oh, hi... lots going on...

My sweet neighbor, Heather shared her beautiful hydrangeas with me this week... :)
Skype-fest with fam in UTAH!!

Sunday we celebrated Father's Day a little early... after a yummy dinner and skype with the family, we tucked the kiddos in bed, only to hear little feet walking down the stairs: Caitlin and Will bringing 'wrapped gifts for daddy' on Father's Day! how cute is that? Here are the kids with Daddy; and their gifts. (this made us laugh, because as they headed back to bed they took their gifts with them... haha!)
Monday: My totally awesome cousin, Linda (from Seven Years of Plenty) and I ventured north to about an hour to The Snow Farm to visit East Coast Food Storage!! I'm excited to say that I've officially started my food storage!! It's not much, but it's a start! We had such a fun time together: we got lost, we laughed, we even saw a BEAR!! Yah, folks. We know how to party! Will and Brinley were so good... fun afternoon. we've decided we need to spend more time together! Here's a pic from the Farm... so beautiful and peaceful.
Tuesday: Suzie hosted the famous monthly RECIPE CLUB for June... and our theme was Wedding Foods. I told Suz i wanted to try and make a wedding cake!! Here are a few pics of my FIRST Wedding cake with fondant!! Not BAD, eh???

Can you believe it? I MADE this... i had fun. (i couldn't just make it white. i had to spice it up with SOMETHING BLUE... <3
Wednesday: Our Darling William graduated from Preschool!! (he was wearing a handsome button down shirt before we left that morning, but he decided he was going to help me do the dishes... and it was soaked!! So, he rocked the Mario shirt at graduation, it's more "Will" anyway. he wanted to wear his Buzz Light Year costume... that battle i did win. Here's Will is standing as they called his name... FUTURE Kindergartner!!

Will receiving his diploma from Mrs. Williams.
Brinley's 2nd cupcake...
(had to include this pic...) I offered to take my friend's 'family' pics for them because their memory card was full on their camera... so, she offered in return... this was before our 'family' pic: Me doing the 'mom' thing: licking a napkin and wiping my kid's lunch off his face...

Will's Teachers and class. Miss Rachel, Mrs. Williams, and Mr. Wayne

PreSchool CAMP!!!!

Let me just say that the past 4 days have been so much fun!

Will was invited to attend a Preschool Camp this week... run by the cutest 14 year old girl in Richmond!! Her mom and brother helped (and as the days went by... there were more and more neighbor kids helping, all wanting to take part in the fun!

Monday morning we took some before pictures:
Caitlin didn't go to the camp, but we took advantage of the time to do some last minute school shopping (back pack and new pair of tennis shoes!!)
silly is her middle name.

Monday: Animals
Tuesday: Plants
Wednesday: Fish

Thursday: Trains and CarsWill's car had wings!

Kaaah-Chow!

Thanks Cait! Will had so much fun!

*SuMmA ScHOoL*

In order to get ready for Kindergarten and Preschool we are doing activities each day of the week, the subjects include:

Vocabulary
Phonemic Awareness
Comprehension and Interpretation
Mathematical Knowledge
Identifying letters
Writing
Visual Discrimination

We also have goals of writing their names each day, and twice a week we'll introduce a new letter of the alphabet, along with a number! We'll practice writing upper and lower case letters, and saying the sounds! We play games with rhyming and find letters in books. Most of this is really for Caitlin... I don't push her to do it... she actually thrives on this kind of structure... and if Will wants to join in... he can! 'School' usually last somewhere from 3o- 45 minutes.

I'm hoping to make it fun enough that they'll not even notice that they are learning... and every once in awhile I'll say... "Hey, this is JUST like school!" and they get even more excited to go...

SO our house is like a mini version of Sesame Street...

Today's Letter of the Day is C... (last week was A and B... and Will wanted to add W... because we decided to PAINT letters... and what fun to paint letters that are in our names!! They were VERY excited!


When they were done with their letters, they wanted to paint on paper! They really enjoyed this activity!
Painting with the kids today made me smile because it reminded me of my childhood... My mom was always painting, for craft shows and boutiques... and she also taught children painting classes... It was fun to enjoy a favorite childhood activity of mine with my two oldest today!
not bad??

"C is for cookie!"

First Day of Preschool...

(...was actually last Tuesday!) but we've got a lot going on over here... So, ya know. Here they are all ready to go! Will was esp excited to go to school this year!

Drop off: Complete! Now it's just Me, Pepper and Brinners! Hm, What to do first?

Pick up: Two very happy kids!! They even look smarter!

2nd day of school: Will was done with the pictures before we even got started...

"back to school, back to school..."