Easter 2014

Well the next few posts are going to only have pictures from my phone - I lost my camera for about a month and had to rely on our video camera (which doesn't take great quality pictures) and our cell phones.

So I present you our Easter Egg dying session - which was Saturday afternoon.



Drew made his own - Yankees and Dodger eggs... if you enlarge it you may notice that he tried to make the NY on the blue egg and LA symbol on the orange egg.


Mom got into the action by drinking wine and playing Photog... Dad did a few eggs.


Then sometime that night the Easter Bunny came!  You may remember last year, the Easter Bunny got his tail caught in the "doggy door".  So this year the Easter Bunny left a "neener neener" note... and a few treats.


Drew's loot...



And then he had something like 70 eggs to find!










After our Egg Hunt at home we headed to church for the annual breakfast (which starts at 7:30am) and is followed by another egg hunt.

Drew is on the middle left of this picture in the doorway wearing the striped polo.  He came away with a ton of eggs and had fun with the hunt.  Unfortunately the sprinklers came on while they were "hiding" the eggs so all the kids came back pretty wet.








But he had a great time!


After church we took our annual family photo in front of the Living Cross.

And then we headed to Grammy and GrampC's for dinner.  Oh Drew had another hunt at Grammy and GrampC's as well.  In fact a month later - we're still nibbling on Easter candy!

Children's Christmas Service

Yes I do realize it's the end of January, but I have yet to finish sharing about the Christmas season at our house - things have been rather busy.

The Sunday before Christmas, Drew performed in the annual Children's Service at our church.  In the past he's been an angel, a pig and a cow.  This year he's a.....

... Star!

And here are some of the other stars of the show - many are PreK/K, but there are a couple of First graders in the mix.

And here is a video of Drew's procession...





They did do a few songs - here is a photo of the kids doing "Away in a Manger"

And then here is a video one of Drew's "speaking" parts (yes it was a group speaking part this year).




Drew wasn't so thrilled about the costume this year - it was kind of warm and not really comfortable.  His favorite part of the night?  Dinner and dessert afterward.

Our Little Angel

Two days after the tragedy at the elementary school in Connecticut, there was an emotional Children's Program at our church, and Drew was part of the Angel Band.

 That's part of the Angel Band - grades Pre-K through about 1st grade I think are in this photo. The entire Children's service was grades PreK through high school, so quite the ages spread.

What made this program special for us was that it was Drew's first speaking part!

And here is the video:


What you can't tell by this video is that Drew spoke loudly and very clearly.  His lines were:
"We pause, reflect and give thanks for his sacrifice - redemption's price."

We have some additional videos, but I must apologize for the bouncy photographer. Dave was busy filming and trying to help Drew focus and do some of the hand motions...

Here's Away in a Manger:



And I'll share one final video (we had about 20 minutes of the hour long program on video.  This was their final song - Jubilee.


We followed the service with a Chili dinner and some conversation with Grammy, GrampC and GG who also saw the show. We were so happy with how Drew behaved and performed for the service - especially after a weekend full of rehearsals, he was so over it.

Patriotic Picnic

At the end of July we hung out with our church congregation at a Patriotic Picnic at one member's ranch in the local hills.  They started doing this a year or two ago, and we finally cleared our schedules so we could go - and boy are we glad we did!  It was fantastic.

After parking we saw the barns with the horses, the sand volleyball courts, the bocce ball court.  We decided to see what sort of fun we could get into up at the top of the hill where the house was along with all the other activities.

First ride up the hill we hitchhiked a ride in a golf cart... second time it was a hay ride!

 

That's Drew's Sunday School/Church girlfriend.  They're two peas in a pod.  Ironically they both have dads with the same name and they're sports nuts (one likes that orange and black team, the other bleeds Dodger Blue) but we won't name names.

After the hayride the boys wanted to go back down the hill and try to see what fun things they could find.  Drew fed the horses.  We tried earlier to ride a horse in the barn but while waiting our turn one of the girls (around 7 or 8) was thrown from a spooked horse.  We decided to skip horseback riding that day.  The girl was fine just a little freaked out.

 The horses were really friendly.  This one asked if there was anything on his nose.

While the boys were hanging with the animals, I was doing some line dancing.  I never do it anymore since no one else is into country music and Dave thinks that line dancing is too "white".

Even Uncle Sam came to the party!

Dave added a few items to his attire.  Drew's Sunday School teacher had the vest, someone let Dave borrow the hat and beard - the pants, socks and medal are his. 

Week of Activity

What is a parent to do when their child is gone from 7:30am - 8:30 at night?  Celebrate and do whatever the heck they want!

This is VBS week at the church where Drew goes to Preschool. It was the first time he was age eligible and know what - he's loving it!  When I go pick him up, he's busy singing the songs he learned that day (he's also falling asleep to the CD for VBS) and speaking of sleep he's conking out without battle!  That makes this mama love it to!

He is really getting into the themes for VBS too - Tuesday was sports day so Daddy put him in a Dodger jersey.  Come to think of it, I think it was Drew's idea.  But yesterday it was crazy hat day.   This is the text I got from Dave as they were headed out the door (Drew has been sleeping in because VBS is that exhausting).

Safe to say it was a crazy hat?!

Today it was Hawaiian day, but it's cooler so he's just wearing a shirt with some palm trees and jeans.  We packed him a couple of leis to make it more festive.

The other cool thing about VBS is they serve him dinner.  I spoke to one of his teachers and they said he's been doing pretty darn well with the food issue - being the pick eater that he is.  They said he's tried something virtually every day - without gagging/puking.  Could this be progress?

Would it be bad of me to look for other VBS programs around town?  The sign went up for another church up the street from his announcing one for next month.... hmmmmm....

Video - Sunday School Performance

While I was away in Seattle for work Drew had to perform during church for the congregation. The Pre-K through 5th graders sang "This Little Gospel Light of Mine".  Dave was able to capture a video of the rehearsal - not the performance because he was ushering.

Here you go - (Drew is in front right wearing a green shirt and khakis).



For those who aren't seeing the video because you're reading this via email - here is the link.

Easter Fun at Church

We love Easter at church - not only are the services awesome but there is a lot of great chances to sit and chat with everyone at the potluck breakfast.  Drew likes the egg hunt and all the additional candy he gets.

Thankfully I felt better after being in bed Friday and Saturday and was able to participate in the fun. 

They let the Pre-K kids start with the egg hunt around 9:15am.  Normally the eggs are well hidden in the Sunday School classrooms, but our church is expanding and all the classes are scattered.  So this year the eggs were just hanging out in front.

After each child found 12 eggs, they were told to stand to the side so the adults could see how many were left.  Once it was clear there were a ton still remaining it became a free for all.

When we finished the egg-hunt, Drew wanted to show Daddy where he wrote on the wall of his new Sunday School Classroom, which should be sealed up within the next week or two. (Yes he was told he couldn't write on the walls at home!)

Following the service we got a picture in front of the Flower Cross we make each year.  The congregation is asked to bring flowers from home (or the store like we do) and decorate the cross.

After church we went to Mom and Dad's new house for dinner.  It was a quiet group this year of us, Mom and Dad, Aunt Connie and Uncle Doug and Grandma.

Aunt Connie brought dessert including this adorable bunny cake!  She told us her recipe dates back to 1968! (I hope I remembered the accurate date).

We enjoyed the weather in Mom and Dad's new backyard!  Can you believe when they bought this house in October this backyard was all weeds as tall as Mom (which isn't very tall - depending on who you ask LOL).  But they added every item in this backyard which was mostly completed only within the past couple weeks.

Above: The hosts - Grammy and GrampC
Below: Uncle Doug and Aunt Connie (I suck and never got a picture of Grandma/GG)

Drew and GrampC are hanging out in the shade playing Angry Birds

This next picture is from the "Back 40" - the cigar smoker's area. That's Dave yappin' on the phone.
 

Grammy and Drew

 Mommy and Drew

 Daddy and Drew hamming it up

And that completes the Easter Picture-Palooza!

Fat Tuesday

Last week marked Fat Tuesday and we celebrated in a G-rated fashion unlike those in New Orleans.





We joined those at church for their annual Mardi Gras celebration. Dave and Drew even dressed the part donning a mask and some beads.

We followed Fat Tuesday with "Skinny Wednesday" aka Ash Wednesday and a soup supper at church.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Spreading the Message of the Season

On Sunday Drew took part in his second Sunday School Children's Service - the Christmas pageant for our church.  He was in much happier spirits this year compared to last I think because he was a cow vs last year's pig.

Now that he was four, he seemed a lot more into it. Of course it helped how they set up the preschoolers this year (this is put on by all the children in our church Pre-K - Seniors in High School).  The preschoolers were sitting in the pew not facing the intimidating congregation so they were a lot less fidgety.  

That's Drew singing "Away in a Manger" - I think.  Despite the fact he doesn't appear to be singing in the picture - he really belted it out.  

I think this last picture is Away in a Manger as well.  I was in the second row making sure Drew behaved as well as cuing him and his friends the words and actions.  I think this show was much better than last years overall - it was phenomenal!  There was an amazing duet from some of the older kids who played Mary and Joseph - I'll share some of that song.

I promise to get my act together sometime and show the video from this performance and and the Preschool show at school.

Riding into the Sunset and a Funny

For those who aren't on Facebook, for whatever reason aren't friends with me, or perhaps you've since blocked from seeing my posts.... here's a funny from Drew at Sunday School which resumed this weekend.

Teacher 1: Jacob and Esau are twins.  Do any of you know what twins are?
Drew: (very enthusiastically) They're a baseball team.  From Minnesota!
Teacher 1: (trying hard not to laugh) Well yeah that's one kind of twin...
Teacher 2: (trying hard not to laugh) You are your father's son aren't you.

In other news, Drew is a riding machine right now.  He's had 2 bikes and a scooter since he was just over two years old but refused to ride them growing very frustrated at his skills.  He had trouble staying on the sidewalk and getting the pedaling thing down.

I went to pick him up from school last week and he said all he wants to do is ride his bike.  He surprised us by doing the pedaling (as long as it wasn't uphill) and then on Sunday I pulled out the scooter for him to ride around our complex.

He loved it!  After about 30 minutes he announced his legs were tired and we went back inside to bake the birthday cupcakes for school the next morning. 

I love the new found independence and confidence being four has brought!