Galactic Construction

On May 22, 2010 Hayden was the proud creator of his very own lego galaxy. He was feeling pretty spiffy about this creation and was eager to have it documented!

Daddy Time

From time to time Michael and I have participated in marketing surveys at local research companies. Hayden had his first chance to share his opinions on toys on May 21st and Michael met us to retrieve Bailey and scoot her out for some Daddy-Daughter fun. We grabbed a quick snapshot of the them (along with WahWah of course) before heading our separate ways. What a pair!

There Goes the NEIGHborhood...

I do adore being part of a wonderful MOMS Club chapter in our area. A "icing on the cake" bonus is the lots of ladies are great about keeping things "In the Family" when their kids are all done. In May, we were gifted a set of horses from a friend in the chapter. Such perfect timing - Bailey's love for horses had just begun. It is a wonderful set with a variety of breeds and each horse is labeled properly on its belly. It came with a set of cards and a poster. The poster is now up in her room. We went through a spell this summer and fall where she wanted to be next to the poster to arrange the horses and match them up with their poster counterpart. The set has made her incredibly happy - just today she gave the horses a big old bath in a bucket and earlier this winter three of them were treated to sleigh rides in our first good snow. I will freely admit that I wish that the bath had not taken place on her bedroom floor using the pot from her Princess tea set but that is another matter indeed!

Planet Phonics

All of the inflatable planetary fun inspired our little astronomist in training and when I came up to release the lad from quiet time that afternoon (May 18, 2010) I discovered him sitting with a space book methodically arranging his leapfrog letters to spell out the planets. Note that the attempt also included an effort to spell them in their order from the sun outward. I suppose that is the moment I should have felt poorly for spending his quiet time watching reality tv on the DVR.... or maybe not! Clearly the independent time was working well for his noggin!

Inflatable Planets

Still basking in the success of Mars' excellent birthday celebration, we struck up a new space project the following day (May 18, 2010). I was the official balloon inflator and each kiddo had the rare treat of Sharpie access for the purposes of decorating their balloon planets. As you can see in the above photo, H sketched up a Jupiter for himself, complete with a red spot. Then he wanted smaller balloons to serve a moons for the Jovian system. Bailey kept things simple and wanted only a moon to decorate for the Earth. She did a fantastic job drawing her craters. It was a whole lot of far out fun!

Happy Birthday Mars!

In case you were curious....planets have birthdays, or at least that what Hayden tells us. So on May 17, 2010 we took time out of our busy schedule to celebrate the birth of Mars. I did my very best to make up a batch of cupcakes that looked rusty, inside and out. In honor of the Red Planet's big day, we even gave the cupcakes a fruit preserve filling to simulate a molten core. Then it was time for everyone to frost and decorate their edible planets.

Somewhere along the line, Hayden felt the need to deal with some details, which I am sure is shocking to our loyal readers... Mars needed to have polar ice caps. So I foraged about and was able to drum up white sprinkles that Sir Hayden happily transformed into frigid caps on his cupcake. I think it's safe to say that he was pretty tickled with the results, don't you?

When it came time to sing, Miss Bailey made sure that her best buddy WahWah was front and center for the festivities. It's good to be inclusive, so I supported her efforts.
Then I was surprised to hear that it was time for presents. Who knew we were going all out with this shindig? It would seem that H had spent his quiet time assembling gifts to present our birthday planet. How kind!
Here he is holding up his Lego Mars so that it could gaze upon a creation for Hayden's workshop. Hayden and Mars took time to play with all of the presents below.

I must say a good time was had by all. While the passion for planets has dimmed a bit, the birthday party idea has not. Young H is currently lobbying for a Darth Vader birthday celebration which leaves me wondering if it is wise to bake for the dark side......We'll see!

Snoozin' for a Bruisin'

This past spring we took the plunge and switched Bailey into a big girl bed. For the most part, she was excited and took well to the transition. Of course there were nights she tested her new boundaries. One evening Michael and I chuckled downstairs as we listened to the pitter patter of little Bailey feet going up and down the hallway. We later found her and scads of her stuffed buddies asleep in our bed. On this particular evening in May 2010, she surrendered to sleep in the door of her room and was sprawled partly in the hallway....even a wild child must eventually have her rest!

Our Bag Lady

Here's a brief homage for the creativity and silliness of little ones with basic household gear! May 17, 2010 was a fairly inventive day for Miss Bailey. Perhaps Whole Foods could use her in future marketing campaigns, if they paid her in Veggie Booty she would be putty in their pesticide-free hands.....

Orchard Outing

May 15th brought lovely weather and a chance to visit Huber's, a large farm literally over the river and through some woods from our abode. This is a popular destination for family outings in Indiana and we hadn't yet gotten over to check it out. Our hope was to score a pony ride for Miss Bailey, who had recently begun to adore all things equine. Sadly, we were a weekend too early on that one but Miss B was none the wiser and quickly found a painted concrete pony to claim for her own. Michael and Joyce went over to figure out how all of the kiddo farm features worked and I lingered with the Mini's as they explored the concrete farm animals out for decoration. We had to keep an extra close eye on Bailey who wanted desperately to give her pony a kiss - not cool for many reasons including the recent attention it had gotten from birds....

Even though kissing the faux livestock had been banned both kidlets had loads of fun climbing all over the place. I'm pretty sure there was alot of crowing, oinking and neighing as they wandered about.

We tore the anklebiters away from their stony friends and took advantage of the large play area for little ones. Hayden had a blast going down the barn's tunnel slide!

Next up was a family hayride around the property to see and feed some real for sure farm creatures. We really were fortunate on the timing and had the whole trailer to ourselves. It is a family run farm and one of the Daughter-in-Laws took us around. She was happy to roam the property and took her time with showing us all sorts of things during our ride. It is so nice when you are taken around by someone who really loves what they do. We couldn't very well let the hayride pass without getting some photos of our crew!

The hayride started and stopped right by a lovely pond where we could feed the ducks and peek at fish. Hayden was not terribly interested in this bit of fun and determined that he would settle into some rock sorting, I think this may have been in case there were any asteroid pieces scattered about. He can be such an interesting human...

I have determined that Bailey should have been born on a farm, whenever we go on an outing like this she is just fascinated by the life around her and can't get enough of it. She could have fed the animals all day long and been quite content. Sometimes, she reminds me of Fern from Charlotte's Web as she traipses through the fields chattering with the wildlife around her. Usually I snap out of it when she yells at or stomps on a bug.

Just beyond the children's play area was a large pen of goats with a contraption that really captured the kid's attention. It was a pulley system for sending food from our little spot on the ground all the way up to the top of the goats perch in their open wooden goat villa. After plopping your food on, it was up to you and your musclepower to turn the wheel until it reached the top where the food poured out for the eager goats. Loads of fun for both kids and quite intriguing for Hayden the junior engineer!

Of course, I have to take time to include some of the fun shots we caught of the everyone during our animal feeding stops on the hayride. Good times!

Mother Son Dance

On May 14th, Hayden and I had a special evening out together. The local community center held a Mother/Son Dance and we headed out for some bonding time. Of course, we took time for a quick pic before scooting over to the big shindig. At this point we were remained deeply entrenched in Hayden's passion for all things outer space. I am so bummed that I cannot find the video clip I shot but at least I have this still of him in action. He came up with a "Galaxy Dance" which he also taught me so that we could be galaxies together. It is important to note the placement of his arms, one is turned in front and one is turned behind but in a very specific way that he felt was an accurate portrayal of a barred spiral galaxy. He considered other types but felt best about his ability to dance as a barred spiral. I think it was a wise choice, I'm not sure how he would have approximated a lenticular one!

The whole shebang was much like a school dance, there were party cups and punch along with trays of store bought cookies in a variety of flavers. So we danced a bit and snacked a bit. Here's a shot of H & I cutting a rug, as you can see he is still in galaxy mode...

As it grew closer to bedtime, we bid our dancing buddies adieu and headed on home. It was a fun evening for the both of us and nice to have some one on one time with my boy. Can't wait to see how much fun Bailey and Michael have if we are able to get them out to the Father/Daughter dance next year!

Our Graduate

On May 13, 2010, we gathered up our tissues and headed out to share a big milestone, the Preschool graduation of our first born. After a two year tour of duty, Sir Hayden was ready to get gussied up and celebrate his Kindergarten readiness. I just love how his preschool covered all of the little details, the tassels made for lovely momentos of their big day. The kids all started out in their classrooms to get dressed up and ready to make their grownups weepy. I recall cracking up during the preparations because everytime we got memos about the ceremony there were bold all caps reminders for the parents of girls not to give them fancy hairdo's and enormous hairbows. Hayden spent lots of time practicing his music at home and showing me how they had to be careful when doing their hand motions to avoid knocking eachother's "special hats" off.

Here's a quick shot of H with his classmates. He is the second from the right in the picture above.

It wasn't long before the processional music began and our favorite scholar appeared with his signature grin. He was so excited for the big day but had also been feeling a bit sad. He really adored his teachers and had a great experience in preschool and didn't want to say farewell. He talked about this alot during the last few weeks of school and it got me feeling badly enough for his little aching heart that we ended up adopting the class fish who now calls our mantle home.

Here's a photo of the graduates all lined up on the risers. Hayden is in the front row and is second from the right.

One of the big questions for the day was how Miss Bailey would do during the program. For a gal that is anything but into containment, she ended up doing pretty well in the confines of our pew - after all she had lots of adults and a grab bag of quiet toys with which to amuse herself.

Soon enough it was H's turn to commence! Here he is with our favorite music teacher, Miss Betsy. She took care of the graduates in Hayden's class because his teacher had just given birth to her second baby the day before. I was so glad Miss Betsy was the one who stepped in to help since Hayden had just adored going to Music class and having time with her.

What a proud Papa and what an joyful boy!Each new alumnus received a Preschool Bible, I love this sweet moment we captured of Hayden perusing his graduation gift from the school. I later noticed that he was holding it upside down! The good news is we have made some great strides in print awareness since then, but you can't blame a kid for being distracted on such a big day. Both of Hayden's teachers wrote him sweet notes in the front of his Bible which has been quite a treasure for him.

As the program began to wrap up , we snuck out for a few family pics.

Hayden has always been our snuggle bug and promises that he will never be too old for hugs. But someday he may grow too old or too cool for the details that are so endearing such as his little hand on my chin - how that will be missed!

If Hayden is our snugglebug it could easily be said that Miss Bailey is our firecracker. She had done all the cooperating she cared to do by staying in the pew for the program and had other ideas when it came time for photos. Hayden was ready to throw down but fortunately we were able to pull it together and get a decent shot!

We even managed to get a few pics with other VIP's in H's fanclub. Grandma Joyce usually visits in May which happily coincided with Graduation timing.

My folks are just an hour and a half away and were able to scoot over for the morning as well.

Although it was bittersweet to have this first leg of Hayden's education draw to an end, the morning was a wonderful celebration of the accomplishments made by each child as they prepared to head off to the wide world of Elementary School. And of course, we were consoled by the fact that we were headed back for one more round when Fall came and it was time to drop Bailey off for her first day!