Cora is a Preschool Graduate!

It happened.  Last week I went to my very very last preschool graduation ceremony.  

It was a beautiful day, and the poor little kids were kind of staring into the sun.  They were good sports and gave us some squinty smiles.  

Cora has been with such a fun group of friends:

She is good buddies with pretty much everyone in her class, which has been awesome.  She loves to have play dates with all of the girls in her class.  (Don't tell her I told you, but she also seems to have a little puppy love crush on one particular boy that she has play dates with pretty often.  Miss Sue, her awesome teacher, told me that she has caught them holding hands under the table while they are coloring on more than one occasion.  Ruh-roh.)

The kids sang us some of the songs they learned in preschool this year, and then Miss Sue presented each child with their diploma and told us a little bit about them.   She told us what their favorite food is, what their favorite part of preschool was, and what they want to be when they grow up.  It is always fun to hear what everyone wants to be.  One little girl wanted to be a butterfly when she grew up.  More than one little boy wanted to grow up to be superheroes.

Cora was one of the last kids.  That cement stage she was sitting on started to get a little uncomfortable, and she shifted her position a little.

I don't think that was supposed to be part of the show.  Hmmmm...maybe some leggings would have been a good idea.  Finally it was Cora's turn:

Here is what we got to hear about Cora:

Favorite food:  Donuts, specifically donuts with chocolate frosting and sprinkles.
Favorite colors:  Red and blue (What?  Her favorite colors have always been pink and purple.  I have no idea why she said red and blue except maybe one particular boy also listed these as his favorite colors.)
Favorite things at preschool:  Coloring, show and tell, play time and treasure time.
When she grows up she wants to be....a Mom and a doctor and have lots of money.

Nice.  No butterflies or superheroes?  Not for Cora.  Just money.  Lots of it.

Here is Cora and Miss Sue:

Cora is really going to miss going to Sue's!  Cora can't bear the thought of never going to Sue's again, and asked me if she could go over sometimes "just to play."  Cora is a little sad about being all done with preschool, but she is really excited for kindergarten.

*sigh*

Did that go by way too fast, or is it just me?

Dax's 6th Birthday Party

Daxton's 6th birthday is coming right up!  Since his birthday is on Memorial Day weekend, we decided to have his party a little early so everyone would be in town.  Dax wanted to have (you guessed it) a STAR WARS birthday party.  I looked online and got some ideas, including some DIY light sabers made from pool noodles and duct tape.  I knew that things were going to get crazy with too many light sabers, so Dax only got to invite a small number of friends.  He had a very hard time narrowing down his guest list, but we got there eventually.  I was still glad that I was able to convince Preston to take a long lunch to help me wrangle the young Jedi crowd (and do me a big favor).  

Here is most of the crew, downing some pizza!

After we were full of pepperoni and cheese, we did some "Jedi training."  The kids used their light sabers to try and keep a balloon in the air as long as possible.  We started outside, but it was a little windy and we lost about half of the balloons over the fence.  We had to come inside where there wasn't as much room, but we got through it.  Next, we did target practice with our "space blasters" (Nerf guns) on some balloons that had storm trooper faces Sharpied onto them.

After that, we destroyed a pinata in the shape of the Millennium Falcon (I wanted a Death Star, but I couldn't find one.  For the little Jedi's that were wondering why we were destroying the "good guys'" ship, we told them that the ship had been stolen by the Empire.  Just go with it, Padowans.)  

These boys weren't messing around.  That pinata didn't stand a chance.  They were having so much fun beating that pinata into oblivion, that even after it broke and the candy had all fallen out and been gathered up, they wanted to take more turns just beating on the thing for fun.  Boys.  What can you do?

After everyone felt like they had gotten a few good whacks in, we opened presents!

Dax tore through the presents pretty quick, so I had to stall for a minute, because the finale wasn't quite ready.  Soon, though, we heard him coming....DARTH VADER!  GET HIM, BOYS!

We got Dax a Darth Vader helmet that you can talk through, and that also says some Darth Vader sayings "You don't know the power of the dark side!"  "Impressive...most impressive," stuff like that.  Preston borrowed it and added s a cheap Halloween costume to become the Sith Lord.  The only problem was that Darth Vader had to keep stopping and hitting the button on the side of his helmet to talk:

 The kids wailed on Preston...er, Darth Vader for a while, and even chased him down to the basement.  Preston couldn't figure out an exit strategy, but he was tired of getting pounded with water-noodle-lightsabers in um, "sensitive areas," so he decided that a death scene was the answer.  Look at the glee on these kids' faces as Darth goes down:

They of course, had to make sure he was "really dead."  Dax wanted to take off his helmet like Luke does in the movie, but I started yelling about cake and ice cream and soon the kids jumped off of the lifeless form of Darth Vader and ran upstairs.  (Thanks Preston!)

Here is Dax and his Star Wars cake!  Again, I just made a regular cake and stuck small toys on it.  Yes, I am lazy.  I had plans to make a fancy R2D2 cake or something, but I got a little carried away with the duct tape on the lightsabers and that took up all my time. Dax looks ok with it.

After cake and ice cream, the boys played with Dax's new toys and also had some more lightsaber battles.

The boys were superexcited to take their lightsabers home along with their pinata candy.  I told the boys specifically NOT to hit their brothers or sisters with the lightsabers when they got home.  I am sure they all obeyed.

Right?  

(Sorry, brothers, sisters...and parents!)  

Mommy Guilt

Guilt.  It is something we all deal with, right?  Before I had kids, I had guilt on a fairly regular basis.  (Oh man, I shouldn't have had that fourth cookie!  Oh geez, I should have got out of bed and worked out instead of sleeping in!).  But once I became a mom, I discovered something I had never heard of...

Mommy guilt.  

Mommy guilt is a special kind of guilt that can get to me EVEN when I am actually doing something productive!  For example, when I am cleaning the house, I feel guilty that I am not playing with the kids. When I am playing with the kids, I feel guilty for leaving the house a mess.  I can pretty much find at least 10 things to feel guilty about during any given minute of each and every day.

I feel guilty because last night I promised myself that I would not yell today, but now I am finding myself shouting "PLEASE PUT ON YOUR SHOOOES AND GET IN THE CAAAAR!" and it is not even 8:45 in the morning.  I feel guilty about plugging the kids into the TV when I need to get some work done.  I feel guilty about the number of corn dogs eaten by my boy when he should probably be eating something organic and vegetable-y.  I feel guilty when my kids misbehave because I must not be doing a good job of teaching them the right way to act.  Blah blah blah blah blah times infinity.

This business of raising little people to be happy, responsible, kind and successful adults is NO JOKE.  Can you think of a job with more at stake?  Okay, President of the United States, maybe, but you know what I mean. It is downright scary to think about, and it is hard for me to not feel like I am messing this very important job up.  On Mothers Day, that mommy guilt seemed to get a little worse.  When I heard everyone talking about their "Angel Mothers," it made me feel a little guiltier than usual about the seventeen-gagillion mistakes that I make every day.  But, then Cora gives me this:

Say it with me, awwwwwww!

Guys, have you ever SEEN a more precious card?  This one is going in my "Mom Box" to pull out and sniffle over when I am 80 years old.    I guess I must be doing SOMETHING right, if I am the mom of someone who gives me this.

Being a mom really is pretty dang great.  I am soooooo incredibly blessed.  

Corn dogs and all.

One more thing....

*Swoon* This kindergarten graduation stuff is serious, right?  How cute is my boy in cap and gown??

Star Wars Day?

Did you guys know today is Star Wars Day?  I did not know there was such a thing until this year.  Because my boy Dax lives with one foot on Earth and one foot in a galaxy far, far away, I am becoming an expert in all things Star Wars.  I learned last week that every 4th of May is "Star Wars Day."  Why the 4th of May?  I had the same question.  It is because you can say, "May the Fourth Be With You."  Bwahaahaa!  (If you have known this for 10 years already, sorry.)

We celebrated by watching a new Lego Star Wars series that just started.  It is called "The Yoda Chronicles," and I get the feeling that I am going to be becoming very familiar with this show whether I like it or not.

While the kids watched, I worked on the Yoda picture I am drawing for Dax that I mentioned in my last post:

Almost done, am I!

Happy Star Wars Day!

Springy Thoughts

It is May already!  How did that happen?  It seems like we have been super busy, but don't have very many pictures to show for it.  Since there haven't been any big major events but I am due for my once-a-week-minimum blog post, this is going to be one of those random, stream-of-consciousness posts where I ramble away about things that are probably only interesting to me.

The "blossomy" part of spring is almost over at our house.  Only a couple of our trees still have blossoms, and they are falling fast.  The blossoms looked so pretty on this tree the other day with the sun shining through them, I had to snap a picture.  

I still like this tree when it is green, of course.  But no matter how pretty the green, it can't compare to the purpley-pink splendiferousness that this tree gives me for all-too-short of a time every spring.  Just put your nose in there and breathe in:

Ahhhh.  The other day I was out for a run and ran by a yard with a whole bunch of lilac bushes.  That sweet, sweet smell was so thick it felt like I could barely breathe...so of course I had to slow down and breathe it in slowly.  I love summer, but I miss the blossoms when they are gone.  

Speaking of running....my next half marathon is only two weeks away so I am doing quite a bit of running lately.  Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain on race day!  I was on another training run today at lunchtime while Preston ate with the kids.  It must have been high school lunch time too, because a couple of crappy old cars kept honked at me as they drove by.  I even had some silly 16-year-old yell out the window  "HEY, ARE YOU SINGLE?" as they drove past me.  I am sure the poor boy was pretty disappointed when he passed me and saw that he was yelling at an old woman who hasn't been single since around the time he was getting born.  I had to laugh.  I guess it is nice to know that he couldn't tell from the back of me that I am old enough to be his mom.

Speaking of being old enough to be a high-school kid's mom...how the heck did that happen? It really doesn't seem like that long ago that I was in high school and college, but it really, REALLY was a LONG time ago.  The other day Arden was cleaning her room out and found a bunch of my old art stuff from college that I had stashed in her closet.  (Did you guys know I was briefly an art major?  Crazy but true.)  It was fun looking through some of my old stuff, but it scared me a little that I had no memory AT ALL of drawing some of the pictures.  For example, why in the world did I draw a picture of this??

I have no recollection.  It is so weird to me that I can't remember the thought process of the person I used to be that led me to painstakingly draw...a mixer?  It was not even my own mixer since I didn't own more than a hand mixer until after I got married.  Wha??  

I did have a bunch of blank pages in my old HUGE old sketchbooks, and the girls are having a fun time making some very big pictures and paintings that I now have no idea what to do with.  Dax has requested I draw him a picture of Yoda for his birthday, so I am trying to remember how to do that kind of thing this week.  

Soccer is in full swing.  All three of the kids are playing, so that keeps us busy with three practices and three games each week.  The weather has been great, until last Saturday when it was only about 45 degrees and POURED rain.  All.  Day.  Long. The league we play in only cancels games if there is lightning, so the kids bravely played soaking wet.  I think the running helped keep the players warm, while the spectators shivered on the sidelines:

Tomorrow the forecast is for sunny skies and 82 degrees.  Nothing like a 40-degree temperature swing in one week.  Gotta love spring in Utah.

The weather was SOOO nice today we decided to go to our first baseball game of the year.  The Bees won by a landslide.  Arden still had some birthday money to use, and decided to splurge on some cotton candy of her very own.  She was nice enough to share with her brother and sister, who quickly became her best friends and biggest fans, and swarmed all over her with their mouths open like little baby birds.  Dax was excited to get a new hat, since his old baseball hat was too small for his ever-expanding noggin.  Oh, and he lost another tooth!  Still so handsome!  

Another thing about spring that is nice is the longer days.  I love them....except that Cora won't even start thinking about going to sleep until it is pitch black dark outside.  And once she starts thinking about going to sleep, it is about another hour before she finally gets there.  And if Dax wakes up in the morning and it isn't pitch black dark outside, he thinks that it is okay to get up.  So Cora is dorking around in her room until 10 or 10:30 p.m., and Dax is waking up at 6 a.m.  Not cool.  Hopefully we can get it figured out soon, or I am going to be painting some windows black.

I got the May calendar for Cora's preschool class, and her preschool graduation is only about three weeks away!  Guys, will it be weird if I cry at a preschool graduation?  I can't believe my preschool mom days are almost over!  *sniff*  *sniff*  Cora is so excited to be a kindergartner, but I hate to close this chapter.  Sigh.

Also, I may just cry a little because I am kind of dreading having all of the kids home every day all day together.  Today was early out, so I ended up taking all three kids to the store this afternoon to pick up a couple of things.  It was a total fiasco.  Cora and Dax were playing tag around the produce section while Arden asked me to buy Pop Tarts and Oreos and Cheetos and seemed shocked that I would be so cruel as to refuse.  I ended up putting Cora in the baby seat in the cart (which she still fits in nicely despite the fact that she is 5 years old), which she was not too happy about.  I am so, soooo excited to get to take them all with me every time I need to go shopping this summer!!  

However....it will be super nice not to have to rush through the mornings though.  And I am looking forward to having no homework to remind the kids about...

Maybe summer won't be so bad, after all.  But I am going to enjoy spring while it lasts!