Brought to you by the letter V

Hannah has been in a neighborhood run preschool this year and is having a blast! The moms (me included) each take a week and teach. We usually work on a letter, number, color, etc. Lately we have been including nursery rhymes. This week was my turn to teach. We talked about the letter V. There are lots of fun things to do that start with V like:

Play the violin. One of the moms is a violin teacher. She brought her violin and taught the kids about it and played some songs. She also brought an itty-bitty violin for the kids to play. Here is Hannah playing her heart out on the little thing. Lots of fun for the kids!

Make a vase. I took this picture first and decided there was not enough light to see the vase. You can see the pretty flowers though. And the huge icicles hanging off the house behind. (Side note: I am SO sick of winter. Spring hurry up!!)

Here is Hannah, still in her dance clothes, posing with her vase. Still kinda dark. Sorry. Anyway, the kids glued tissue paper to glass jars and then we pained glue over the top and let it dry. Kinda like a stained glass effect and lots of fun. The kids each got to take them home with some real daisies in them. The mothers were way more excited about the flowers than the kids were!

Hannah and her preschool friends posing before we get ready to make our snack. Our nursery rhyme this week was "This little piggy" and I thought a fun snack would be to make pigs in a blanket. I made a quick bread dough with their help and then we put hot dogs (cut into thirds) inside pieces of dough and baked them. Big hit!

You can't have a "V" week without a volcano! We learned about volcanoes and then made one. This was a show stopper. They wanted to do it again and again. It was a fun preschool week and letter V has lots of fun options. I always try to do more hands-on stuff than busy work if I can and I think the kids had fun. So glad its over...for 5 weeks at least!

Changes

There are lots of changes coming this way for the Jones family this year. Some are scary, some are exciting.

First-Blaine is changing jobs this year. Not by choice but the hospital he worked at closed its doors last Monday. Pretty unexpectedly for the employees. I am always nervous about changes that effect our income. So, Blaine will be searching for a new job. I don't always love change-especially this kind. I am trying to remember that everything happens for a reason and there has to be something better coming our way.

Second-the exciting changes. We are excited to announce there will be a new addition to the Jones family. We are expecting a baby at the end of July. We are happy about this change and the kids are really excited. Garrett wants a baby brother, of course. Hannah wants a sister. Ryan doesn't have a clue that his world is about to be turned upside down!

So, there you have it. Its barely February and already there are two major changes for our family. It will be very interesting to see what the rest of this year brings. Wish us luck!