Monday, July 30, 2012

Mother's Day picnic

In our house, we have an unwritten rule of sorts for Mother's Day, okay, let's be real, it's more than 1 rule. And by we, I mean my rule(s). 1. No cooking, cleaning, or housework. 2. I don't have to decide what we're going to do. 3. I get to spend the entire day with my husband and kids. Simply enough and my husband follows these rules and I love that. I'm selfish and I like Mother's Day to be all about me, but really, what mom doesn't?! He always does a great job with Mother's Day, last year we spent Mother's Day weekend in Duluth, but usually we go on what I like to call a "Mystery Trip". Back in the days when we could all fit in his 442, we'd go for a drive in that and always end up in a surprise location, usually the Coach outlet at Albertville. Then along came Stella and we no longer had enough room for all of us to ride in the 442.

This year for Mother's Day, the kids brought me breakfast in bed, which consisted of a brownie and a cup of coffee. Kevin successfully got all four kids ready for church himself so I could stay in bed as long as possible. When I was getting out of bed to take a shower and get ready myself, Adeline said "Get back in bed mom! It's Mother's Day, you can't get up yet!" I wish I could have listened to her and stayed in bed a little longer. Paul thought we should cancel church for Mother's Day. Then again, he thinks we should "cancel church" pretty much every Sunday, I think this is just a phase he's going through, at least I hope so, because 5-1/2 is too darn young to not want to go to church. He  is fine once we get to church, just doesn't want to go, because it "takes too long." Kevin keeps trying to remind him, that God has time for us, we need to have time for him too. Boys.

Amelia and Paul enjoying their lunch!
My beautiful girls!




Even Vinny was allowed to come along for the ride!

Mr. Serious





Kicking back and relaxing!

We let the kids play for a bit on the playground after we had lunch and then we got back in the Yukon and continued to head south to Kellogg and we stopped at the LARK Toy, if you've never been there, I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you have kids. The coolest thing about LARK is the carousel, all of the animals on the carousel are hand carved. They also have a small toy museum in the hallways, I think this was Paul's favorite thing, he is still talking about it today and about all the cool old toys. It was fun to see toys that my mom and aunt had that we use to play with at my Grandparent's house when my sister and I were young.







We can through Red Wing on our way home and decided to stop in Faribault at this great little Mexican joint and had dinner before we headed home. It was a great Mother's Day.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Preschool Graduation

 Now that we're on vacation for a week, I'm going to try my hardest to get our blog caught up from the last 2-1/2 months! Paul graduated from Kindergarten Connection (preschool) on May 9th. They sang a few songs with actions and then they had a little graduation ceremony complete with a "stage" to walk across. Paul's teachers were great, he really liked them. Ms. Sandy goes to our church, so he always thought that was cool he got to see her at church too, in addition to at school. Ms. Monique lives on a farm and would always tell the class about her farm animals and one time brought their pet duck "Peep" to school. He always came home with funny stories about things that happened at school or things that Ms. Monique would tell them at school. He's very anxious for kindergarten to start and he reminds me daily that he gets to go to school FIVE days a week, and then he names them all for me. I'm happy he loves school, I just hope it continues!







 Getting his diploma!
 Shaking Ms. Sandy's hand.
 Paul's class
He had a great class, many of these kids were in his ECFE class last year,
it was nice for him to have familiar faces.
 They had a few projects to do after their ceremony.
 Making a clothespin butterfly.
 Planting some flowers with his friend Kaedyn.

 We celebrated after school with cheese and crackers and root beer floats!

 I found this idea for teachers gifts on Pinterest. So I made them for 
Paul's teachers and we tucked a thank you note inside each cup.