Oliver's End of Year Performance

 I can hardly believe it is here again.  It seems like Oliver's end of year performance last year was just yesterday.  This is officially Oliver's last performance of preschool and he and I are both a little sad.  Let's hope there are many more to come in Elementary school.  Oliver's Argentina Class Performance was based on the Medillin Columbia Flower Festival.  The boys carried Silleteros on their backs and the girls handed out flowers as the walked in the Sanctuary.  Oliver even had a small speaking part which you can find in the video clip below.  Robynn, Tatia and Penny, joined Clayton, Miles and myself in watching the show and we were all very impressed.  Thanks for your support you three!  Oliver's teachers did a great job orchestrating the entire performance and all the students did amazing;  Especially Oliver in my eyes!  :)  After the show, our little family went to Carmine's Pizzeria for pizza and Oliver's best friend from school was there as well, so they had a lot of fun playing together on their little unplanned play date.  The last picture is of the two of them driving cars together.

Oliver & Hollis

Oliver & Miles

Oliver's class before the performance

Oliver and Maddie

Oliver's speaking part video is above.  Click the arrow to play.

Oliver with Robynn after the performance

Oliver with Penny & Tatia after the performance

Driving cars with Maddie at Carmine's Pizzeria

The best bath EVER!

We have had a great time preparing for St. Patrick's Day this past week. We have made paper bag puppet leprechauns, we have painted rainbows, made naturally green spinach muffins (yummy recipe here), made hand print rainbows, colored leprechaun pictures and had so much fun, but it was all culminated in tonight's bath, aka, "the best bath ever" according to Oliver. How, might you ask, did I achieve the status of giving the "best bath ever"? Easy, I found it on someones blog and followed directions. You can find a link to her blog post here, her rainbow is much better than mine...I'll admit it.

It started out with these washable liquid water colors that I diluted with water and placed in spray bottles.

Next I filled our bathtub with various St. Patrick's Day treasures, coins, bead necklaces, big sunglasses from the dollar store and lots and lots of bubbles. Then, I spray painted the rainbow. The trigger on my green bottle was not cooperative, but it still turned out cute!

just check out how happy they were and this is 30 minutes into the bath just before we emptied the tub and refilled with clean water...they both loved it!

Here are some other fun pictures from the week:

our leprechaun found all their green toys and played with them, colored pictures and hid his gold in the play things

He even dressed up Miles' favorite toy, Gymbo, in green attire and adorned him with gold (candy) filled socks.

Miles with his leprechaun -- this is too long of a craft for a 20 month old.

but perfect for a five year old!

I think this is my favorite craft for the week. It was a very quick craft for them, not so quick for me. I traced their hand prints and then cut it out of six different colors of card stock for them to glue together and make a rainbow. So cute!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! :)

Riding the rails

Anyone who knows Oliver, knows he LOVES trains and Miles is following quickly in his footsteps. Today we took a ride on the DART light rail train to uptown Dallas where we enjoyed lunch at Grimaldi's and then rode the trolley downtown and back. We had a great time together as a family. I snapped these pictures from my phone, so please forgive the quality. :)

waiting for the DART to move

I thought these two were so cute snuggled by each other watching Dallas speed by

The Uptown Trolley that runs down McKinney street. The conductors were super nice and even let Oliver help them move the electric poles on top of the street car. He was in HEAVEN!

I think Miles is confused about just when his nap was supposed to be. This is already one hour past nap time! :)

Oliver as he is exiting the trolley. He said Mommy, can you just photoshop my hands out? Sorry Oliver, I'm just not that good. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanksgiving day, Christmas day, and New Years day (and many other days) have come and gone without any word from us on the blog. So after some much needed encouragement from a special cousin, I thought it was high time for a post about a day. I hope you enjoy the pictures of our Valentine's Day activities.

We made these cute Valentine's marshmallow hearts and both Miles and Oliver loved it!

look at that concentration

Oliver LOVES crafts, so this was right up his alley...he also enjoyed snacking on a few marshmallows after the heart was complete! :)

Miles lost interest half way through, but I am SOOO proud of the work he did. He, on the other hand, was more happy with the snowman we made after the hearts! :)

Oliver & his finished product. He worked so hard. Great work Oliver! :)

Two of my special valentines! :)

making cookies...Miles dough was a bit too wet, but he still had fun!

Oliver had so much fun...he was king of the kitchen!

He prefers to use his hands in lieu of the rolling pin

My boys on Valentine's morning, getting ready to open their valentines from us.

I think they were pretty happy!

Oliver & Clayton went to the Planetarium at UTA a couple of weekends ago, and ever since Oliver has been very interested in rocket ships, astronauts and the like so he was in heaven with his gift.

What boy doesn't like pounding things? I can't believe we made it through five years without one of these!

Oliver had a Valentine's Party at school today, so we made his valentines and I thought they turned out so cute!

Miles helped me rip the paper off all of our old broken crayons and both he and Oliver helped make the heart shaped crayons (which I think turned out so cute). Then Oliver signed his name and placed each of the 18 hearts on the valentine ever so carefully. He was so proud to give them out at the party! :)

Speaking of the party...

Oliver & Dylan -- she and he danced together at the end of the year performance last year.

Madelyn and Oliver -- A few months ago, Oliver woke up one morning and told me he was going to marry Madelyn. Later that day, when he told her she said she was supposed to marry someone else. Oliver was a little down, and I told him that you never know, she just might change her mind after all I didn't know I was going to marry Daddy when I first me him. I guess it happened because her mom shared with me that Madelyn woke up on Valentine's and said Oliver was her Valentine. So sweet! :)

Oliver with his Valentine bag he made. Can you see the smiley face?

Waiting for the chaos to begin. This was the most unorganized valentine exchange I have ever seen, but the kids still had fun!

Oliver and Sarah -- this was his Valentine last year

We had a great Valentine's day and ended it with some yummy fajitas from On the Border. We hope you had a fantastic day too! :)

I just had to share one last picture.

One of Miles favorite things to do while Oliver is at school is get into Oliver's bed and snuggle Oliver's stuffed animals. I think he misses Oliver, but just look how happy he is being with Oliver's things! :)