PreK graduation

Camryn had her PreK graduation this week. She went to a Christian preschool all spring twice a week from 9am-2pm. It was a fun class and she loved her teachers. The program was pretty cute and they sang some Spanish songs they learned as well was Christian songs like "Hosanna Rock" and "My God is so Big". :)

It's been nice for Camryn to make some friends through school. She is very ready for kindergarten this fall too. (Although that means it will be just me and Lily all day every day so I don't know what we will do with ourselves!) I have been teaching Camryn to read and what was initially a struggle has now become fun and something she looks forward to working on with me everyday. She also now tries to pick up a book and see how many sight words she knows, which is great. I am so proud of her!

A little older, a little wiser

A couple weeks ago Avery came in the house bawling. I asked her if she was hurt or scared. She kept blubbering and pointing at her feet. I didn't see any blood so I was kind of confused. I removed her sandals and she had spots all over her feet that were itchy. I remembered a neighbor girl just was getting over Hand, Foot, and Mouth disease so I said maybe that's what it was, which made her cry even more because she had a field trip coming up quick she thought she might miss. Anyways then she started saying something about ants and I put the story together.

On her walk home from the bus stop she had seen what looked like a pile of hay in the grass and thought- why not step on it? :) So she did and then kept walking home. A few seconds later she looked down at her sandaled feet and saw a swarm of ants on her feet. She flicked them all off but then she started itching bad and thus the running home crying. After I bathed her and calmed her down we went to investigate and indeed found a fire ant hill with a size 12 footprint on it. Poor little guys. I told her what happened and she said, "why would Jesus put those things on the earth?" So we had a nice discussion about the opposition of all things and also how our experiences can give us wisdom. Now she knows not to step on fire ant hills and especially to be careful when wearing sandals.

It was a nice teaching moment, and her feet didn't bother her too long.

Lovely spring days

Spring here has been so lovely. We have had a lot of great 75 degree days. A few hot 80+ days and a few cooler rainy days but for the most part it's been nice. One especially idyllic day last week we took the kids on a long walk. There is a cool trail that goes through the woods around our neighborhood. It's very hilly but the kids did great and we had a nice time. I snapped some pics of the pretty sunset, scenery, the kids, and yes construction. Our street is moving along and should be totally construction-free by the fall and I am so excited! While its thrilling to see a house go from a plot of dirt to move-in ready in 3 months, it's also exhausting to have your driveway blocked by trucks all the time and the road covered in dirt.

But I digress, the spring really has been great and we went on another lovely walk tonight. Gotta soak it up before the brutal summer begins! :)

Old friends, new friends!

One of my former BYU roommates, Rachel, lives just 4 hours away in Louisville. She came down to visit us last weekend with her family. We haven't seen each other in 6+ years but we had so much fun introducing our three kids to her three kids. It was a rainy weekend so we didn't do as much sightseeing around Nashville but we still had some fun. We went to the gardens at the Opryland hotel, rode a carousel at the mall, jumped at Monkey Joes, and ate lots of Chick Fil A. We were so glad they made the trip! We're excited to go see them in Louisville sometime too.

The older kids had a lot of fun together and got along quite well, and us grown ups had a great time reconnecting. Lily was especially enamored with Rachel's 16 month old, Tess. It was so funny to see her calling Tess the baby when they were basically the same size! Possible future BYU roommates? :)

Little Big Town

My 30th birthday is next week and Merrick decided to get us tickets to a concert for my gift. We are in Music City, after all! So we went to see Little Big Town at the Mother Church of country music- the Ryman Auditorium. I've never been into country but moving here 6 months ago I felt like I needed to try it out. I've been listening to the country radio and have really liked it. Little Big Town has a lot of hits and they were the top country music group of the year so I was excited to go. The Ryman is pretty small and our balcony seats were perfect. Not a bad seat in the house! Kacey Musgraves was the opening act and she was awesome. Very funny and her songs are great. Little Big Town blew her away with their show, though. It was so cool to be there. I only knew about 4 of the 20+ songs they played but I enjoyed them all. Made me want to go buy all their old records.

We had a great time, it was nice to get out and have a babysitter take care of the kids. It was my first Nashville concert but hopefully many to come!