Monday, May 31, 2010

Welcome to the World Precious Little One

Avery Grace Gossner was born this morning at 9:51. She weighed 6 lbs, 12 oz, and she is absolutely adorable! Avery, I can not wait to meet you and introduce you to your cousins, Gehrig and Colin!
You are such a blessing to your mommy and daddy, and, even though you don't know it yet, you are so blessed to have them as your Mommy and Daddy!
Photobucket

Monday, May 24, 2010

Kindergarten....Here we come!!!!

Well, here he is!!! My little preschool graduate!!!!
Every year growing up, my mom would take pictures on the first and last day of school, so I am continuing the tradition. See posts here and here. One with Colin, too!!! That morning, to celebrate their preschool graduation, Gehrig's class had a pancake breakfast!

Colin shoving pancakes into his face! It does my heart good to see this child eat!
I swear, Colin thinks that he is part of the class.
I made clip boards for Ms. Cato and Mrs. Holt for end of the year gifts to thank them for all of their hard work and dedication to our little ones.
Front Back
Front
Back
Last week, to celebrate the end of the year, Gehrig's school had "Fun in the Sun" day! It was really similar to the field day we used to have when I was growing up. His class went around to various stations participating in fun activities, games, and relays. Another mom and I were in charge of the Balloon Pop station, so I didnt get pictures of all his whole afternoon, but here is what I did get.
Doing the Limbo in the gym...looks like his neck is broken!!
At one station, they had their faces painted and Gehrig chose to have a bat and baseball. Big shocker there!!! Inflatable slip and slide!!! I think that his favorite station was the watergun station. All the moms that were out on the battle field trying to take pictures got soaken wet!!!
I bought a some cheapie guns to have for extras...Colin loved them! Plotting his next move???? Riding the train with his 4th grade buddy.
A little break for a Freezey Pop!
Of course, Colin got in on the Freezy Pop action! One of the stations was a hair spray station.
Gehrig chose to have his hair sprayed red, orange and silver!
The bouncey houses were HUGE hits with the preschoolers!
And, of course, he had to show me how he had mastered the monkey bars!
Time sure is flying by! I truly can not believe that my little guy is headed for Kindergarten in the fall. We have decided to keep him at the Christian school. We just love his precious, little school, and ,Mrs. Curry, the teacher that he will have for kindergarten is PHENOMINAL!!!!!! Until then, we are ready to have a blast this summer!!!!

Friday, May 14, 2010

Soooooo Silly and Bible Verse Friday and Talent Show Preview

Today Gehrig's preschool class is having "Silly Day!" We got Gehrig an oversize party hat to wear. He is wearing his jeans inside out, his shirt backwards, and a clip-on tie. He also has on unmatching socks and two different pair of shoes. We rolled his jeans up so this would be obvious. To complete the ensemble, he wore his puffy Mario gloves, His "Super G" super hero cape, and his "Under the Sea" glasses that he made last year at Colin's first birthday! A super sill pose!



His class looked so SILLY! Even Ms. Cato dressed up!

Silly pose!

His buddy Evan came late, so we lined up again!


Also, it is Friday, so I videoed Gehrig saying his Bible Verse.

Give thanks so the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." Psalm 136:1


And, as a special treat, here he is singing the song that his preschool class is singing in the talent show today. They have also been working on the sign language that goes along with it.

Standing in the Need of Prayer

"It's me. It's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

It's me. It's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

Not my father, not my mother, but it's me oh Lord, standing int he need of prayer.

Not my sister, not my brother, but me it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer!"




Saturday, May 8, 2010

Relay for Life

Wow!!! What an amazing event!!! I took the boys to relay with me for Relay for Life. I could not believe the turn-out from out little town. It was so amazing to see the support from so many people, businesses, organizations, squadrons, and churches in the community, all in the name of cancer research, awareness, and fund-raising.
Our squadron, the 3rd SOS Dragons, put together a team, The Relaying Dragons. One of our very own squadron spouses, Laurin Stamps, is a cancer survivor. She was not only our team captain, but she was the 2010 Honorary Chair for the entire event!!! For more information about this awesome event, check out the Relay for Life website!!!

Julia, Laurin and I painted the team banner. The theme for Relay for Life this year is "Celebrating Another Year!" You can't see the dragon really well in this picture, but his flames are lighting the candle on the birthday cake; a birthday cake which reads "Celebrating Another Year" in pink frosting.This cake was designed to match the cake on the banner.
The boys were given party bags filled with candy! They were in sugar heaven!

We saw tons of people that we knew. Here we are with Charlie and Henry! How adorable do they look in their Relay for Life shirts???The Opening Ceremonies were conducted by DJs from our local radio station and included the posting of the colors, the National Anthem, an invocation, cheerleaders, belly dancing, a survivor's laps, teams pictures, and a parade of teams. But the most moving part of night for me, was the speech that Laurin gave (as Honorary Chair) in which she talked about her battle with cancer. She talked about how she was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma at age 18, right as she was preparing to leave for college. She talked about how her world came crashing down on her and those she loved. But she also talk about how she fought back, went through chemo, and defeated cancer!!!!! She is now happily married and has an adorable stepson and a beautiful 4-month old baby! Praise God!!!

As part of the Opening Ceremonies, the survivors and their families walked a "Survivor's Lap." Here are the Stamps on their initial lap! After the survivor's lap, the teams each lined up and took a lap as a team with the team banner. For the rest of the night, until 10 this morning, the teams all had atleast one person out relaying on the course at all times.
Of course, we took a little break for some playground time! You know I had to snap this one of Miss Ree with Colin!
As it started to get dark (and chilly) we bundled up, got some hot chocolate and kept walking!


The boys absolutely LOVED the entire evening. Each time that we got back to our squadron's "campsite," Gehrig would beg me to go around another lap. Which we did, until almost 10pm!!! Once it was completely dark, they held the Luminary Ceremony. The lap course had been lined with paper sack luminaries, upon which the names of survivors, as well as those who lost the battle to cancer, were written. As the thousands of names were read (in "memory of" or in "honor of"), the volunteers lit the candles!! How moving it was to see!! The pictures do not even do it justice!!

Laurin's Luminary. Laurin, I praise God for your life and the stuggles that you have been through!!! I am so honored to know you and to call you my friend. You are such a beauiful light shining in this world!
Photobucket

Friday, May 7, 2010

We {heart} our Teachers

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and we had a great time showing our teachers just how much we appreciate them!!! I know, first hand, that teaching can often be an under-appreciated, underpaid, and thankless job, so I wanted to show Ms. Cato and Mrs. Holt just how much we appreciated them and all that they do by doing something small for them each day!
On the first day, one of the other mom's from Gehrig's class and I got together to decorate the classroom door! We had each of the children write their name on a flower and stuck them around the wording, "Ms. Cato and Mrs. Holt, thank you for helping us bloom." For more cute ideas for door decorations check out Skip to My Lou's ideas here and here.
Sharon and I thought that it would be cute if we had each of the students walk in the next morning with a single flower for each of the teachers, and then, by the time all of the students had arrived in the morning, their teachers would have a full bouquet!! I thought that it would be even more fun if the teachers had a decorated vase to put their bouquets in.
So, I started with a plain glass vase.
And then I decorated with scrapbook paper, a ribbon, and a little tag that my friend, Lisa, designed for me!


I placed the vases on the teacher's desk and had each student walk in with a daisy stem. By the time all the students arrived at school, their desks had a bright, sunny boquet!! Ms. Cato and Mrs. Holt quickly figured out what the empty vases were for!!!
When searching for Teacher Appreciation gift ideas, I hit the JACKPOT when I stumbled across one of my n0w favorite blogs, Eighteen25.
She had shared a tutorial for a variety of seriously cute gifts and even uncluded free printable gift tags!!! Click here to view her "Quick and Cheesy Teacher Appreciation gifts!"
I used her "You are SENT-SATIONAL" gift tag to add to these jar candles that I decorated with scrapbook papaer and a ribbon. EAdd Imageasy peasy!!
For the next day, I tranformed this Symphony chocolate candy bar using the tag and tutorial from Eighteen25
Seriously cute, right???? For the last day, I made these adorable teacher supply and survival boxes following the tutorial on, yep, you guessed it, Eighteen25!!
I started with a plastic craft box.I decorated it with scrapbook paper...can you tell that this is my new favorite paper???
After I made them, I realized that I forgot the ribbon! Oh well!
Next, I filled each of the compartments with various teachers supplies, chocolates, mints, and hand sanitizer. Can you believe that I found all the cute designer supplies at Wal Mart???
Voila!!!
One last picture of Gehrig and his precious Pre-K teachers, Ms. Cato and Mrs. Holt! We appreciate all that they do for the little ones!

Photobucket