BellaVita Graduation Highlights

Here is James and his friends performing the song they wrote for graduation called, "5 Circles Around the Sun," and James getting his diploma. As you can see, singing into a microphone was almost too much excitement for James to handle.

Preschool Graduate

James is officially a preschool graduate! He has really enjoyed his last year of preschool and I am so glad that we decided to keep him at BellaVita one last year, as well as send him to Pre-K at Central, our neighborhood school, where he will attend Kindergarten in the fall. His last day of Central was last Wednesday, here he is on his last day of school.

As the kids walked outside their teacher, Mrs. Vogel-Pitts, handed them a diploma and declared them official Kindergartners!

We love, love, love James' teacher at Central. I hope his Kindergarten teacher is just as awesome as Mrs. Vogel-Pitts is!

Here is a comparison of James on his very first day at BellaVita in 2010 and on his graduation day-last Friday. BellaVita has been an amazing introduction to school for James. It is such a wonderful and nurturing place and I am so glad that he had the opportunity to grow there for 3 years. He had so many amazing experiences there that I really do not think he would have had anywhere else.

Each graduating student from BellaVita creates a piece of art that they give to the school. This is James' canvas on display at graduation-it is a rocket ship and outer space.

 BellaVita makes a very big deal about graduation and James was so excited to have his big day. The graduating class writes their own song that they perform together and James had been practicing singing it for weeks.

 Here are the 5 kids who graduated this year performing their song, "Five Circles Around the Sun." I cried. A lot.

 Ms. Rachael called each graduate up and said nice things about them as she presented them with their diploma. Adorable.

Will, Colin, Cyrus and James have been together for 3 years and have developed such great friendships. Here is James with Cyrus.

 James with Ms. Rachael and Will.

I can't believe how grown up James looks in these pictures! It was hard to see him say goodbye to BellaVita and to his teachers and friends there.

Mac

These pictures pretty much sum up the weirdness of Mac lately. Thomas hat-check. Old Blackberry-check. Picking out his own shoes-check.

He is a weird one, but I wouldn't change a thing :)

Weekend Fun

We finally had a weekend with wonderful spring weather! We started to tackle our backyard/garden/garage on Saturday morning to get it ready for summer. I for one am happy that this nice weather means summer clothes, I was getting sick of pants, sweatshirts, snow boots and coats!

 Mac has become so particular about the weirdest things. He has been wearing James' old Thomas the Train conductor hat for about 2 weeks straight, even to bed. I resorted to flat out bribery to get him to wear this summer hat on Saturday. He also is constantly carrying around one of Tim's old cell phones and/or this baseball bat. They go everywhere with him and he freaks out if they aren't in his hands.

 Saturday afternoon we spent in Ft Collins for Chloe's birthday party. She wanted an Ariel/Rapunzel water party, so thankfully the weather cooperated so they could break out the slip 'n slide, water guns and water balloons.

 Mac's summer hat was quickly ditched at the party for this princes tiara.

We are loving all this wonderful weather and spending all our time outside after such a yucky, cold, snowy spring!

Best Mother's Day Ever

We had a great weekend, topped off with the best Mother's Day ever yesterday. We headed down to Denver early and I ran in the Mother's Day 5k with Anne at City Park. The weather was beautiful and it was great to catch up, even if it was while running. 

James has been wanting to go to the Mammoths and Mastodons Ice Age exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, so we headed over there after my race. James was absolutely fascinated and slowly made his way through the entire exhibit, stopping to look at every display, watch every video, look at every artifact and wanted to read every single piece of information. Mac was a good sport and we only had to hussle James through the very end, when Mac had reached his museum limit. James has not stopped asking questions about the exhibit since yesterday.

Since it was such a beautiful day, we walked over to the zoo after the museum. Both boys enjoyed seeing all of the animals and riding the carousel.

James was especially excited to see the 3 lion cubs that will be leaving the zoo soon and a new Red Panda (we get the Zoo magazine, which James reads cover to cover). We walked all over trying to find the Red Panda exhibit and James finally found a zoo keeper who showed us the way. We happened to see him awake and walking around, which I guess is pretty rare, and James was beyond thrilled. I love taking James places like the museum and zoo. He is so curious and asks so many good questions. He stops at every display and wants the entire thing read to him and doesn't stop asking questions until he reaches the next exhibit. He definitely has a love of learning when it comes to animals and anything historical and I hope that it doesn't go away!

We stopped for an ice cream and couldn't find any dairy free treats for Mac so he got an old jolly rancher from the stroller. He didn't seem to mind one bit.

We headed home and hung out in the yard enjoying the perfect weather the rest of the day. Tim took the boys to the grocery store and I got to read in peace and quiet for an hour and then they came home and made me grilled pizza for dinner. James gave me a hug and told me it was one of the best days he has ever had. I have to agree, I couldn't have asked for anything more! 

Farm Field Trip

 James pre-school at Central has been doing a farm unit and they had a field trip to Sunflower Farm on Friday. Mac and I joined him and had a great morning exploring the farm together.

 Mac got these hand me down John Deere boots from Finn and Will and even though they are too big, he adores them. I figured the farm was the perfect place to wear them. If it was up to Mac, I think he would wear them everyday.