Harrison's Program and Last Day of Preschool

Monday night was Harrison's preschool program. It was just adorable! They've been practicing for a long time and it showed. The kids did such a good job! It was a responsive story about Noah's Ark where the director (Ms. Misty) said something and the kids said a response. Each class also sang a song somewhere in the play. It was great!!

Harrison's class wore yellow for the night. They're song was "My God is a Great Big God." Harrison did such a great job!
Madeleine was excited to get to be in the audience for the night and watch brother.

Charlotte was a doll as usual and sat perfectly in her carseat until she just drifted off to sleep.

After the program they had some seriously yummy cookies. And then we finished off the night with some of our favorite Jason's Deli for dinner!

Wednesday was Harrison's last day of preschool. I was so sad for this day to get here. It didn't go quite as I'd planned since I was so sick and Matt got to take him for his last day. I did manage to ride with him to pick up Harrison that afternoon though. Harrison was actually sad for this to be his last day. He's had a great year and has learned so much! He brought home a cute ABC flipchart that he'd made throughout the year as well as a photo album of pics of him from throughout the year. They are so cute and I'll keep them forever.

Their shirts turned out so cute. They say "my mom rocks" on the front and "she sends me to Mt. Comfort Sonshine School" on the back. Harrison loves wearing his! This is his wonderful teacher Ms. Merrily. She's been so sweet to Harrison this year and he adores her! We've made a trip back inside after getting to the car many times because Harrison realized he forgot to give her a kiss and had an absolute meltdown! His mouth was blue from a popsicle he'd had earlier, I think. They ordered pizza and had a fun day the last day!

This is Harrison with his sweet little friend Caroline. He has a bit of a crush on her. It's so sweet! He always talks about Caroline and tells me she's his friend. They were in class together last year, too, and they'll be in class together again next year.

They had a HUGE blowup slide for the kids that day! At the end of they day they let them go back in after parents had come and slide more if they wanted! We practically had to drag Harrison out of there!! He loved that slide.

It sounded like Harrison had such a fun day! He came home one dirty kiddo which pretty much means that he'd had a GREAT day! :) We can't wait for next year!

My Big Boy

I've wanted to do a post on Harrison for awhile now, but just haven't gotten around to it, so here goes!

Just thinking about this little boy makes me smile. He's so full of life and energy! He has the most expressive eyes. He will cut them to the side to make a point sometimes. He also has the deepest dimples that melt my heart! I know he should probably be in trouble more than he is -- but those dimples get me every time!

He has the sweetest heart and is so in tune to the feeling of those around him. Remarkable for a 3 year old, I think. He'll often ask me "mommy, are you happy?" If I tell him yes, he'll say "but, you not smilin'." Or he'll tell me that he's so happy and make me look at his face where he's make a goofy grin. If he's upset with me, he'll tell me that I'm not his best friend anymore. When I reply that I'm OK with that, but mommy has to do the right thing for him, he'll say....."OK, you're my best friend now....am I your best friend?" He can't rest until I tell him that he's my best friends and I love him.

He loooooves Thomas the Train right now. He will play trains all day long. If I try to interrupt him, he'll insist that he needs to finish his story first. He even narates them like the movies. I think he might have a future job in this! I'll hear him exclaiming "cinders and ashes" or he'll run to tell me that "thomas and percy are MAD." I love to listen to the little stories he plays out. They are so cute!

He's on the fence about napping right now. If I make him lay down at 12:30 he'll go right to sleep and sleep for at least 2 hours. But, if we're not home at that time, forget it! He often falls asleep in the carpool line and I'll carry him in and lay him down and he'll sleep another couple of hours. He's much happier and less cranky when he's had a nap, but he can certainly go without it. It's just so nice when he takes one! :)

He has a potty mouth still. And by potty mouth I don't mean vulgar words, I mean potty words. I think this is a boy thing. We have a rule in our house that potty words belong in the bathroom, so I'll often hear him in there yelling, YELLING "POO POO" over and over and over. Then he'll leave. Right now he like to call people "booger heads." He did that in walmart today to Charlotte and I'm serious when I say that I saw a lady near us spit out her drink she was laughing so hard.

He's also pretty into animals and pirates now too. He likes to dump out all his animals and trees/bushes and cover my dining room floor with them and pronounce it a jungle. And, his playground outside is forever being transformed into a pirate ship with sharks in the water!

This boy is a bathing beauty! He would probably take 4 baths a day if I'd let him. The max I allow is 3. I draw the line there. He's discovered those little capsules that you put into water and they turn into little foam critters/ships/dinosaurs/etc. Every time we drive by walmart he asks me "can we go to walmart and get some of those little things???" I think we probably have over 100 little foam things lurking around our house. I know for a fact we added 12 fish to the collection this morning after our weekly walmart run!

He loves to sing! His favorite songs right now are church songs -- in particular My God is a Great Big God (preschool version) and The Days of Elijah, which he calls "There's no God like JehoBah!" It never fails to make me smile when I hear him sing this. :)

He inisits on wearing his Thomas undies backwards. He says he has to see Thomas and he can't when Thomas is on his bootie! Ha!

We're having the battle of the bellies at dinner. Harrison is going throught a picky stage and most nights eats only bread at dinner. Oh well. I'm hoping that he'll outgrow it like Madeleine did, but for now all I can say is he's quite hungry at breakfast! And almost every night at dinner he asks if after dinner we can go to braums. :) That boy loves him some chocolate chip ice cream -- on a cone. I was going to buy him a new carseat this month, but decided to wait until ice cream season is over. (ha -- as if we have ice cream season! Our whole year is ice cream season!)

He's gotten really good at coloring. Last week he was making "tracks" for his trains on paper and they looked like tracks. I think preschool has helped with a lot of this. This summer we're going to tackle learning to write some letters and a couple of numbers.

One more thing --- he's super dramatic. He'll slump over and walk away like that if he doesn't get his way. :) It so hard not to laugh. Or he'll hit his head with his hand in those ah-ha moments!

There really are no words to explain how much I love this little guy. We've had a fun year and I'm so thankful that I've had so much one on one time with him. He just fills a room with life! And he's so well behaved (as long as he's not tired) that I really can take him anywhere. He stays right with me in stores and has learned the "hold the cart" routine for walmart runs. He really is just so much FUN! I love days where we have no where to go and I can just stay home and play with him!

Jungle Party Tonight

And, no, I'm not refering to our sometimes crazy sleeping arrangements at our house (that would be more like musical beds)....this was the title of Madeleine's Kindergarden Program!

We've been looking forward to this evening for a long time! Madeleine had a speaking part in the play and we've practiced it so much that I think if she forgot it any one of us (including Harrison) could have helped her out! :)

Mimi and Grandad joined us for the evening -- a crazy long way to drive for a program, but that's grandparents for ya! -- and it was such a nice surprise for the kids! It worked out well since Matt and I had to attend a PTO meeting before hand. We are the new PTO presidents for her school for the upcoming school year! I'm so excited and I think it's going to be a lot of work, but very rewarding. As soon as the meeting was over we headed down to the gym to watch our gal!

I have about 50 pictures that look basically just like this, so I'm only posting one.

The program was so cute! And, Madeleine did such a great job with her lines. I was so proud of her! You could definitely tell this was our first child in school -- we had the video camera and digital camera out and were filming away! ha! After they finished the teachers had them stay put for a few minutes so the parents could get pictures. So nice! They had each decorated their favorite animal/insect to wear. Of course Madeleine was a butterfly!

This is her friend Zulma. They sat next to each other in the play.

This is Madeleine with her teacher Ms. Simpson. We love Ms. Simpson around our house! I can only hope that she's there to teach all of my children because we think that much of her.

The program wasn't as interesting to miss Charlotte as the rest of us. She fell asleep towards the end and got her a good nap and some good loving!

Of course we had to stop by the playground on our way out. Harrison thinks he's such big stuff out there! Then it was off to Braums for a quick dinner before Mimi and Grandad had to head back. But, we were so thankful that they made the trip to make this night even more special for Madeleine!

Four and Fun

My sweet baby girl is four months old now. This age is such a fun one in my eyes. It's the time when they are getting more and more expressive and it's the start of a very fun few months. It's the time before the teething fuss starts and they're sleeping all night -- which makes it much more enjoyable for me!

Charlotte has been busy this month! She's started rolling front to back and back to front. I have the most perfect memory of watching her do this for the first time....Madeleine and I were having our usual afterschool playtime with Charlotte. We were playing with her under her playgym and I had her on her tummy. Madeleine was talking to her and as she started rolling we started cheering her on. Harrison join in the fun then and we spent several minutes cheering for her and clapping -- Harrison kept yelling "she gonna roll, she gonna roll." Finally Charlotte made it all the way over & you would have thought she'd solved some complex calculus equation by all the applause she got! It was so sweet to watch her big sister and brother cheer for her and encourage her. I pray they always are her biggest supporters.


She's still an amazing sleeper. She takes about 3 hour long naps during the day -- if I'm home all day then she'll take a 2 hour one in there. But, she's sleeping a good 11-12 hours at night every night! Hurray! She has very bad refux and often has a coughing fit in the night & we have to get up and pat her on the back (and often put her in the swing to try and help her feel better) but she sleeps through all of that. :) I usually wake her up around 7:30 for her first feeding and to start our day.

She's got to be one of the happiest babies EVER. I love that about her! I love that when I wake her up in the morning she has the biggest streeeeetch then gives me the biggest grin. :) She'll keep her mouth open until I kiss her back. It's precious. She always has a smile. And, can this girl TALK!!! She's really found her voice this month. She makes all kind of funny noises in addition to the usual cooing sounds. She's quite a squealer and she's pretty loud. Almost every time I take her with me into a store someone will stop me and comment on her cute sounds. She likes to go shopping and just looks around at everything. I think I've definitely got me a shopping buddy.

When she gets tired she rubs her eyes and turns her head to the left. Dead giveaway that it's naptime.

She likes to be read to lately. She will stare down those pictures in the books. I can just see her taking it all in. And with Madeleine reading now, there's always someone ready to read to her. She's going to be spoiled, I know. She also loves for us to sing to her which we do A LOT.

Madeleine is one of her favorite people. As soon as Madeleine gets in the car in the afternoon, Charlotte starts squealing. She talks and talks to Madeleine. It almost always makes me tear up, it's so sweet. She just lights up when Madeleine comes over to her. And Madeleine is amazing with her. She gets in the car and tells Charlotte about her day in her baby-talk voice. Poor Harrison just tries and tries to get a word in. No wonder he talks my ear off all day long -- once the girls get together he's ousted. :)

She's started doing some big time drooling this past month. I keep checking for teeth, all the while holding my breath & hoping they're NOT there. Harrison cut 2 teeth at 4 months & I just want my baby to stay a baby as long as possible. She's constantly cramming her fist into her mouth and has started putting anything she can get her hands on into her mouth as well. We're still trying with the paci. She's started to really like it when she's sleepy & it helps her fall asleep a bit faster, but it's not necessary for her to sleep. As soon as she actually falls asleep she spits it out & is done with it.

She has the tiniest feet, especially compared to her chunky-monkey body! We have her four month checkup on Monday & I'm curious to see how much she weighs! She's gotten quite large -- fat & happy as we call it. :) At least it looks good on a baby. Ha!

Weekend Recap -- Part 2

After spending some time with Matt's family, we got back in the car and headed down to Little Rock. When we arrived, Sugar, Stewart & our friend Ashley were at the house waiting on us! I took a few picture when we first arrived and then didn't bring out my camera again until the shower. :( I have to add here that the kids just loooooove Stewart, or "stewie" as they call him. And, Madeleine has become the queen of the photo pop-in. She's in almost ALL of my pics from the weekend. :)
Saturday morning was spent running errands while Matt & Grandad took the kids to the toystore, bookstore and McDonalds for some fun time! One of the reasons I wanted to go to LR this weekend was so that my Mammy could meet Charlotte for the first time -- and then I didn't even get a picture of them together. Bad me! I definitely will be getting some during the wedding weekend next month. Sweet Charlotte got some major lovin' this weekend. Mammy is so great with babies (having had 4 & then having 8 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren). Also, Ashley cuddled with miss Charlotte all weekend as well; she has quite the touch with putting her to sleep. Needless to say, she's missing all that attention this week! :)
Saturday afternoon while the kids napped, Sharon, Ashely & I did a bit of shopping. After stopping to exchange some bridesmaid shoes, we headed over to Charming Charlies. I LOVE this store. It's amazing! Please, please send one to NWA. Please! If you've never been in one.....it's mostly an accessories store that is HUGE and sorted by color. And the best part is that everything is extremely affordable!

Saturday evening my Aunt Lila and cousin Kristen came into town to visit and go to Sharon's shower the next day. It's been forever since I'd seen them and it was so great to catch up.

Sunday was the big day! After a wonderful worship experience at PV that morning and a quick lunch of yummy BBQ it was time to get ready for the shower.

I took a zillion pictures at the shower, but I'm only posting a few. I'll let Sharon put the rest up.

Here we are outside Ms. Kathy's house. I really like this picture....finally a picture where we both look good. :) On a side note, notice how the quality of my pictures gets better from here on???? That's from a new camera!!!!!
Here's Sharon with Kristen, Aunt Lila and Madeleine.

Mammy, Me, Madeleine, Sharon and Mimi.

The flowers at the shower were AMAZING. Absolutely AMAZING! Sharon's using hot pink and clover green in the wedding and all the flowers were done in those colors. If you look closely, you can see come of their engagement pics here.

The beautiful table and more beautiful flowers!

They had a huge shower. She opened gifts the entire time and then 30 minutes past when the shower ended. I think I still have writers cramp from writing all of them down for her. :) I'm looking forward to our next trip down there when I can see everything all nicely displayed. What a wonderful weekend!

Weekend Recap -- Part 1

This past weekend was such fun! We headed to Little Rock so I could go to my sister's shower at our church there. I wasn't able to go to the first shower, so I was so excited about getting to go to this one! But, as excited as I was, I think there was a little girl in our house that was even MORE excited! Madeleine has been talking about this shower for weeks. She picked out the dress she was going to wear days ago & it had to be perfect. :)

But, I'm getting out of order. Our fun weekend started Friday. First came the not-so-fun packing part. Packing for 3 and with 3 is anything but easy. I always forget that babies need so much stuff! There are diapers, bottles, burpers, extra clothes, the travel swing, and on and on and on! And, Madeleine & Harrison are now big enough that they always want to pack some of their stuff to take as well -- trains for Harrison and polly pockets for Madeleine this time.

Trying to keep them occupied but not making a mess while I pack is a feat in itself. Thankfully, Madeleine was at school that morning & Harrison happily played with the train track I'd make him. Miss Charlotte just hung out, happy as ever.

Finally, we were loaded and ready to go! We picked up Madeleine at school (one of her favorite things is getting check out early since she gets to go to the office) and swung by Chick Fil A and grabbed some lunch before picking up Matt. Matt's school had conferences that day & he was finished at 1, so we were able to get an early start. I managed to feed Charlotte in the parking lot before we left and we made it to Searcy before she got hungry again.

Our first stop was Grammy & Pop's house to have dinner with them & get a chance to visit. Grammy knew just what the kids love & had pizza followed by strawberries with whipped cream. Yum! It was great to just sit around and chat while the kids played. After dinner Uncle Ben and Aunt Pat came by to meet sweet Charlotte for the first time and it was wonderful to see them!

It was the perfect start to our weekend and I wish we could have stayed longer.

Kindergarden Field Trip

Friday Harrison and I were so excited to get to go on Madeleine's field trip with her! Harrison thought he was SUCH big stuff getting to be in kindergarden for the day. It was a long day, but oh so fun!

We all arrived at school at 7:45 that morning. Harrison had some fun playing with the trains and checking out the tadpoles that are growing in Ms. Simpson's room while we waited for the buses to arrive. For some reason, parents cannot ride with the kids so I drove myself, Harrison & 3 other moms to the Wilderness Animal Safari and we met the kids/buses there. This wasn't our first trip to the Animal Safari and so I knew how much fun we were going to have! We've been talking for weeks around our house about the different animal we were going to get to see and touch.

As soon as everyone arrived, the teacher assigned each parent some kids to escort around the "petting" part. Madeleine was so excited that 2 of her best friends were going with us! So off we went! I took SO many pictures, but I really hate to post pics of kids whose parents may/may not want pictures of their kids on the internet, so most of these are of M & H. :)
Our first stop was the kangaroos. We were lucky to pretty much be the only ones out there that day & it wasn't crowded AT ALL. Yay! Madeleine was so brave and wanted to pet everything. This is a momma kangaroo with a baby in her pouch.

Here she is checking out some zebras. They eventually came over to see us and we had the chance to pet them.

I still can't believe that my girlie-girl put this snake around her neck! Ick! Harrison wouldn't even come close to it -- he kept wanting to check out the turtles that were close by. They're much calmer.

After taking a break for lunch the kids ran off some energy with a rousing game of red-rover. The teacher in this picture is Ms. Simpson -- Madeleine's main teacher. We love Ms. Simpson around our house! I'm pretty sure Harrison will have a complete meltdown if he doesn't have her for kindergarden -- he loooooves Ms. Simpson. :)

The teacher in this picture is Ms. Crawford -- Madeleine's literacy teacher. Her school has the kids change classes for literacy block which is most of the morning. They are grouped with other kids that are at their ability level and then assigned one of the kindergarden teachers. It's the school's first year to do this and I think they've had great success. Madeleine has loved both of her teachers & she's become an amazing reader this year!

Next, we headed back on the bus (Harrison & I got to join them for this part) to tour the drive through part of the safari. We saw monkeys, lions, tigers, crocodiles, deer, longhorns, and bisons to name just a few! Poor Madeleine and Harrison were both so tired by this point I think they were glad to just sit for awhile! After that we packed up and headed home. Such a fun day!

Just to See You Smile