she had a literal "field day"!

after her first "field day" got rained out (what can we say?  florida rarely lives up to it's "sunshine state" nickname!!), we finally made it to the rescheduled date.  hannah was beyond excited....even though she really had no idea what a field day entailed ;)  

i had to work one of the events, so i missed out on her obstacle course race, but after that, i was able to slip away some to be able to watch her other events.  the first one i was able to join her for was my personal favorite.....concession stand time! now, why they give kindergarteners concessions at the beginning of their field day is beyond me.  those kids stuffed themselves with every manner of candied item they could possibly get their hands on...i feel that might have slowed them down a liitle bit!  i tried to monitor hannah's goodie intake, but she still managed to consume a bag of doritoes, a ring pop, and what i consider to be the coolest candy EVER.....a nerd rope. seriously...the genius who decided to take all those little nerd candies and stick them all together in a rope....THAT guy was paying some attention in science class growing up!! 

then, it was on to the 50 yard dash.  it was easy to get to watch her in this even since it was the one i was assigned to.  y'all....my little girl, who can't walk around the house without falling down, bumping into walls, or generally hurting herself in some way, shape, or form....my girl is FAST!

and grinning the ENTIRE way didn't slow her down either!  i figured that would hurt her aerodynamics...but she still flew :)

my area also had the sack race (which was a favorite event of mine back when i was doing field days!  i always hoped my kids would inherit my sack race gene!).  hannah is fast AND can hop like a kangeroo.  my heart swelled with pride for my little jumping bean...and still with the ever present grin:

the broom relay gave her some trouble....she's like her momma, that one is.  i shy away from all things sweeping and vacuuming ;)  at one point she looked up at the "audience" and said, "this thing is AGGRAVATING me!"  i hear ya, sister....i hear ya!

then, it was time for tug-of-war.  this was the event that i had been waiting for all day.  i LOVE tug-of-war!!  hannah's classmates are not the biggest in the kindergarten...but they're scrappy, by golly!

mrs. dickey, their fearless leader, urged them on to victory!  they beat 3 of the 4 classes they went up against. they ended up losing in the final round to ms. simmons's class....but i think ms. simmons might have slipped a 3rd grader onto her side or something ;)

and her last event:  the balloon pop. thank goodness her balloon was a liiiiittle deflated;  made it hard to pop but otherwise it would have been to big for my little one to hop on top of!

and so, field day came....and field day went.  we had an absolute blast and it was so much fun watching my girl enjoy herself.  it brought back a ton of memories from when i was in elementary school and i'm so glad that she liked it just as much as i used to!!  even with all the changes in our culture today....i love to see that kids still enjoy a good bit of tug-of-war :)

ch-ch-changes

there were  some major changes here in the shoaf household last week.  i think that i'm emotionally ready to talk about it now.  *deep breath*

 on monday, march 21, 2011.....chandler started his first day of preschool.  AND, ava girl started her first day of daycare.   and honestly?  i think i cried more than they did.  in fact, i KNOW that i did since neither one of them cried at all.  seriously....is a little fat tear squeezed out for their momma too much to ask??  apparently so.

my mother-in-law, who has kept my kids since hannah was 10 weeks old, had to have knee surgery.  she toughed it out for as long as she could, but she finally gave in.  we've been so blessed to have her watch the kids for so long....and i know that it was really hard on her to let them go to other forms of daycare for the remainder of the year.  but we all knew that it was best.  she needed to get herself back to rights.

we actually got VERY lucky with the daycare situation.  i called first baptist preschool (where hannah went last year) and they had a spot open in the 2 year old class.  since chan's birthday is in september, he's still considered "2" even though he's actually three and a half!

ava girl is in a home daycare with a lady who came HIGHLY recommended by my principal and many other people.  this lady has been taking care of children for 18 years and she is just as sweet as she can be.  and as it turns out, i coached her daughter when hillary was in 7th grade on the volleyball team.  i know...small town life, right?!?!

i assumed that chan and ava would have a rough transition since they've never known anything other than grandma's house.....but they have both, so far, done really well in their new daycares!  i had to force chan to give me a goodbye hug when i dropped him off for his first day and ava girl had a great day on monday (i don't think it hurt that there's a little boy named cole who is about her age there.  she MIGHT be a smitten kitten!).

kiddo doesn't look nervous at ALL!:  

that's probably because he's carrying a super hero lunchbox.  dude is ready to take on the world carrying that thing!: 

his first walk towards preschool: 

between his buzz lightyear backpack, his super hero lunchbox, and his spiderman nap mat cover....chan was ready for just about anything:  

as great as their situations are right now, i sure hope that everything works out to where they are back with their grandma again next year.  there's just nothing quite like grandma's house!

**i didn't drop ava off on her first day, so i don't have any pics of her.  her new daycare is almost 30 minutes from our house, so austin drew the short straw on THAT situation ;)

happy birthday cake face :)

i think that my niece, amabel, might have had the very bestest first birthday cake face ever:  

i'm just sayin'  ;)

happy 1st birthday to my precious girl!!  

why hello there, spring!

i've been eyeballing some beautiful flowers that my mother-in-law planted and was just waiting on a pretty day to be able to get some pictures of hannah and ava.  as it happened though....hannah was gone when we had a gorgeous afternoon.  so, ava got herself a solo impromptu session!

this little dress is one that ava wore after her dedication at church.  i'm hoping that it'll fit her through the summer since hannah has a matching dress!

my friend, laurie, said this picture looks like she'll make a good farm wife one day!  guess it's a good thing that laurie's adorable son carson is growing up on a farm!!

would you guess from this picture that i spent the vast majority of this session chasing her around the yard and dragging her back to the flowers?  she was SO not interesting in looking at the pretty flowers.  we eventually bribed her by sticking a cup of fruit juicies inside the garden. i'm still working on NOT getting half a person's face in shadow when i'm taking pictures....but with ava girl, you get what you can get!! ;)

since she has a mother who is decidedly UN-green thumbed....she's probably looking at this going, "what IS this strange thing i see before me????  is it a snack?  a creature from a far off planet??  i am confused!"

these pictures just make me feel all "spring" inside....i love the colors, the weather, and just plain getting to be outdoors.  if the snakes and the ants could find some way to cease existing (at least in my yard), then spring would be welcome at my house all year round ;)

dirt and fields and tractor wheels....

....that's what MY boy is made of!

chandler is a definite fan of all things tractor.  if he hears one crank up, his ears perk, his eyes light up, and you can just about hear his heartbeat switch from a pitter patter to a sound that resembles the engine of his daddy's orange kubota tractor ;) 

 when the lad caught wind that the tractor show was in town, he knew he had to somehow find a way to be there for the festivities.  now, i won't lie and say that i was all about packing up the family all clampett-style and a'headin' down the highway to the walton county fair building to look at a bunch of tractors....but i WILL say that i was glad to get out of the house and get a little vitamin D in my life.  besides, i wouldn't have missed my boy having so much fun for anything in the world!

and i've always been a bit curious about the whole "tractor pull" portion of these shows.  i always invisioned two tractors being hitched together all tug-of-war style and letting them hammer down on it.  but nope...the rare occurrence that i was wrong happened ;)  as it turns out, the tractors are hitched up to a pull behind contraption and as they drive down the track, a huge weight moved closer and closer to the back of the tractor.  they mark how far each one is able to pull the heavier and heavier load. 

it wasn't exactly edge of your seat entertainment....but it WAS cool to see how it actually works!  chan and ava loved watching all of the different classes of tractor pull down.  and chandler was the MOST fascinated with the tractor that would drive backwards down the lane to pull the weight machine back to the start line! they even had a kiddie tractor pull....i didn't get to see it personally, but judging by the pictures in the local paper (side note:  i LOVE living in a town where the local paper's front page news is the annual tractor show.  makes you feel all warm and safe inside!), they  let kids get on a pedal powered tractor trike and they get to pull a miniature version of the weight machine. chandler is SO getting in on that action next year!!

you are looking at one happy boy here :

we didn't stay for too terribly long...but in the short time that we were there, chandler managed to sit on about 20 tractors....a firetruck....an ambulance....and we even saw a "horseless carriage", which was a model T ford.  he had an absolutely awesome time and now every time we drive by the fair building, he has finally stopped asking when the fair is coming and is now asking when the tractor show is coming back!

ava got in on the action too, but this here post is about chan the man, so this is all the sneak peak that you get to have:

petit fours and raspberry tea

 on sunday, hannah and her friend, taylor, were exclusively invited to a "cinderella tea party" at the northwest florida ballet company.  can you tell the girls were excited about the afternoon's event??  

this event also afforded me the opportunity to do something that i never thought that i would do:  curl hannah's hair.  yes, that's right....i took a curling iron and curled my curly-haired daughter's hair!  we wanted some serious "fat" curls though;  we felt that was more "princessy" than just regular old everyday curls ;)

the girls had an absolute BLAST!  not only did they have a delectable array of delights:  lady finger sandwiches, petit fours, fruits, raspberry tea.  that's right....flippin' RASPBERRY tea.  y'all....pinkies were raised, tea was sipped, and tiny cakes were consumed.  this was some serious tea partying!

they also got to hang out with some of the cast of  "cinderella", make crowns, and have some beautimous makeup applied!  my girl came home looking like this:

i may never convince her that she's not a princess again!  clearly she's cut out for it ;)

i'd like to send out a HUGE thank you to abrakadooble art education and the northwest florida ballet company for helping to make this such a wonderful experience for my little girl.  her smile still hasn't faded!

it's tater time!

awhile back, austin and the kiddos readied the ole family garden plot and got to tater planting.  i love planting time (not so much the "picking" time....but planting is always fun to watch!  and yeah, i said "watch" and not "do"!).  the kids love it too!  they get all excited about going out with their daddy and having a bonified excuse for playing in the dirt :)

ava's idea of potato planting is very similar to mine.  we like to wander aimlessly in the yard and gaze at butterflies and whatnot:

hannah, on the other hand, completely shucks off her "princessy" facade and proudly dons the gloves (we rolled the potatoes in lyme so they weren't allowed to touch them barehanded.  apparently it's a lil ole amish trick for better tater plants!  and by "we rolled"....i mean "austin"), although i'm pretty sure she wouldn't have a problem performing this task in a princess dress.

chan learning the tater ropes from his daddy.  this is serious business, y'all!

this may be one of my favorite pictures of the day!  i'm going to blow it up to a 100x800 and roll it out every time one of them swears that they hate the other.

chandler finally got the hang of it!  and he was so particular about where each potato went.  that boy will have the straightest garden rows one day :)

i love that my kids get the chance to do things like this.  i know they don't fully appreciate it now....for them, it's just all about the fun of dirt.  but one day, i hope they can appreciate how they are able to enjoy the fruits of their labors!  

horseback riding

i channeled annie oakley the other day.  let me preface this post by saying that it's been since halloween weekend that i was on a horse.  and it's been about 15 years since i've been on a horse solo (i had my little hannah cowgirl with me at the halloween camping trip!  a saddle is WAY different with only one person in it). my step-dad and a buddy of his had been out riding on another friend's property and mark thought that i would really enjoy coming out with my camera and getting some  pictures.  he was absolutely right!  

unfortunately, the day we went out there, it was gray, rainy, and REALLY cold.  that didn't slow us down too much though....alls i can say is thank goodness for winter coats, warm socks, and boots :)  

check out my TOTALLY wyatt earp-ish coat:  

just about every bit of the 300-400 acres was carefully bush-hogged.  it made for some gorgeous forest trails...you could see forever down the rows of pines.  we even caught a glimpse of some deer on the property, but of course it was when i wasn't holding a camera to my face.  i mean, occasionally i had to hold the reigns ;)  

k.w. managed to get into a few of the shots.  i guess he earned the right though since he DID carry me through those woods for 3 hours.  in the cold.  and he didn't throw me....which i thoroughly appreciated.

we don't normally get a whole lot of leaf turning colors around here.  and definitely not too much in january.  usually we see a little in the fall for a few days and that's about it.  we have a TON of pine trees in our area and they don't do the whole color change....so it was really nice to come up on an area where there were a ton of these trees that were all flaming orange:

and this was the area mark was most interested in having me get some pictures of.  we were hoping for the sun to come out....i think i could have gotten some amazing pictures with the sun ray streaming in.  but even overcast, this was still a serene and beautiful area.   i do love me a good creek!

does that look like the foot of a real cowgirl?  not quite??  too clean?? ;)

the two "old men" had to stop and take a break.  amateurs ;)

in a pasture that backed up to the property we were riding on, there were several horses.  these two cart horses were very cool to see. their coats had been shaved into matching markings....i didn't realize that they'd been shaved until they got much closer though!  and also, you could tell they were accustomed to pulling a cart together because they ran together through the field in perfect synch!

i had an absolute blast out there.  i loved being on horseback (not quite as much the next day when my legs felt like they were going to fall off of my body...but at the time, it was perfect!) and i loved being able to see this beautiful property.  God did an amazing job on nature and it's such a great feeling to be able to get out and really see the beauty of it and enjoy it.  i hope that i can get back out there again in the spring (hint, hint!). maybe by then my backside will have fully recovered from the first trip in the saddle!