Preschool Graduate!

So it's official. Hannah has officially finished preschool. She loved it! I can't believe she will be going to Kindergarten in the fall. Here are a few pictures from the school year.

Here they are having story time.

Hannah likes to play at the sand table.

Here are their Thanksgiving pilgrim costumes.

Hannah brought home MANY great pieces of art work.

They had a daddy's night at school. Hannah and Paul got to go to all the centers and do projects together.

She loves patterns. She is always making patterns with everything. Even today at lunch she said, "Mom I' m making an eating pattern. Bite of hamburger, french fry, drink, hamburger, french fry, drink, hamburger, french fry, drink.......

Hannah being an Indian at the Thanksgiving Feast.

She loved cutting real wood with a real saw.

The girls were the minority in Hannah's class this year.

The dress up center has always been a favorite of Hannah's.

Here is Hannah all ready for making pizza at the Little Chef's Academy.

Their breadsticks turned out really yummy.

The building center is also one of Hannah's favorite. I was told she liked to play with boys and girls. She held her own with even the boys that were bullies.

Hannah had a great school year!

I hope she always really likes school and learning.

Our summer is off to a great start with the great weather, fun play dates, and plenty of swimming. We have survived the last 2 weeks with Paul in Poza Rica, Mexico with at least two more to go. (hopefully he'll be able to come home after that).

We are looking forward to starting gymnastics and swim lessons in a week. Hopefully we'll have lots of fun pictures from those events.

Happy Belated Birthday Hannah!!

I am super late wishing Hannah a Happy Birthday!! But Happy Birthday Hannah!!

Hannah's birthday wish this year was to have a rock star birthday and have all her friends come over to the house and be rock stars with her. Hannah has become a recent fan of rock stars and Hannah Montana.

Hannah is also a fan of carbs. Her favorite thing for breakfast is toast with butter, sugar, and cinnamon. Her favorite thing for lunch is a chicken sandwich. For dinner she loves breadsticks, rolls, mexican rice, and chinese rice.

She loves dinosaurs and can tell you all their names and qualities.

You could also find her on the following super heros fan list: Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Batman, The Hulk, Star Wars, and Astro Boy

She is a fan of the following princesses and fairies: Ariel, Bell, Jasmine, Sleeping Beauty, Tinker Bell, and Silver Mist

The funny thing is that she will watch the movies that have real actors in them and not the animated ones. She gets scared of the villains in the animated movies. Go figure. I would think that real people getting hit, shot, and punched would be much more disturbing.

Some of Hannah's favorite activities are camping, climbing trees and up in high places, swimming, and gymnastics. She says she still likes ballet and tap but I haven't been able to get her to go to class the last 2 months. We will see if she will go this summer. She says she prefers soccer, baseball or basketball. Which I'm totally fine with. I'm a fan of letting the kids choose what they want to do.

Hannah chose a star cake with butterflies. Which I was very happy about. It was easy to do compared to last year's cake.

We started the party by having the kids come in and make their handprints next to their Hollywood Star. We played some party games, danced, did bubbles and played in the backyard. They were super easy to entertain. Hannah just loved having them over at the same time.
Thank goodness Paul was here to hold Madelyn and help out. We would have never have survived without him. =)

Hannah getting ready to blow out her candle.

One of the kids favorite thing was running around in circles under the streamers that were tied to the fan. The streamers made a lot noise that causes the kids to make an even louder noise and run around in circles. Like I said, easy to entertain.

Hannah had a lot of fun.

I am so happy I am blessed to be her mom!!

I Love Technology

So I love technology. If I had an endless supply of money I would have every techno gadget I could get my hands on. I don't know why, I've just always liked it. So the newest member of our technology family is the iPad. It is Paul's so I haven't touched it that much, but it seems to be almost just a bigger version of the iTouch which I love.

Well my latest technology finding came when I was watching American Idol and the band's stands appeared to be glowing. I thought, "could they really be playing from a computerized stand?" Well I did a little searching and sure enough they have a computer like thing that screws into the stand to play from.

Oh man, oh man - how I wish I still played my clarinet in a band. That would have been so awesome!

Here is one article about it that I thought was pretty cool.

Music Pad Pro

The New Look in Sheet Music

You can say goodbye to searching for music, lost rehearsal notes and unintended breaks in the music. The paperless music library has arrived. And it’s reinventing how students, teachers, and performers look at music in the classroom, at rehearsal and on stage.

The MusicPad Pro Plus is an easy-to-use digital music notebook in a handy 12.1" tablet size. Now all your sheet music, drill charts, lyrics, guitar tablature, bowing and fingering marks, class schedules, set lists and other study and performance aids can all be kept in one convenient place. Its innovative touch screen lets you make marks and notations right on the page of music.

Your entire music library at your fingertips. You can store an entire season’s worth of concerts or an entire semester of classroom materials in one compact unit and add new scores or material at any time. It’s easy to download music from freehandmusic.com, scan your music library or import music from all the popular music and graphics programs directly into the MusicPad Pro Plus.

Thousands of pages of sheet music. Not one page to turn. About the size of a sheet of music, the MusicPad Pro Plus has a high resolution, low glare easy-to-read display. Its back-lit touch screen eliminates the need for external light in in low-light or no-light situations. And a quick touch on the screen or tap on the optional foot pedal will turn the page for you. Plus, the convenient video out feature makes it easy to project your notes and annotations so you can share materials with students or colleagues.

MusicPad Pro is mac and pc compatible.

Can you believe it? So cool.

One Month in One Post

We had a busy, but fun last month. I have to say that some people seem to make 3 kids look so easy. Well I'm still trying to figure out a good balance of time and energy. #3 definitely hasn't been easy for me. Actually it has been the hardest transition yet. But I love all my kids I have been blessed with. Hannah and Madelyn both want me with them every second playing with them or just watching them. I try to enjoy it, because I know one day they won't want me there every second. Jake on the other hand helps himself to everything and anything and does whatever he wants no matter who is around. A very self sufficient little, big guy. Here is a picture of the results of him helping himself to my gym bag and then my razor. Luckily he had seen Paul shave and had an idea what to do with it. He only got 3 little lines on his face. Pretty lucky for what could have happened.

At the beginning of April we went to Utah for my sister Christina's wedding. I knew there would be snow, but not like this. We were greeted with at least a foot of snow on the ground and the kids got to see two big snow days while we were there. I thought I missed the snow, but I thought wrong. I was missing the nice 75 degree weather we were having in Texas. The kids on the other hand loved playing in the snow.

This was Jacob's first time to ever see snow. Kind of sad, 3 years old and barely getting to see snow. (I try to visit in the summer when all the snow is gone. =) )
Here is my beautiful sister Christina. She was a pretty bride. There are 12 years between Christina and I, so all growing up she always said - "Melissa, you are so pretty." I think all of her complements came back to bless her, because I think she is one gorgeous girl.
We got to meet the lucky Brian Bott. They had a really nice wedding. I am happy we were able to make it back to be a part of it.
Hannah had a lot of fun being the flower girl. She loved wearing the dress that made her feel like a princess.
Jacob got to be the ring bearer. He really enjoyed doing it.
Madelyn tolerated the wedding. How much fun is wearing a big poofy dress, loud crowds, and crazy schedule for a 4 month old anyway?
It was so nice to see all of our family members. I was especially excited to see my sister Erica who has been living on an island, so the only time I get to talk and see her is on the computer. I am so glad they will be moving back to the states. Erica was responsible for the entire wedding party looking great. She did everyone's hair and makeup. She is one ambitious, talented girl.
We got to enjoy conference and Easter with family. That was a special treat for us. Hannah and Jacob loved being with all their cousins and being spoiled by the grandparents.

Here is Hannah and Kennedy Easter afternoon looking for eggs.
Jacob loved all the candy and chocolate he got to eat.
Here is Tyson. His bunny ears are missing because his dad banned him from wearing them. =) But he is still one cute little boy.
Madelyn got plenty of hugs and kisses from the grandmas.

Paul spent a lot of time with his brother Chad working on the dealership. I really like this picture of them and their dad, because they look alike. If I only could have got Derrick in the picture too.
So I recently wanted to update my pictures of the kids on the wall. I don't really like to take them in to get their pictures, because it is usually a painful nightmare with mediocre pictures.

So I decided to take them to the blue bonnet fields to get some traditional Texas blue bonnet pictures. It turned out to be painful and none of the blue bonnet pictures were very exceptional.

I ended up just taking Madelyn's at home.

And this is why. I woke her up from her nap for the pictures. This is about the best that she would do. =(

So I let her go back to sleep while the kids played in the park.

I caught Jake climbing on the rocks. This picture turned out better than the ones that I made him pose for in the blue bonnets.
I zoomed in on Hannah taking a rest on top of a giant rock she had climbed. She did have one picture in the blue bonnets I really liked, but it turned out the camera was out of focus. So this one ended up being my favorite.
So after bribing them with candy to put on these clothes, then bribing them with Mc Donalds to sit still and take the pictures, this was the best blue bonnet picture we got (with only 3 blue bonnets). Oh well. Maybe having someone else do it is the answer now. Better luck next time.