Keep on Trikin...

Tonight for Family Home Evening, I read a story from The Friend Magazine (who named this?) about a boy who biked from Idaho to Chicago with his family to raise money for the hospital that cared for his sister when she was a baby.
(That sentence was out of control. It feels very prepositiony. Yes, it's been over ten years since I graduated from high school, why?)
The whole point of the lesson was setting goals and we talked about what a goal is and what sorts of things are good goals to have. I mentioned that one of the goals that JC and I have set is to pray more as a family. We have been really trying to focus on that this year. I then asked the kids what they thought some good goals would be. I wish I could remember exactly what they said but I know that school, Jesus, and Batman were all mentioned.
And something about finding a new mommy. I am not sure why that came up and I will just choose to ignore it...
Then we tried to say a closing prayer and had our first "dismissed until we can stop giggling enough to actually get the prayer said" occurrence.
Every member of my family is now giggling after reading that.
It is a problem with us.
Anyway, all that talk about biking got me thinking about how I have failed to document much of James' year at preschool! They had a trike-a-thon recently and I got some sweet pictures of my sweet boy at his event. So, I figured it was about time to pay some attention to Mr. James' experience at preschool on this here blog.

Evergreen does the St. Jude's Trike-a-thon every year as a fundraiser. They spend the week or so before talking about bicycle safety and then set up a fun little course for them to ride back and forth on. Good cause, good times.

Here, the crew is getting the rundown from Miss Ashley (and Baby Sadie).
They are ready to rumble, can you tell?

James is super focused.

And he's off!
He opted to bring his scooter! I was surprised but pleased since we got this for him for his birthday last year and he hasn't ever been all that excited about it. This seems to be the pattern though. A present is never the favorite right away.
But now he's a pro on it and loving it.

Back he comes!

Even at high speeds, he maintains complete control.

And handsomeness.

And adorable patience while he waits for his popsicle.

Ben was not all that entertained by the whole scene.

Until this point, of course.

Yessss.

He accepts his certificate of completion and new bike license.

I
LOVE
watching him laugh with his friends.

The medal of honor!

As I said, Ben was not all that into the event and was quite eager for it to be time to go. Especially since he didn't get seconds on popsicles.
As soon as Miss Ashley brought the backpacks out to be ready for dispersing, he grabbed James' and stood off at the side, waiting.
Hopefully he'll be feeling more excited about it next year when it's his turn!

As always, Evergreen Cottage is one of our very favorite places! This is just one of many great days James has spent there this year and as the year winds down, I am already sad knowing his preschool days are almost behind him! But every experience he has had has been so much fun. And we still have a couple of months left.
And, thanks to Ben, we still have two more trike-a-thons to enjoy!