Worth Repeating! ‘How On Earth Did God’s Baby Sleep?’

Hannah’s pre-school Christmas concert in 2012.  She was 3 at the time and this song still brings lots of laughter and tears of joy to this Mommy’s face!!

Some Things Are Too Cute Not To Repeat!

A visit back to Hannah’s preschool Christmas concert last year…’How on Earth Did God’s Baby Sleep?’

Precious Preschool Graduate!

My ‘baby’ is a preschool graduate!  Wednesday evening Grandma, Grandpa and Papa joined us at the church to celebrate Hannah’s graduation from Preschool.  Nana was away for the week but we know she was there in her heart.

The grandparents were on the ball and staked out the front row for our family.  Way to go!!

Entering to Pomp and Circumstance

The sweetest little Mama Pig ever!  Oh how I love her smile that lights up her entire face!

Bible Songs

Unfortunately it’s blurry but this is my little sweetie receiving her diploma

Celebrating with her friend Mya.

Hannah and Ella.  They met day 1 of preschool and were friends from that moment on.

Group hug for the ladies.

Errr…maybe not so much!  Isn’t 4 a hoot?!!

More sweet silliness.

Hannah with her amazing teachers Mrs. Hebert and Mrs. Devitt

We’re so proud of you Hannah XiaoFen!  Way to go!!!

Hannah, I know you are more than ready to begin Junior Kindergarten in September!  I’m glad your first year at school was such a wonderful success and am so thankful for all that your teachers taught you.  More than that I am thankful that they helped you fall deeper in love with Jesus!  You are a blessing sweetie and Mommy loves you more than she can express!  xoxo

Final Day of Preschool

All too quickly Hannah’s year at preschool has drawn to a close.  *sigh!*

She started as a little girl who knew how to sing her A, B, C’s ~ kinda.  What child really knows how to sing the ‘elemeno’ part?  She could only print a few letters and those were all upper case.  She did not know any lower case letters nor could she print any of her numbers.  She now recognizes all of her letters (upper and lower case) and can write almost all of them from memory. 

One funny thing though is that she still does not write her name correctly consistently.  It’s not unusual for her N’s to be backwards and the final H is often left off, or mixed up with extra A’s.   And, when she says her letters out loud when writing her name she calls the H and the A both ‘A’.   Heh…precious memories to capture!

Hannah can count to 29 but then says 20-10 and 20-‘eleben’.  Hee!  I change it up to 30 and she’s off…until she gets to 30-10 and 30-eleben!

There was one thing that surprised (and if I were honest, saddened) me that I noticed at preschool.   She was normally one of the last kids dropped off each day.  There were 16 kiddos in her class so when we arrived many of the activity stations would already have children at them.  For the first number of months (probably until sometime in late April or early May) I would watch her glance around the room and then purposely choose a station where nobody else was.  That surprised me as she is a social little girl with many friends.  As she walked into the class it was not unusual for 2 or 3 of her classmates to run up and say ‘Hi Hannah.’  She’d sometimes respond (something else we’re working on) but then find a place to play alone.  It was hard to watch. 

I distinctly remember the day I dropped her off and she ran into a tent where a few other kids were playing.  I was shocked and it immediately warmed my heart!   I mentioned it to her teachers who were standing nearby and they both said they’d noticed her interacting with her classmates a lot more lately.  I was so thankful!  I noticed the same thing a couple of weeks ago at family day and have also noticed it when I drop her off at Sunday School.  I’m so glad she is feeling more comfortable playing with her peers.  Another way that preschool was a wonderful opportunity for her.

Before school this morning we took a few photos (surprise, surprise!) of her holding a picture taken last September on her first day of school.

My baby is growing up!

Final drop off and yes, Hannah was fine and Mommy was a MESS!

I have dreamed of Hannah attending this preschool at our church since before she was born.  It’s hard to believe this wonderful time has come and gone.  She learned so much but even more her amazing teachers helped her fall deeper in love with Jesus!  They gave her a wonderful first experience at school and taught her so, so much!  Thank you Mrs. Devitt

and Mrs. Hebert! We cannot express our gratitude to you!

I was able to slip away from work in the morning and surprise Hannah at pick up time.  I love her reaction!!!

I was holding it together okay until I saw this!  Yup…the tears started again.  SO precious!!!

Hannah and her little friend Mya.  First day of preschool

and then today.  Sweet little friends!

Hannah!  Mommy is so proud of you!  You have flourished at preschool and learned so much.  Your education has just begun but it’s begun in such a wonderful way! 

Tomorrow night is your graduation and sweetie I just need to warn you  - Mommy will try to keep it together but I’m not making any promises! 

Preschool Pic

Love her 4yo smile where she’s making sure her dimple shows! 

I can’t believe Hannah only has 1 more day of preschool left.  How can that be???  I dreamed for years of sending her to this school and now in the blink of an eye she’s been to orientation, her first day of school and now, the end of her school year is only days away. 

*sigh*  Slow down time….SLOW DOWN!!!

Never, Ever…EVER Thought This Would Happen!

More about the title later. 

Thursday was Family Fun Day at Preschool and we couldn’t wait!!  Hannah was so excited that Mommy would spend the entire morning with her at preschool!  You know what?  Mommy was beyond excited too!  She said the colour of the week was yellow and she wanted to choose out outfits for the day.  Great job sweetie!

When we first arrived there were mats on the floor and chairs set up with a shelf of books available.  It warmed my heart to look around and see children curled up with their parents and grandparents all enjoying reading books together.  Hannah chose a couple  for us and we found a place on a mat to spend time together. 

After an opening song by our kiddos and prayer we broke up into class groups and went to the first of 3 centres.  We started with crafts which is always a hit with my girl!  (Sorry – Blurry pics but they had the cutest faces of the group.)

I love this pic of Hannah and her classmates checking out the action in the gym below.  You can tell that the lighting in there is t-e-r-r-i-b-l-e so please forgive the Shrek like pictures coming.  Thanks for your help with these Auntie M.

Everyone loves a jumping castle!

And now, for the highlight of the day for Hannah – Zoo to You!!  (If you’re squeamish you may want to stop reading now.)

Hannah LOVED this which would not have been me as a kiddo! 

Holding Springer the Crested Gecko

Eye to eye with Treekah the Red Eyed Tree Frog

Blech!!!  Holding Charlotte the Rose Hair Tarantula

Petting Lola the American Alligator

Now, an animal that was finally more Mommy’s speed!

And now for the reason for the title of this post.  This was Hannah’s first reaction to the final animal.

Dolly, such a sweet name for…THIS!  EWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!  A Burmese python that was about 6’ long!

Hannah, Mommy loved spending the day with you in preschool!  Yes, even when we wore a snake as a necklace! 

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Hannah and I had a wonderful Valentine’s Day!!  I take many opportunities daily to tell her how much I love her and Valentine’s Day is just one more opportunity to tell her again and again…and again how much I love her and how thankful I am to be her Mommy!

We had such fun this week preparing for this day of love and I saw a new little girl this year compared to last year and the ones before.  In the past I prepared most of our Valentine cards and she added her adorable little ‘H’.  This year she was confident and independent and capably handled the Valentines prep.  I watched in awe as the writing of her name progressed between the first and last card that she wrote.

This little video made me giggle as she signed her cards while singing, ‘Jingle Bells.’  Hehe!

I also smiled last night at Mom and Dad’s when she signed one of her Valentines for them.  For some reason she started to the far right side of the page and wrote her name from right to left.  The great thing about having a name that’s a palindrome is that it still turned out just fine and no one was any the wiser! 

Hannah handed out Princess Valentines as well as these cute little ones we made.  They’re the same as last year’s with an updated pic but it works since she’s in preschool this year so the kids are new.

Valentine’s Day morning she was excited to see what the ‘Easter Bunny’ had brought her!  (Oh how I love 3!!) 

I was invited to join Hannah at preschool part way through the morning and we were both really excited!!  I joined her during their circle time and was able to hear her sing with her friends.  I loved being with Hannah in her environment!  We started with her making a sweet card

and then a beautiful necklace.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to spend this time with Hannah at her school!  It helped me to realize that I’m going to need to portion out my vacation days so that I can volunteer in her classroom when she begins junior kindergarten in September.  Thank you for sharing your Valentine’s party with me Xiao Xiao!

After preschool I took her to Ange’s where she gave me a beautiful card she had made and then because it was a piano teaching evening, Hannah spent part of the evening with Grandma and Grandpa and her cousin Makenna.  I’m so thankful for the time she has together with my parents each week and since she and I couldn’t be together for supper on Valentine’s Day I was so thankful they could spend that time together.  (Unfortunately by the time I picked her up we were in the midst of a nasty storm and I forgot my camera.  I was just thankful to arrive after seeing numerous cars in the ditch on my way to pick her up.)  When I arrived she gave me this beautiful rose that she had chosen.

Hannah and I are blessed not only to have one another but to be surrounded by family and friends whom we love and who love us!  Wednesday night we stopped in to visit Nana at work and she had this cute little bear that Hannah has named Cinderella, for her.

Thursday evening I received a call from a wonderful friend asking if I could pop over on my way to pick up Hannah.  Deb had stepped up in a huge way last month and watched Hannah for me on a day when Ange was enjoying a well deserved vacation day.  It was a teaching day for me so Hannah shared 11 wonderful hours with Auntie Deb and Uncle Scott.  She came home with many beautiful crafts and homemade cookies that day and I didn’t think anything more about it.  Yesterday I found out they had one more surprise saved for Mommy.  I cried when I opened this beautiful card and saw Hannah’s hand written message of love inside. 

(I also laughed as they shared the photo shoot challenge it was to get the pic above.  30 mins of photo taking to get the one they wanted.  Oh how I understand!  The pic I used with the sucker was one of 80 some taken one day, trying to get the right one…and when she wasn’t laying on the floor or hiding her eyes.  Oy!)

Photo shoot outtakes VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Hannah and I are blessed beyond measure to be Mother and Daughter and at the same time are amazed and humbled by the love that is showered on us by others.  You know who you are and please know that we love you very, very much too!

Happy Valentine’s Day Hannah XiaoFen!  Mommy loves you!!  xoxoxoxoxo