Jonah's Preschool Graduation

Last Thursday was Jonah's last day of Preschool and they had a little program for all the 4 year olds. It was the cutest thing ever to see all those kids perform. The teachers do such a great job. Each class came out and did a song. I was so amazed that hardly any of the kids seemed nervous at all to be on the stage under those lights.

Jonah's class was the last one to come out and perform and they did a song called Run to Jesus and they had to run in place and clap their hands. Then the whole group did a couple of songs together. They did This Little Light of Mine and Jesus Love Me. Then they did a silly song where they had to do different moves and by the end everyone had to close their eyes and stick out their tongue and sing. Well Jonah was in the back in the middle and he didn't do any of the moves at all. I know he had to have practiced it. We asked him why he didn't participate and he said "he didn't want to stick his bottom out." LOL Well they all did look pretty silly!!

Then they called each of their names to receive their Bible. This was not a rinky-dink Bible either! They each got a hard-cover ESV study Bible with a concordance and maps in the back. It has cross-references and everything. Easily a $40 Bible at the store! He loved getting that and asked us to read from it for several nights since then.

Overall, we could not be happier with the experience we had with this Christian preschool program! It went above anything I had imagined for Jonah and he has flourished and learned so much. I can tell tat he is just on the cusp of learning to read already. I am going to get some tips from my friend that is a Kindergarten teacher to see if I can get him started reading over the summer some....we'll see.

I know that he is ready both socially and intellectually now for Kindergarten. I just can't believe in a little over 2 months we will be starting school!!!

Jonah and his Frog classmates walking out to do their song.

 Doing the running part of the song.

And the clapping part...

 Lots of boys in his class!

Doing This Little Light of Mine.

This is basically how he looked during the entire "silly song". 

After his name was called.

Getting his Bible from his teacher.

The one and only family picture we managed to get after it was all over.

February Pages & Jonah's PreK Art Show

I am trucking along with more digital scrapbooking for the kid's books. I recently finished a 2-page February layout and a single page layout of Jonah's art show.

Snow & Our Sweet Boy! {Digital Scrapbooking}

A couple of weeks ago we got a good bit of snow overnight. It was on a Saturday morning so we bundled up the kids and broke out Jonah's new sled. He loved playing in the little bit of snow we got but Haley didn't care much for it. LOL I just finished up a layout to commemorate the fun morning.

I also finished a 2-page layout for Jonah from our Fall family portraits. I loved that our photographer got several cute shots of our busy boy! They show his personality so well!

Jonah's First Day of Preschool!

Last Thursday was Jonah's first day of preschool! I think Daddy and I were more excited about than he was. He didn't seem nervous at all about it and seemed very excited and ready to go. We packed his lunch and we both took him for his first day. When we got to his classroom door (a little early) he was ready to go inside but we had him wait until the teacher was ready. We took him to hang up his backpack and put his lunch box away and then we said our goodbyes and he gave us each a big hug and then he was good to go! He walked in his classroom and found his seat and was just fine.

We are so proud of what a big boy he has been about school and we know he was ready for it. Here are some pictures from the first day.

He doesn't look excited in this picture but it was just the camera delay. He was very excited and seemed cool as a cucumber. This was taken in one of the hallways. I just love him with that backpack on!!

Very blurry but shows more of the excitement!

He was over taking pictures by the time we go to his classroom door so we took one of his cool Dusty backpack. The theme of his classroom is Frogs. So as long as he can remember frogs he can find his room....should he ever need to.

This was taken right before we left (from the doorway). He looks so little and sweet! I really like both of his teachers and think he will have a great year!

When I came back to pick him up at 2:00 I snapped this picture. So, so proud!! His teacher said he only had 2 little upsets and one was just because he tripped and fell. I will take it!! She said he got over both of them very quickly.

A little background on the preschool he is going to. It's about 40 minutes from our house which seems crazy to many, I'm sure, that we would drive him there but the only other option in our small, rurual county is full PreK through the school system. He would have to go 5 days a week from 8-3 just like regular school. I know a lot of people that choose that route and their kids do great but we just weren't ready for him to be in a full-on school setting just yet. Mainly because his birthday falls so late in the year and he would be one of the youngest kids in the entire school. Also, we wanted his first experience to be Christian-based and this preschool definitely is. It's sponsored by the largest church in the next county over from us. So he is getting the full feel of big school (lots of kids and structured learning) without all the bad stuff (we all know there is good and bad in the public school system). We feel that the Lord really placed this option in our path and it was something we could afford to do right now. Anyways....sorry for all the explanations but it also will help me when I look back one day.

Weekend Fun

We haven't done anything very productive or out of the ordinary. We have just hung out and played and soaked up just being together and not having to run here and there and everywhere. Also, this is the tax free weekend for Tennessee so since we don't need anything from the stores or town, we decided to lay low. I am sure the stores have been crazy!

Here is most of our Saturday in pictures. I took advantage of the cool temps and snapped some pictures of the kids just enjoying the day.

"Mama take my picture."

"Take a picture of Windlifter's face."

My world!

Chewing, chewing, chewing!

Jonah loves his bike a.k.a. his motorcycle. 

Love that lop-sided grin!

Them feet are into what ever she is doing. Haha!

If it has a tag...she will find it.

Some of the decent looking roses on my rose bush. 

Mid holler

These are the days!!!

Jonah's First Train Ride

Last Sunday evening we enjoyed a fun "date" with our first-born, Jonah. He has really been into trains since he was 2 but we had never rode on a train before. We decided to give him that experience and Daddy had never ridden a train either so it was fun for them to both experience it together. When I saw that the Tennessee Central Railway Museum was going to have a real steam train excursion for a limited time, I jumped on some tickets for us.

Since it involved driving over an hour to Nashville to board the train, we decided to make a fun day of it with just Jonah. He loved the train and loved looking out the window at all the other train pieces around us. We were in a nice air-conditioned car and we even got to go up and see the engineer driving the steam train while we went down the tracks. That part Jonah was not too thrilled about because we had to walk into an open-air cart and it was hot and loud so I think it just frightened him a little bit. He just didn't want to get up too close and clung to his Daddy but he loved sitting in our cart where you could hear the faint whistle of the diesel train that was pushing us (the steam train was mostly for appearances sake). They had fake engineers on each cart that handed out Thomas the Train pictures to all the kids. The ride lasted a little over an hour but it was plenty of time to just relax and enjoy the ride and let Jonah soak it all up.