May
Ah, May. The sun is shining, the flowers are peeking out, and we take the time to celebrate mothers. Incidentally, it is also the month that my husband leans over during Hallmark commercials to remind me that I am not his mother. This awesome shot of both my kiddos is the one that graced our Mother's Day cards this year. I used to think that as the kids got older that it would be easier to get a picture of them simultaneously looking at the camera and smiling. not so much the case. We managed to get this one though...so no complaining.

Because I was done with classes, I was finally able to drive/chaperon for the kids' trip to farm. Every week, the kids take an afternoon field trip to a farm. They have science lessons, learn about the workings of the farm, and get some hands on experience too.

I went on a Tuesday with Timothy's class. Check this picture out...that is in fact a MOUSE crawling on the arms of my little guy...and that is a SMILE on his face!

Here Timothy and some of his classmates are digging holes for tomato plants.
Here's my little beancounter with one of the gals in his class who has been a good friend to him. (They really are counting beans.)

Here he is climbing under a tree to retrieve pine cones with classmates.

Timothy is doing an observation exercise using the sense of touch here. They were blindfolded and then a partner led them to a tree and they felt it. They were then led back to the circle where the blindfold was removed and they had to try to find the tree again.

Because Timothy has a summer birthday we brought a treat in to share with his class to celebrate early. This picture is fuzzy because the lighting was low and I didn't configure my camera accordingly, but I wanted to snap a picture before they finished their song. It was so sweet. Timothy held a globe in his hands and walked around a candle in a holder that looked like the sun. They sang a song as he walked around the "sun" seven times, to represent his (almost) seven years of life.

That was on a Thursday and it was that afternoon that I went with Madeline's class to the farm. Here she is with some of her classmates during circle...as well as some very colorful visitors.

One of the activities Madeline's class did was to find wildflowers and talk about the parts of a flower.

Then they pressed them. She loved this! She has been pressing flowers in books for quite awhile now. In fact, her teacher told her that she had noticed Madeline pressing flowers and it was her inspiration for this activity. My little gal felt like a million bucks! =)

Madeline got to dig holes for tomato plants too.

Then they went over to the pen to check on the baby goats. I believe they were about three weeks old at this time.

She was so excited when she came home from farm the day after they had been born. It has been neat for her to see how all the animals on the farm grow and change throughout the year.

The farmer also keeps bees. Here she is telling some of the children about the hives...

...and looking at and touching some real honeycomb.

In other news, May is the month that our little Timothy got his glasses! You've seen this picture already, but I thought I'd post it again. It was taken within an hour of picking up his new specs. He's been doing such a good job wearing them everyday, taking good care of them, and also patching. His myopia and astigmatism are so severe that he has a lazy eye. So, he wears a patch for (up to) a couple hours a day now.

So this was our May. Well, we went on a cruise too, but that's a whole new post. We'll see if that one makes it up tonight or not. ;)

-shannon