Fun, Full Day

What a fun, full day Halloween 2011 was. This Momma/preschool teacher is worn out.

Our day started with a wonderful and creative Halloween party at preschool for me and Tinker Bell. The parents of this class put together a full party and it was such fun. I am a blessed teacher that gets to work with two classes full of generous and great parents.

Tinker Bell certainly had fun with all the superheroes, princesses, and other precious characters at this party. After we partied hard for two hours we stayed at preschool and took down all the bats and goblins, and prepped the room for Thanksgiving. After a month of halloween stories, crafts, and decorations, I was ready to pull out the turkeys.

We then left and went to Kyle's class for their movie and snack party. Hope was so cute and enjoyed sitting in Kyle's desk with him. Kyle had made dirt 'n worms for his friends and we visited there for a while.

Then we switched schools and went and visited David for their party. Here is a cute picture of David and Kelsey-I love it!!! It was so much fun to visit with both boys at their parties and thankfully they were an hour apart so I could hit both of them.

Hope had taken her Tinker Bell costume off and pulled her hairbows out by this point she was soooo tired, but she certainly enjoyed the popsicles at David's party! Here are my cuties in Mrs. Hubble's rocking chair!

After the boys' parties, we went to our local library to give out treats to our children's librarians that help us so often. We love Mrs. Tracey and Mrs. Jennifer and we just had to take them some nutter butter ghosts. By this point I cannot believe that Hope is still standing without a nap and three parties under her belt!:)

Our day was just beginning, however, because after school we came home and put on warmer costumes. Her Tinker Bell costume was so cute but so flimsy so I pulled out this old cookie monster costume of DAvid's and layered her up for a cool Halloween night in the neighborhood. Our friends, The Grubbs came over for our annual Halloween gathering. We ate pizza at our house and then headed out for trick-or-treating.

Myt silly, crazy boys ready for a night out on the town!

Ashley got this picture of me and my three babes before we headed out in the neighborhood. I had been dressed in my poodle skirt since 6 a.m.

My little cookie monster eating some pizza with Kelsey and Tanner!

Our first stop was to our new neighbor, Mrs. Clawson!!!! We are so glad she is in our neighborhood now:)

Mike was our chaperone and here he is having a sweet moment with his favorite girl.

Hope definitely got into the whole idea of trick-or-treating and Kelsey was sweet enough to help her along the way. We just go to our neighbors who are so sweet to our kids. We hit two streets and call it a night!

I have thoroughly enjoyed Halloween, but between two preschool parties, two school parties and halloween night, this Momma is ready for bed!! Happy Halloween!

Seeking Perfection

Yesterday I attempted to make treats for the boys' halloween parties at school. Kyle had already said that he wanted to make his own dirt 'n worms for his friends, so I tried to find something cute to make for David.

In one of my cookbooks, I found this cute recipe for chocolate sugar cookie dirt 'n worms and thought I would try it as the cupcake for David's party. Great idea....BUT

I tried to take them out of the pan before they were cool enough and you can see that this one fell apart. I lost it. Totally lost it. Thankfully Mike and the boys were out and Hope was watching a princess movie and did not witness me losing it over sugar and flour.

Finally I realized that they just weren't cool enough and the next few batches turned out beautifully. I then thought about why I came unglued over cookies. I am not out to win mother of the year or even win the MArtha Stewart award anytime soon, but by golly I just wanted those cookies to turn out PERFECT.

Ulitmately they did turn out kind of cute and even kind of like the picture in the cookbook. I guess as a mother there are so many times that I do not come close to the mark that I just wanted to redeem myself with these cookies. The other day I got onto David for not trying "hard enough" to read when I realized that he did not have his precious bifocals on. I got frustrated with Hope for being whiny when I realized the little angel did not feel good and just wanted some Momma loving.

I think as Mommies we keep tallies of when we fall short. We forget all the great things we have done, but we can certainly rattle off all of our shortcomings. We are hard on each other and harder on ourselves. So like yesterday there are times that we just want to nail it to remind ourselves that we are rocking motherhood.

Blessedly both boys have goodies wrapped and ready for tomorrow. Thankfully because of God I can remember that I am a mother only by his grace. I do not need to seek perfection in my mothering skills or even in my baking skills because I am not perfect. I lose my temper, I roll my eyes at my husband, and I even let loose a curse word or two when my Hokies play bad, but thankfully because of my Jesus he is the only one that is perfect.

Jesus knows my heart and knows that I love these three babes He has blessed with me so much that it takes my breath away. I know that He loves my babes even more than I do. He knows that in my heart I love Him desperately but there are certainly worldly things that lure me from him every once in a while. I just pray that I remember that the only thing that I am judged for is my heart and thankfully not my baking skills. Jesus cares way more about me serving him than making cute cupcakes to take to a school party:)

First Round

The beautiful thing about teaching two different preschool classes is that we get to do double of all the fun stuff! Today was the halloween party for the Tuesday/Thursday class and I put on my poodle skirt (thanks Ashley) and Hope rocked the Tinker Bell outfit and off we went!

My tinker bell loves to write and color. She is most often at the art center table "creating" cool stuff!

A pretty blue fairy and Tinker Bell ringing up some grocery purchases! I love the imagination!

This class has ten little girls and four little boys. Hope has had such fun making new friends in this sweet sweet class.

One of the parents brought in dirt and worms and let the kids make their own. They loved it so much and it was a hit!

Group picture! Such a cute, group of kiddos.

Here is Hope making her monster hand! She had such fun at her little party.

My cute girl. I told a dear friend at lunch today that I am going to cry buckets when she goes to kindergarten because not only will she be my last, but I enjoy having her in my classes. I am simply going to enjoy the next few precious years we have together when Mommy and Daughter walk up the stairs at church each day for a morning of learning and fun with our friends. I know these are precious years because I have already witnessed how fast these years have gone by with her brothers. One day I will have to turn her over to a kindergarten teacher, but for now we relish every moment together at preschool.

Sweet Macy and Hope matching in their Tinker Bell outfits. Hope was suppose to be a lady bug but when she heard that Macy was going to be Tinker Bell, we had to borrow a Tinker Bell outfit from some friends.

We did not trick or treat downtown at the businesses for several reasons, so we allowed each child to bring goodies to hand out to their friends. Here is Hope sharing her goodies with her friends.

The party certainly wore out this Tinker Bell, but not this Momma. The party was such fun and I am so beyond blessed with wonderful parents that had that room organized and cleaned before the last child left. Precious memories today with my girl for sure:)

Magical Day

What a magical and wonderful day with our preschool friends on the farm today. I know my kiddos and I were just there Sunday, but it was so fun to be there today with the preschool class.

Here was the scene from the barn. What a gorgeous scene. The kids were way more impressed with the hay fort inside the barn:)

Hope looking for those cows again:)

Me and my sweet group of children on the hayride! Everyone gets excited to ride on a hay ride-even Mommies and teachers!

We were super blessed with a real treat! Mr. Shannon showed us this new calf that was just born yesterday. The kids were enthralled with this precious new life on the farm.

Another gorgeous scene of the leaves and mountains. I know I sound like a PR ad for Virginia, but we are so blessed with God's majestic handiwork around here.

The gorgeous leaves covering the tree house. The leaves have been so beautiful this year, but sadly with all the rain and cold coming, I know that very soon these trees will be bare for the winter.

Hope loves visiting the farm and she was so excited this morning getting ready. After a little hair drama (pigtails vs. ponytail) we got ready with smiles on.

Macy, Hope and Addyson hiding during a big game of hide-n-seek.

My sweet, sweet sunshine girl. I am such a blessed Momma that has this awesome job that I get to share with my girl each and everyday. To see her make new friends and come out of her shell a little each day swells my heart with love. She loves preschool as much as I do.

This picture of Hope and Addyson cracks me up because these two look so serious at snack time and they really are not:)

Sweet girl friends sharing a hay ride.

Our last stop was at the chicken house to see the chickens. My family eats eggs from Williams farm so it was neat to meet the chickens that provide us all those eggs! They are really pretty even if they are a little stinky:)

Our very last stop of the day was to meet the horse. He was certainly pretty but a tad bit grouchy. He was not feeling to social today and really did not care to eat our apples from the hands of our sweet preschoolers today:)

Today was just a magical day. We are at the end of our pretty leaf season around here and starting tomorrow the weather is going to turn pretty cold and rainy. We all enjoyed the sunshine today feeling so blessed that God smiled his face upon our little group today with beautiful weather, and sweet fellowship with our preschool friends. Life was indeed good today.

Farm Day with Church Friends

After church Sunday two families from church hosted a party at their beautiful and super fun farm outside of town. Sadly Mike and Kyle had practice and could not go, so I took the little ones and we enjoyed a beautiful day at the farm.

David, Addyson, and Mason riding the ranger. Mason is so responsible that I felt comfortable with him driving DAvid everywhere!

What a gorgeous scene from their barn. They have quite the treehouse built on their property and the barn is full of a fun hay loft for the kids to play in.

Hope and Addyson had such fun together. They know each other from church and preschool and Addyson even had a playdate at our house last week. She is such a sweet girl:)

Addyson, David and Hope played tagged forever and here is Miss Priss running from someone!

David helped cooked the hot dogs and then he joined the game of tag. After a while, they lost track of who was chasing who! They were so cute to watch and this boy had a ball on the farm.

I clicked this adorable picture of Addyson! She was excited that we were all there at her farm to play.

Cute girls hiding from David! I love to see Hope having fun with friends from church and preschool. She is so shy around adults, so it is nice to see her running and interacting with her friends. She does at preschool, but she is so shy that it is hard for her outside of the preschool room.

When it was time to leave, Tracey and her twin boys were having as much fun as my kiddos were, so we were the last to leave the party! Shannon even let our kids ride the ranger out to help feed the cows. It was the highlight of the day to help feed those stinky cows!

Hope was obsessed with those cows, and kept saying she wanted to "ride that thang!" She wanted to get super close to them while they were eating, but it made me nervous. Those were some big cows and Momma had on high heeled boots! (Not my wisest choice for footwear to the farm)

I love this picture of Hope, Tracey, and her boys Alex and Owen. We were the last ones to leave the party and David was so sad to leave that the Williams family even let him stay with them and they brought him home. Maybe one day we can get him a job on the farm-he was certainly in heaven!

We really had a magical day with church friends on such a beautiful farm. I feel kind of spoiled because tomorrow I get to go back with my preschool class. Addyson is going to host her preschool friends tomorrow and the weather looks so awesome for a return trip tomorrow.