My Favorite Day of the Year! (Preschool Program 2014)

So sweet.

Tender voices.

Nervous bouncing.

Waves and smiles.

We (I) LOVE preschool music programs.

We also love Jay's incredible teacher, Mrs. Phillips!

The theme this year was Our Special Garden.

If you follow me on instagram you know that Jay had been cast as a spider and came home with instructions to wear ORANGE. So today was special for a number of reasons and will also be the first time either of the West kiddos have donned anything between coral and brown on the color spectrum.

He was cute as could be anyway!

He also did a great job!

 Dad was out of town and couldn't get back so Lizzy and I along with Jen, Dede and Papa went to cheer him on.

(Bonus points to Papa for being the very first person there this morning! Thanks for reserving our seats, Papa!)

The whole group did great! The music director at our preschool is something else. The fact that thirty-ish 3 and 4 year olds knew how to walk in, preform 15-20 songs and show their adoring audience how much fun and growing and learning they've been doing at school is just amazing. So proud of this group, the teachers and Jay's class this ear they have really grown up a lot!

I'm linking the videos below for my posterity's sake. I'm also hoping someone can show Mimi sometime when they are with her.

Enjoy!

Easter 2014

Christ is Risen!

He is Risen indeed!

We celebrated Easter at church this morning then spent the afternoon with the West/Myers crew enjoying these two little blessings most of all. 

The weather was wonderful today and the kids spent lots of time outside. 

Lizzy called "dibs" on the bunny cake apparently. 

We joined our friends at church on Saturday for the egg hunt and got to spend a little time with the EB himself. 

Lizzy really tried to be brave, but just couldn't take it. 

Jay found the Golden Egg and he told everyone he saw all day long. He was so thrilled when he found it, I wish I had taken a picture right at that second, I was celebrating with him and forgot. 

Lizzy was opening the eggs, removing the candy and leaving the empty egg behind. Good plan on her part, but sad for the other little who came behind her and found empty eggs. So I followed her and collected her cast-offs. 

We also celebrated with Jay's class this week with another egg hunt and party. We decorated our own cookies and listened to the Easter Story with our buddies. 

We've had a wonderful week talking about our Savior and the miracle of his resurrection. 

Its a tough topic with Jay and Lizzy being 2 and 3 but today definitely helped make the "Happy Easter" part easier to understand. 

I told Joseph after church today that maybe we'll try for a family Easter pic in a year or two. He agreed that our chances will be better by then. I'll keep my fingers crossed until then!

Springtime fun--catching up!

Life is busy, fun and full these days.

Jay is 3-and-a-half and Lizzy's 2--life is nonstop.

Spring has sprung all around us and while I hardly have time to complete a thought, let alone a blog post, I'm making myself sit down to make note of how much we've been doing lately and what we're up to.

SO here we go--spring so far....

I finally decided to use my sewing machine for the first time! Eight years after getting it for Christmas, I made two pillows!

We celebrated at Davis' Super Hero themed birthday.

I completed my second sewing project-capes for Jay and Lizzy.

Lizzy ran around saying "Super-Lizzy!!!" and "ZZZZOOOOMM!" and Jay actually wore his which was a pleasant surprise!

We celebrated Lizzy's 2nd birthday then kept Kelsey with us for the week. Jay had preschool, so we did a few girl things like picked out new nail polishes and gave ourselves late-night manis and pedis...and enjoyed a day at the zoo and played in the mud while Jay wasn't at school.

Lizzy and Jay both loved having Kelsey here.

Then we took off to Nashville to return our house guest and stayed the weekend with Mimi.

We checked out the Nashville Zoo this time with Mimi, CJ and KarKar in addition to Kelsey and the West kiddies.

 GOATS!

Yes, that goat brush did eventually wind up in Lizzy's hair, despite every attempt to avoid the inevitable, it was in fact, inevitable. Yuck.

 A visit to church and Nanny and Cece's rounded out our weekend.

Then it was back home. Silly kids. Happy to be out of the car!

We had Davis over for his first sleepover at our house. It was fun for everyone and a tad surprising that it went so smoothly.

I really think that Jay and Davis played so much all day long that they were totally worn out by bedtime and had no choice other than go down for the count.

(Did I mention that Joseph was out of town for this part??)

We've spent lots of time outside and enjoying the adventures of our yard, the creek and the treehouse.

We've also worked in the kitchen a lot. Since Jay gave up his nap at the beginning of February he and I are working together to explore every inch of our property and he's learning to help me cook dinner and bake. He's really learned lots over the past several weeks.

Just this week we made some simple sugar cookies, but I noticed that he can mix and add ingredients without making a total mess of things, which is real progress from where we started.

Lizzy is still such a joy. She is quite independent these days and wants to do everything Jay does. She is really a bit of a daredevil and you have to keep a keen eye and ear out at all times as she explores her boundaries. Its not uncommon to find her making a break for the treehouse the first chance she gets or to look up and find she's more than halfway up the ladder unassisted. It scares the stuffing out of me, but I am glad to see that she is able to hold her own.

Sweet Lizzy talks and sings all the time. She knows every word to every scene of Frozen and has started to play pretend. You'll find her taking care of babies and saying "I Miss Phiw-wips" (Jay's teacher) when she's in the playroom while Jay is at school.

And tonight we celebrated Weston's birthday by all going out to dinner at a local pizza place.

The kids had fun and may or may not have spent a zillion quarters in the game room!

Happy Spring from the West girls!