Hadley's Family Involvement Activity

Hadley's family involvement activity for the month of March was to complete a water painting with our school's super talented art teacher, Mr. Woodward.  Granna and Ma were able to be Hadley's special guests and help her with her project.  I grabbed my phone and ran downstairs to the art room  to snap a few pictures of the activity.  This is when it's handy to work in the same place where your kids go to school.

Talk about focus; Hadley was super determined to create her masterpiece.  She is a bit of a perfectionist and Mr. Woodward was moving really fast from one thing to the next.  But Granna helped talk Hadley through each step so that she wouldn't stress too much.  It was sweet seeing all the parents and grandparents helping their little ones through the process.  The three year old preschoolers needed lots of assistance, as you can imagine.  Granna made sure that Hadley's work was her work, and not Granna's, which I appreciated. I mean, you just can't recreate a five year old water painting.

Ta-Da!!!  The finished product turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself.  Hadley was so proud of herself and loved having Granna and Ma there with her.  We have a budding artist on our hands.

Build me up Buttercup

Justin's parents have a beautiful field of buttercups on their farm. To get there, we piled in the back of Grandad's truck and rode bumpity bump through a pasture and climbed under a barbed wire fence.  We attempted these pictures exactly one week prior to this day, but unfortunately Canaan got sick three times on our way to their house.  That pretty pink shirt was not quite so clean or pretty by the time we got there.

But fast forward one week and although the buttercups weren't as beautiful as one week prior, I have to say that the subjects in the pictures were.  

The kids had a ball frolicking in the buttercups.  I love hearing their sweet laughter and watching them play with each other.  Nobody can make Canaan laugh like his big sister can.  Yep, two and five are pretty awesome ages.  Can we just push pause and stay like this forever?  Sigh.....

Two and a Half

Dear Canaan,

You are two and a half years old of pure joy, spunk, and mischief.  You truly melt my heart, Canaan Dale Stinson.  I absolutely love this stage of life that you are in right now.  You still cuddle up to me in the mornings, evenings, and whenever you are sad or upset.  You don't talk particularly clearly yet, but you are talking so much more now than you were just a few short months ago.  You are the messiest eater on the face of the planet.  You much prefer to use your hands to eat than your fork.  It just gets the job done faster.  Speaking of food, you are pretty picky.  You are more of a grazer.  You really don't want to sit down long enough to eat very much, but just prefer a snack on the go.  You are so ready to go to sleep every night at 8:00.  You will even ask us to put you to bed.  We just go lay you down and hand you your "lassie" and then you ask to rub noses with Daddy or myself.  We just rub noses and make little happy noises.  You then blow me kisses until I pull your door to and walk out of your room.  You sleep wonderfully, all night long, but are an early riser!  By 6:00 you are up and going most every morning and you always want yours truly to hold you first thing in the morning.  I love my cuddle time with you, though.

You so love and look up to your sister, or "sissy" as you call her.  You want to do whatever she is doing.  The two of you play really well together.  To make things easier on Mama, you and Hadley have taken baths and now showers together since you were a little baby.  You love taking showers, though, and feel like such a big boy.  I sit outside the shower, fully clothed, and am totally soaked by the time you and sissy are done.  You love to watch Mickey Mouse and Dora Rocks, which you call Dora Focks.  Yes, you put an "f" on the front of lots of words right now.  Chips are fips, the swimming pool is fimming pool, and trucks are, well, you guessed it.  We cringe when you say that word.  You love to "mow grass" with Daddy.  You have a little push mower that you push alongside Daddy.  You are an excellent problem solver and are so smart, even at your young age.  You can count to ten and will attempt your ABC's with our help.  

You still cry every single Sunday when we drop you off at church.  And not just a little bit, but a whole lot.  Fortunately, you do stop crying quickly.  After we pick you up from Sunday School each Sunday, we ask you what you learned about in class.  You always say, "God and Jesus."  Canaan, if that's ALL you ever learn about, that will be enough.  God is always enough, sweet boy.  I cannot wait to see you grow and change and am so proud to be your mama.  Happy half birthday.  I love you to the moon and back.

Love,

Mama

Here We Snow Again....

Only two weeks after the mother of all snows, we got hit with another snowstorm that only brought about 4 inches this time.  Since we were already well accustomed to our snow routine, we were ready to go this go-round.  The kids got caught up on some DVR'd cartoons they had been wanting to see, ate more snowcream, and played with Granna and Grandad, who braved the roads from Gamaliel to our house, only to find that we got more snow than they did.  The closer they got to our house, the worse the roads got.  Needless to say, we were glad they made it safely to our house.

I kept a bedsheet on the floor, directly inside the front door, so that we could shed our layers of snow garb while we were all snowed in again.  Our last huge snowstorm was actually not the best for building snowmen and making snowballs.  This snow, however, was perfect for it.  So we set out to make a really big snowman.

Canaan just had to get in on the snowman building action, too.  Until recently, he had been our child who didn't require any sleep toys at bedtime.  However, at Christmas he got a toy Olaf and fell in love with it.  Now, every night at bedtime, his request is for his "lassie" (blanket) and "Oolaf".  Now those two precious requests totally melt my heart, I'm not gonna lie.  So Canaan has been all about some snowmen lately.  Justin and Cathy got in to a huge snowball fight.  It was hilarious watching the two of them chase each other around the yard, trying to nail each other with snowballs.

We chose to dress our snowman in Scottie attire, since we have a plethora of it in our house.  Next year, I need to buy one of those handy snowman kits that come with the nose, eyes, and mouth.  We were digging for rocks and just having to use a lot of ingenuity towards our snowman's face.

We were so glad that Granna and Grandad got to come over and play in the snow with us.  Making memories with grandparents is always so special.   We had a treat of taco soup and homemade pimento cheese sandwiches when we made it back inside.  I can honestly say that we have totally had our fill of snow for a long time, though.  Not to mention, we have more snow days to make up than Glasgow Independent Schools has ever had to make up.  But although the dreadful mess of wet clothes, boots, socks, mittens, coats, and hats drives the neat-freak in me CRAZY......my kiddos have had a ball and that does make it all worthwhile.

Bye-Bye First Tooth

Can it be?  She's only five!!  I was not expecting this so soon.  So, Hadley has been telling me for a few weeks that her lower teeth were "sore."  I really didn't pay any attention to the complaint, just to be honest.  But one afternoon she walked up to me and wiggled one of her bottom teeth and told me it was loose.  Boy, was it!  Loose was an understatement.  So I did what any mother of a first born child does when she finds out the child is about to lose his or her first tooth.  I cried.  I held Hadley and bawled like a baby.  Why you ask?  Because she's my first and it's like a rite of passage for crying out loud.  Hadley and I had a long talk about what losing a tooth entailed.  She was nervous about whether it would hurt or not and how much blood would be involved.  She wanted me to hold her and asked if she could just live with me and Daddy forever.  Of course I told her yes.  It was actually a beautiful bonding moment between the two of us; me not wanting to even think about my baby losing teeth and her scared of growing up, too.

I didn't think it would happen so soon, but the very next day she came into my classroom and handed me the tiny treasure box that held her tiny tooth.  She had pulled her tooth in her preschool class.  Her teachers said she was very brave.  She is so proud of that big gap in her teeth and asks me everyday if I can see the new tooth coming in yet.  Is it bad that I hope it doesn't come in for a long time?  These little reminders of how quickly she's growing up are just too much.  But I also realize how blessed I am to get to experience each and every moment.