Maddie turns 4!

My little Maddie is now officially 4 years old!  We had a very simple party at my mom's house since we were moving into our house the weekend of her actual birthday.  But Maddie always has fun swimming with her cousins.  Here are ten things about Maddie now:
1. She is definitely strong willed.
2. She knows all of her shapes and colors.
3. She does not, however, know her letters yet.  When I try and do flash cards she just yells out whatever letter comes to mind for her.
4. She loves playing with Emma and Kenna and making them laugh.
5. She loves music and does the best rendition of "Part of Your World" that I have ever heard.
6. Interesting enough, I often get asked if Kenna and Maddie are twins since they look so much alike.
7. She has a bit of a temper that we are really trying to resolve.  However, it is pretty hilarious when she gets "angry" in her cute little voice.
8. As you could have guessed, she still loves anything Ariel related.
9. She is the best hugger and will wrap her entire body around you.  You can even let go and run around and she will still be holding on.
10. As stubborn as she is, she will always be my little baby to which she will reply, "I'm not a baby!"

The End of the School Year!

I can't believe it is the end of Kindergarten for Emma.  I have waited so long to have her in school and the first year is already done!!  I got to help a lot in her classroom for the end of the year activities so it was a lot of fun!  We enjoyed the sight word ice cream party, movie and pajama day, art day, water day and promotion.  We were so proud of Emma for learning all of her sight words and for getting the Principal's Honor Roll.  Yeah!

                                                                         Ice cream Party

                                                               Pajama and Movie Day

                                                    Emma and the principal Mr. Warren

                                                       Emma and her teacher Ms. Duran

Emma's First Field Trip

Emma's first field trip was to the local fire station and I got to go!  It was a lot of fun going with her and her class and I look forward to many more years of this.  She was a leader for a lot of the tour and we got to see some really neat stuff.  I am glad that I am home and able to do these things with my children!

Surgery!

April was a busy month for us.  We moved from our house to my mom's house (temporarily) and then two of my girls had surgery!!  Talk about crazy!  Makenna went first and had ear tubes put in.  She had fluid blocking her ears and wasn't hearing well.  Because of this, Kenna has had a delay in speech but she is coming along now.  The surgery was a breeze!  From the time she left my arms to the time I was able to hold her again was about 10 minutes.  She fussed for a little while and then was good from there on out.  Maddie's surgery wasn't quite as easy.  She needed to have her tonsils out although it wasn't due to throat infections.  She had extremely large tonsils that were affecting her teeth and her sleep.  I had never heard of it before but it has helped a lot having them out.  The surgery took about one hour and then we had to stay the night in the hospital to make sure she didn't get dehydrated.  Maddie was a trooper the whole week and she hardly ever complained about the pain.  The only problem was getting her to eat and drink but we managed.  So glad to have it all over with and have my girls healthy!!

Easter 2013

Easter this year was a lot of fun as usual.  My favorite part was how adorable my girls looked in their matching dresses!!  Loved it!  We had some great Easter baskets, went to church, had an easter egg hunt at home, went to Grandma Jones' for dinner, and had another easter egg hunt there with some of our cousins.  We also tried to teach our girls about the real reason for Easter.  Emma was able to tell us that Christ died for us and after 3 days he was resurrected.  Small steps!!

Love this pic of MB and Kenna....it shows her scowl perfectly!!

Honor Roll

 Emma with her teacher, Ms. Duran, and principal, Mr. Warren

We were really blessed this year with a great Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Duran.  Emma has learned so much from her and we are really proud of what she has accomplished.  We were especially pleased when we found out that she had made the Honor Roll for Trimester 2!  Kindergarten has standards that are a little different than the rest of the grade levels.  They have one set of standards for the whole year that they have to learn by the end of the year.  So for Trimester 1, no student made the honor roll because they were just starting to learn everything.  For trimester 2, only a small handful of students had mastered all of the standards already to be able to receive the honor roll award so it was extra special.  We are so proud of Emma!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As a working mother from home, I don't always get to do the super great things that I wish I had time to do with my girls.  But, I get to stay home and take care of them, and I do try to squeeze in some fun things.  One of those things is our St. Patrick's Day treasure hunt!  I did this last year for the girls and when it hit March 1st Emma wouldn't stop talking about how she was so excited for the treasure hunt on March 17th!  So I decided it would have to be a tradition.  Since it was on a Sunday this year we had to wake up extra early to find what the little Leprechaun left us.  I was also so proud of Emma because she was able to read the clues all by herself with just a little help on the big words.