year. All of the kids sing some songs for the parents and then we all eat our lunches on the grass. It was pretty cute :)

Here's Elijah with some of his buddies.

Singing a song.

Here's a little video for you viewing enjoyment :)

The last MOPS

This week we had our last MOPS meeting. It has been an amazing year full of joy, laughter and tears...encouragement, truth, and challenge! I am going to miss being with all the ladies I've been blessed to be with this year. BUT am also SOOOOO excited to see what God has in store for us next year. I will, again, be the creative activities coordinator and can't wait to come up with some fun ideas! If anyone has any suggestions, pass them my way! I need them. :)

For our last MOPS we decided to prep a meal for each mom to make DURING mops and bring it home to cook it! Imagine, a dinner made BEFORE 11am! fabulous! So...after cooking and shredding over 100 pounds of chicken, cutting up who knows how much green onions and prepping everything else everyone went home with an 8 chicken enchilada dish! It was great! Well worth all of the effort!

This is the table of ladies I was blessed to sit with every week (well, when I didn't have a craft to manage). I love these girls!

Hard at work making her dinner!



Look honey! I am actually making a dinner! :) AND my hands are messy!

This was the beginning of the assembly line. Each mom grabbed a bag of chicken and dumped cheese, sauce, green onions and sour cream into it. Then they mixed it up and that was the inside of their enchiladas.

This was the end of the assembly line. See all those green onions?

Yeah...I chopped them all...by hand. :)

Until next year!! Stay tuned for more ideas!