Last day of school!

Cade had an incredible year in first grade. We were blessed with a wonderful teacher who went out of her way to make learning fun for her first graders! He loved Miss Amy and will miss her next year. She will be getting married in a few weeks and will be moving to Nashville. We look forward to sharing her special day with her!

Here is my sleepy eyed boy heading to his last day of first grade. Can't believe the year has come to an end.


The kids had their end of the year party and enjoyed lots of goodies. Here is Cade and his friend Luke.


The last day was also awards day.


Cade with Miss Amy!

Caleb

Caleb was home for a few weeks from the army and we were able to go over and spend a few hours with the family before he headed back to Germany. While at home he built the kids an awesome tree house! It was truly impressive. He's one talented guy!! The boys loved playing in the house and loved all the gadgets Caleb added for them to enjoy. I think the periscope was maybe the biggest hit with the boys!




One good looking group of guys!!

Field Day

Cade enjoyed his first "real" field day this year. When the kids are in Kindergarten at Adamsville they get a scaled down version of field day which basically includes several party jumpers. They love it but it's not the same as what the bigger kids get to do. Cade looked forward to field day for weeks before the day came. I took a day off from keeping kids and rode with Cade and Chad to school and spent the whole day with them. It was lots of fun. Cade enjoyed himself very much!! Chad went around and got a few pictures for me since I was working a station.

Here we are in Chad's office waiting for school to start

I got put to work making a very large twister board. This was a new event for field day! It went over very well!

Can't have field day without the egg and balloon toss!

This was a fun water relay

Tug of war!

This was obviously a huge hit!!








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Happy Mother's Day!

Chad and the boys have made my day very special!! I got to pick what I wanted for lunch (Chinese), haven't had to clean a single thing in the house...which needed to be cleaned badly (Chad has been cleaning all afternoon), took a long nap, and am now getting my blog caught up! This morning the boys brought me a card they had made and signed along with some sugary goodies...my favorite!! Cade also gave me a couple things he made at school. One was titled "Top 10 Reasons I love My Mom"

10. I love my mom because she reads me..... Junie B. Jones
9. I love my mom because she helps me ..... do my work
8. I love my mom when she makes me laugh by ...... saying funny things
7. I love my mom because she taught me how to ..... read
6. I love to hear my mom sing ...... bullet proof (this made me laugh because I don't sing it very often and when I do I'm sure I sound TERRIBLE!!!)
5. I love my mom because she finds time to ...... cook
4. I know my mom cares because she .....kisses me
3. I know my mom is smart because she ...... makes good meals
2. I love my mom because she works so hard at ....... babysitting
1. I love my mom because she's the best mom ever!
love, Cade

Thank you Cade!!

And I got to pull Cade's first tooth today!!!! He's been saying for half the school year that he's the only kids in his class who hasn't lost a tooth and that's embarrassing! Ha!! I told him we wanted to keep our teeth as long as possible! Well today he started the losing teeth process! He has another loose one so maybe we'll have that one pulled before long. Not only has he lost his first baby tooth...he already has 2 permanent teeth coming in.....which means we need to get that other baby tooth out!! He excited about a visit from the tooth fairy tonight!!!

Life Cycle of the Butterfly

Over the past few weeks the kids and I have been doing butterfly activities. One of my extra kiddos brought a live butterfly garden for us to use. I went on insectlore.com and ordered our caterpillars for $5. That included shipping so not a bad price at all!! Our 5 caterpillars arrived and we watched them over the next week or so as they grew bigger and bigger. One morning we got up and they had each formed a Chrysalis. We then took them and placed them into the butterfly garden to await the big day when they would break out of their shells and we'd have butterflies! The whole process took a little over 2 weeks I think!

The caterpillars ate the food that came with them for several days and then climbed to the top of the container and hung upside down. They are ready to form a Chrysalis.

Once we had all 5 Chrysalises we removed them from the container they arrived in and attached them inside the butterfly garden. Now we just wait for several more days!

Finally after more than 2 weeks from the time they arrived in out mailbox we have butterflies!

We kept them for a week or so feeding them sugar water and then finally let them go! We all enjoyed watching the life cycle!





Here are a few of the crafts we did to go along with the life cycle of the butterfly

We made caterpillars



And butterflies!


We made handprint/footprint flowers and then added little butterflies

Easter Sunday

Happy Easter!!



After bible class and worship we all headed to Rah Rah's for lunch and an egg hunt!


Each boy had their own special egg and inside was a note from Rah Rah leading them to somewhere (different for each one) in the house where they would find a special easter surprise. They loved this!! I thought it was a pretty neat idea too!!




Cooper's note told him to search in a bathroom! He found a special treat under the sink!


They all got new Webkinz! Thanks Rah Rah!

Lads to Leaders

I've gotten a little behind on my blog but I'm hoping to get caught up over the next few days. We'll see how that goes! We spent easter weekend in Nashville at the Lads to Leaders convention. Thousands of people from congregations all over gathered together as we watched and supported our young boys and girls as they learned to become leaders in their local congregations! Actually they've spent the last year working hard on things such as song leading, oral bible reading, bible bowl, learning scriptures, serving others, and much more. We had a great weekend. Cade participated in oral bible reading, song leading, and bible bowl at convention. During the year he did "know the books" and "good samaritan" and practiced the things he would be doing at convention. He did a great job and we are so proud of him and all the kids who participated.

We were glad Rah Rah could be with us. We enjoyed being in the Opry Land Hotel. Such a pretty place.

Here are the boys as they get ready to lead their songs

Cade led "I'm Happy Today"

Good Samaritans

Chad and his boys

Cade with Josh and Carter...Our three boys in the k-2 group from Henderson who participated in Oral Bible reading. They all did a super job!

Good Job Cade!