Back to School

My kids are both in elementary school now. Karen started 2nd grade last week and Michael started Kindergarten today. Wow they grow up fast. Michael is very excited to be a big boy in Kindergarten. Today we were able to go with him for the first half hour and then we had to leave him there. When we said goodbye, he said "I won't miss you mom". So much better than screaming and crying and saying "don't go mom" like he did last year at preschool. And even though he won't miss me, I will most definitely miss him. Here are a couple pics from today.
Karen loves 2nd grade. She only has a couple kids that she knows from last year because they switched tracks on us and we now have B track. But she's very friendly so I wasn't worried about her making new friends. She came home the first day with stories about her new best friend in her class and how she got to see all her old friends at lunch and recess. She's very excited about doing here homework this year because some of it is on the computer. She gets to play math games online for her math homework. Here are a couple pics from her first day.

Testimony

Karen is my sweet, sensitive little girl. Since she turned 7 she has been getting more and more excited to be baptized and we have been talking to her more about Jesus and the gospel so that she can understand more what being baptized means. She has such a sweet spirit, she loves church and she loves learning all the scripture stories.

Yesterday was fast Sunday and therefore testimony meeting. Our stake has asked that children should only get up to say there testimony if they can do it themselves because they want it to be their testimony and not mommy or daddy's testimony. We've talked with our children about that and Karen has been too shy to get up by herself until yesterday. She leaned over to me and said, "Mom, I want to bear my testimony." I quietly reminded her that she needed to do it herself and she looked unsure, so I told her we could write it down and then she could just read it when she got up there. I got out a paper and she told me what she wanted to say and I wrote it down on the paper for her. It was short and sweet and to the point. She was so excited and went up to the stand. She did a wonderful job. She came back down and sat next to me and she told me she felt really good and happy and knew it was the Spirit.

It made me feel the Spirit too. I'm so pleased that my little girl is growing in the gospel. What a precious gift children are to us. I'm proud of you Karen.

June

June is always a busy month for us, but it also bring us a lot of fun too. Early this month Michael graduated from preschool! We are so proud of him for all he has learned this year, especially to sit still for more than a couple of seconds. He's also learned all his numbers, letters and is now reading. Thanks to his wonderful teacher Miss Angie, he has also learned his numbers in Spanish and all his colors in Spanish too. She had a darling graduation program and we are grateful to her for all she taught our boy.Michael had an early birthday party so his school friends could come. We had uncle Anthony come and do a magic show for us which everyone loved especially Michael.
Mom did face painting and cousin Jeremy made balloon animals for everyone.
And everyone enjoyed the goodies.Here is a picture of the girl Michael wants to marry when he grows up. She's so sweet. Unfortunately they will be going to different schools in the fall so Michael will have to find a new sweetheart.We celebrated on Michael's real birthday too and I'll post about that later.

Karen turned 7

Karen is so excited to be 7, and can you guess why? It's closer to 8 and getting baptized. Lately that is all she can talk about. She is so excited to get baptized and can hardly wait. Every time she takes a bath, she practices putting her face under the water to practice for getting baptized. It's so cute. It also reminds me that I need to make sure she gets taught the things she needs to so that she can make such a grown up decision.

But right now we just enjoyed celebrating her birthday. The Friday before her birthday we invited several of her friends to come to a party.

We had face painting done by me...then we taught the kids to play red rover...
we also decorated butterflies....

played pin the tail on the monkey....and smashed our homemade butterfly pinata (created by me too).

Presents and rice crispie cupcakes (rice crispie treats in the shape of cupcakes because Karen doesn't like cake) ended the party with great success. We had a lot of fun and Karen was thrilled with the way everything turned out.

On her actual birthday we took her to dinner at the new McDonalds by our house. The play area was the best part of dinner for her and Michael.Afterward we had an actual birthday cake, though Karen only had ice cream and the last of her presents. Her grandma and grandpa came along with a few cousins. It was fun. Happy birthday my darling girl.
A few facts about Karen at age 7: favorite color - pink (currently), favorite animal - cat, favorite food - pizza, very good at math, loves reading, has lots and lots of friends.

Easter

What a fun Easter weekend we had! We had our traditional McFarlane family Easter egg get together complete with lunch, egg hunt and our first annual egg bash. Cindy was wonderful to host this year. I think our new favorite tradition is the egg bash. Everyone had so much fun with it. We each brought a dozen eggs per family, then we each took turns rolling them at each other and whichever one didn't crack, won. Then the winners would go against each other, etc, etc, til there was only one. It was a blast and we are looking forward to doing it again next year.
The kids had a great time hunting eggs. There were so many places to hide them in Cindy's yard. What fun it was. We missed having Pam and her family there, but they'll be there next time, I'm sure.Sunday was a fun egg hunt too. Then of course we had to have pictures in our new Easter outfits, well the kids new outfits anyway.
Karen is a natural model, she posed for this without any help or direction from me.We hope you all had a wonderful Easter and celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ too.