End of the year teacher gift idea!

Anna goes to preschool two mornings a week and tomorrow is her last day. I found some fun things at Target and put together a little gift for each teacher and thought I'd share the idea! I couldn't get my pictures in the reverse order so it starts with the finished product :)

This is the finished product. I rolled the towel up, put the nail files and polish in the make-up bag and tied with this lime green ribbon I had. I added a little card to each teacher and had Anna decorate the back of the card. I thought it turned out cute and fun for summer time!

For the lady that does art a few other special teachers that helped in Anna's room occassionally I did just the nail polish and files. 

Nail polish on sale at Target for $1.83, pack of 6 files for $0.50 and the make up bag $4.99. Not trying to be cheap but we are on a tighter budget these days :) 

Beach towel at Target for $5.99

Family Reunion

We went to Young Harris, Ga this weekend for a family reunion for Jonathan's side of the family. How absolutely breathtaking the mountains are! I think I'd have a hard time living in the mountains though--I can't look to the side for a second around those curves without getting car sick! Anna had a fun time playing with second cousins at the park. Emma was happy to push her shopping cart around the grass. Emma with her shopping cart. My favorite toy these days because she can have a little freedom walking and not have to hold both of my hands everywhere she wants to go :)

Anna with Ashley & Betsy

My little sunshine's

Kind of a silly picture of Anna but I haven't done the best job lately of taking pictures of the girls. I snapped this one while we were out playing on the swings after nap time the other day. She was in the mood for a picture :) Both girls are keeping me busy and bring me great joy each day. One of our favorite songs to sing with Anna is you are my sunshine...she and Emma truly are our rays of sunshine! Anna is my little artist these days. She spends a lot of time at the kitchen table coloring, drawing, tracing, writing (or attempting to), gluing, etc. If she's not doing that she's reading (or telling what she remembers the story to be) to her pretend class or singing. She keeps us entertained! Emma does not stay still for a minute! She does not like to sit. She can crawl but doesn't like to. She'd much rather be standing or holding onto something and walking. She can pull up on anything, even the wall, and if she can reach it with even a finger she'll grab onto it and walk. It's kind of scary at times and keeps me on my toes! I keep waiting for her to just let go and start walking without help--it's coming very soon! Emma is also jabbering a lot more lately. I think she's trying to keep up with her big sister :) I'm so thankful for happy, healthy children!!

Mother's Day & Jonathan's Birthday

We celebrated Jonathan's 37th birthday on the Saturday before Mother's Day. His birthday is usually on or very near to Mother's Day so he has to share his celebration. This year he asked if our mom's would come to us for Mother's Day so he could be home for his birthday; they agreed. Mom came earlier in the weekend and his parents on Saturday night. We had a relaxed visit with everyone and mostly just stayed around the house playing with the girls. We are so thankful for both of our mother's! I'm blessed to have a mother who would do anything for me as well as a mother in law who treats me as if I'm one of her own. We love you both!! (Didn't get a good picture with my mom so I'll have to post one in the near future).

Dad's birthday

We celebrated my dad's 60th birthday with him on April 10th. It's hard to believe that my parent's are entering their 60's and Jonathan and I are getting closer to 40--my how time flies! We spent the afternoon at my Dad & Marty's house and then out to dinner. My dad is banker by day and a Harley rider by weekend. He wears a suit and tie all week long so when the weekend rolls around he is all Harley gear! It's been fun to see him so into his bike and have something outside of work that he enjoys but I do worry about his safety. We don't see enough of each other but I'm thankful for the short visits we get! Anna especially loves to go visit and eat goldfish with grandpa because he'll give her as many as she wants :) Love you dad!! The girls and I with my dad.

Dad & Marty.

Kevin, Abby & Tyler

Jonny & Anna

Easter (and before)

We've been celebrating Easter at our house for a couple of weeks! Anna's preschool had a picnic and egg hunt to start us out. It was cold! We all had long sleeves and coats on but still had a fun time. A family from Anna's school had everyone come to their farm for the morning. The kids hunted for eggs, rode their bikes, could take horse rides (Anna didn't want to do this), sat on the tractor and then had a picnic lunch.

Last weekend we had an egg hunt at the Isaac's house. Anna really got into finding the eggs that day and it was fun to watch them run all over the yard looking for them. We dyed eggs at our house with these same friends this past Friday. Anna had blue dye all the way up her hands :)

For Easter weekend Jonathan's parents came to stay with us. We had fun playing and relaxing on Saturday. On Sunday we all enjoyed church together, lunch and more playing.

We also had an unplanned event thrown in the mix last week. On Anna's first trip to the dentist (just a routine appt) we found out that she had an abscessed tooth. She had to have it pulled. You will notice in the bottom pictures of Easter morning that she is minus one front tooth. We were very concerned but she did better with it than we expected and looks really cute!! She is very proud actually and talks about her big girl tooth coming in quite frequently (she doesn't understand that it will be a LONG time before she actually gets that big girl tooth)!

God is so good to our sweet family. Easter is only celebrated one day each year--what a shame-- Jesus gave his life for us and three days later rose from the dead. HE LIVES! HE LIVES! HE LIVES! This is reason to celebrate EVERY day!!

Jonathan and Anna on the tractor on the day of her preschool egg hunt.

Anna just after the preschool egg hunt, showing off the eggs she collected. She could have had an overflowing basket but after a few minutes she looked at me and said she was finished :)

Anna with her friends Jesse & Kendall after the egg hunt at their house.

Can you tell she is enjoying herself?!

Proud egg hunter!

Easter morning--my happy, sweet Emma!!

Anna was so cute looking at all of her Easter goodies! Look closely and you can see her missing tooth :)

Loving my Emma!

Family shot--impossible to get everyone looking in the same direction!

Papaw & Mamaw with the girls. Their second set of granddaughters. Our neices are already 14 & 12 years old--wow!

The Latest with Emma...

Our sweet Emma is 8 months old! The time is just flying by with her but I'm trying to soak up as many of those sweet baby kisses as I can. She is such an easy going little thing and happy most all of the time. She loves to squeal and is making more sounds. She started with dada and now will even say mama sometimes. I don't know that she associates it with me yet though but I like to think so anyway :) . She's not crawling or walking yet but she loves to stand up (as you'll see in the bottom pictures). If we are playing on the floor and she's near one of us she grabs on and tries to pull up. She'd much rather stand than sit. She will roll some if she's on her stomach and looks like she's about ready to crawl when she's on her belly but mostly ends up sliding backward (which frustrates her). I'm posting a few pictures from today. She road in the wagon for the first time and the others are of her playing inside. I did include one with Anna in it. She's doing great as well and growing up way too fast. She wrote a letter A all by herself the other day and I was so shocked. I'll have to start recording some of the things she says and do a blog just on her. She has some pretty good "one liners" and keeps us laughing around here! Emma's first wagon ride! Not a very long one though...it was pretty windy and chilly outside today :)
Our future basketball star (daddy hopes) with little sister.

One of her favorite toys to play with these days. It was Anna's and is getting great use for the second time around. Anything she can stand and play with is a hit!

I thought this was funny. Another new thing Emma likes to do is to stand at the toy chest and play. I think she likes the standing part better than any of the toys. Here she is picking something out to play with.

Looks like she's waving :)