Mexican Fiesta

Today I volunteered to help in Emily's classroom for the art section of their Mexican Fiesta.  After spending 1.5 hours with 23 kids and plates of paint, I fully understand why Mrs. Betts wanted as much parent help as possible!  The kids painted wooden maracas, created a type of traditional Mexican nature painting and made sombreros out of paper grocery bags.

Memorial Day weekend

We spent Memorial Day weekend in Hull with my family.  One of the highlights was visiting the home farm with all the cousins.  Everyone loves riding in the tractor with Grandpa to help feed the cows.

We tried to take some group pictures in the hay with mild success.  The kids were more interested in jumping and climbing.

 Another popular activity was digging the the big sand pile at Grandpa & Grandma's house.

Lincoln got to help Grandma feed the orioles grape jelly and orange slices.

 

Before heading home on Memorial Day, we stopped to see my Grandpa Vander Kooi--a WWII POW vet.  Memorial Day has always had a special meaning because of him, and I will always associate the day with memories of him in his American Legion uniform helping park cars at the cemetery for the community memorial service.

Last day of preschool

Today was Lincoln's last day of preschool at Little Lambs.  It was a little bittersweet.  I took Lincoln & Owen out for lunch at the Pizza Ranch to celebrate.  Then we joined most of the rest of the class to play together at Kids' Kingdom.  We are going to miss Little Lambs!

Here are some year-end art projects from preschool:

RAGBRAI poster

There was a RAGBRAI poster design contest for kids with local and state winners.  Emily whipped this up after school on the last day it was due.  She's convinced that she's going to win. :)

Field Day

Lincoln & I volunteered to help with Field Day at Emily's school.  Lincoln ended up playing on the playground with some preschool classmates the whole time while I chased soccer balls.  It was a serious workout!  Emily's class won the 1st grade tug-of-war (she's wearing a pink & gray hoodie 7th from the front) and her group won the ping pong pop game.

5 years old

Five years old!  Our little boy is growing up.  He is going through the stage of calling us by our first names--Austin & Megan--instead of Daddy and Mommy.  We have put a swift stop to that.  Lincoln has also become a master of Monopoly, Jr.  As mentioned in an earlier post, he can beat anyone at any time.

Lincoln has an incredible way of condensing a four-word question into one syllable.  He often (as in 5-10x/day) asks, "Djnut?" (Do you know what?)  He also consistently says "I'n" instead of "I'm".

Mac 'n cheese has come back into vogue with Lincoln (as opposed to just noodles with butter and Parmesan cheese).  He still loves just about any kinds fruit, but his current favorite is grapes.  

Lincoln really enjoys painting at preschool.  This is his Easter egg. 

He has also made great strides in writing.  He had no legible letters at the beginning of the year.  With help on the spelling, he wrote this by himself for a Dr. Seuss project at preschool. 

Lincoln has become a lot more comfortable on a bike now that he's grown taller.  His official check-up measurements were 43" and 37.5 lbs..  He has grown 3" and gained 3 lbs. in the last year, which puts his percentiles at 52 for height and 26 for weight.  Lincoln & I packed up our bikes and went on a bike ride down the Waverly Rail Trail.  It took 30 minutes to do 1 mile down and 1 mile back with only five stops to pick dandelions. :)

We love our silly snuggle buddy!

4-H fishing

On the night of Lincoln's party, Emily's 4-H club had a Dad's Fishing outing at the duck pond.  Grandpa Lorenzen was able to stay and go along.  They caught one little fish!

Lincoln's birthday party

It was a gorgeous weekend to host the grandparents for Lincoln's 5th birthday party.  We spent most of the day outside.  Lincoln received some neat gifts, including a Zube Tube, which is really a very simple device that makes really cool sounds.

Lincoln requested an "Agent P (a.k.a. Perry the Platypus)" theme for his birthday from the kids' current favorite TV show Phineas & Ferb.  We had fun picking out a secret agent costume at the part store.  The Fareway bakery did an excellent job with the cake.  If you pull down the left tree branch, Perry pops out from behind the tree. :)

 Thank you to awesome grandparents who made this a special celebration of a special boy!

Heery Woods

To continue my week of woodsy field trips, I accompanied Emily's class to Heery Woods State Park by Clarksville.  They had a picnic lunch, three trail walks and time to explore the indoor Nature Center.  I learned quite a lot about native plants!  I'm so glad I have the ability to participate in opportunities like this!

Bird blind

Today I got to accompany Lincoln's preschool class on a field trip to the bird blind in Babcock Woods.  We have been there before on our own.  The naturalist leading the trip had stocked the feeders well, and we saw a LOT of cool birds.  I recognized most of them from our own backyard feeders, but that was as many as I had seen in one place at one time.  The kids made fun "bird binoculars" out of TP tubes.