Mother's Day

I am so lucky to be the mother of these kids.  They are growing up so fast.  I appreciate all the pampering they did for Mother's Day.  

Some cards from the kids for Mother's Day

 

 

 

 

 

Dummies on Sunday

Sundays are sometimes considered the "boring day" by the kids.  They are limited to "Sunday activities" which does not include TV, Wii, computer games, riding bikes, etc.  One Sunday the kids entertained themselves by making dummies.

They used toy guns, skeleton hands, pool noodles, pillows, blankets, extra clothes, and anything else they could find.  By dinner time there was a whole extra family of unusual looking people hanging out upstairs.

injas

Brayden saw a friend from school playing with these little plastic ninja figures.  He found out that they were from a 50 cent vending machine at the local HEB grocery store, so he started wanting to go grocery shopping whenever we went.  As he started to collect different colors and symbols the other kids also got involved.  However, they didn't get to go as often as they would have liked because they can make grocery shopping difficult, and the vending machine ended up selling out.  They were pretty excited when we went to Florida and found them in the local Walmart vending machine.  Blake calls them "injas" and has taken over the collection as the other kids have burned out.

All in school

Having returned just two days prior from a week long beach trip with a crazy sleeping schedule I was worried about the kids starting school.  Sunday night they were anxious for school the next day and they all had a hard time going to sleep.  The kids were a little more nervous because we had missed "Meet the Teacher" during our trip.

On August 22, 2011 Kylee started 5th grade.  She said the day went quickly and that it was good.  She likes having recess before lunch.  When I went to pick her up after school she looked so grown up.  She definitely looked like one of the older kids in the school.

Brayden started 3rd grade. He was happy to have one of his friends in his class, and he got to see his two other good friends.  He loved his teacher last year because she was really nice.  He is still trying to figure out how he feels about his new teacher.

Julia started Kindergarten.  She was happy to get to play with play doh on the first day and she was especially excited that she got to keep it.  She said her teacher is nice.  Julia had a hard time adjusting to the full day of school.  For the first week she would break down and cry for anything, she did a lot of whinning, and generally acted like she was tired.  If you know Julia this is very out of character.  She has mellowed out as time has gone on.

Blake was sad he was not going to school with them, but he did better at home alone than I thought he would.  He hung out playing next to me while I tried to clean the house.  

In the afternoon on the 1st day of school they are smiling.  It must not have been that bad.

Blake had his first day of MDO (Mother's Day Out) on September 6th.  He had been recently asking about when he was going to go to school and was excited to start.  He is going two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same place Brayden went 5 years before.  We went to an open house to met his teacher and he was a little shy.

They do a 20 minute rest time for which they take a blanket, towel, or sleep mat.  When Blake opened up his new spiderman backpack and saw his froggy blanket inside he took it out and did not want it in there.  I told him that there was a quiet time and he was going to lay down and rest.  He told me, "I am not going to sleep there.  There are no beds at school."  I snuck it back in before we left. When I received the report from his teacher at the end of the day.  He didn't want to be quiet during the rest time.  He did much better on his second day.  At the end of his first week he seems to be enjoying it.  I like that he goes from 9-2 twice a week so I can use that time to help out at the elementary school and go shopping with no extra helpers.  It is my first time in the past 11 years to not have a child continuously with me.

I was nervous to have him start with his current risk of a potty training accident.  He has been in training for the last two months.  At first he did very well until we went on vacation up to Dallas and put him in pull ups to travel.  He enjoyed returning to the freedom to be lazy and pee whenever he wanted as it is basically a diaper.  I let the teacher know that he doesn't volunteer the information that he needs to go potty and to just have him go every few hours.  I was not surprised when I went to go pick him up and he was in different clothes than what he was dropped off in.  The 2nd day was better because he stayed dry.

Last Day of School

All the kids were sad on the last day of school...not sad about the homework and schoolwork ending, but sad that they won't be with their friends and have the same teachers next school year.   This year has been the first year that I have been sad at the end of the school year realizing that my kids are getting older.  I am happy with where they all are and I would be happy if they just stayed this age.

Kylee - 4th Grade

Favorite Color - yellow and blue
Favorite Subject - reading, science, p.e., art, music
Favorite lunch food - pizza sticks
Friends - Persephone, Madeline, Madison, Giovanni, Ariana
This year Kylee was on the Lewis leopard choir.  She enjoyed doing a few choir performances throughout the year.  Kylee read a lot of books this year and got a lot of AR points quickly.  Kylee
discovered she likes a lot of the food offered for lunch at school, which made my life less stressful since she does not like sandwiches.  She will only take pasta to school for lunch.

The highlights of her school year were making a roller coaster in GT class, doing science experiments,   and school parties.  This summer she is looking forward to going to the beach, pool, sea world, and playing outside.

Kylee doesn't really want to go to 5th grade because that means her class is in the portables and she says they are always freezing.

Brayden - 2nd grade

Favorite Color - blue, red
Favorite Subject - recess, lunch
Favorite Lunch Food - chicken patty sandwiches and pizza sticks
Friends - Dalton, Luke, Michael, Ashton
Brayden's big accomplishment this year was that he finally learned how to tie his shoes.  It didn't take him that long to learn when he finally tried to do it (he likes to make things a lot more difficult than they are).  Brayden enjoyed playing with his group of friends.  He talked a lot about different groups in the class.  There are 4 main groups and some "randoms".  I can't believe it starts this early.

The highlight of Brayden's school year was his teacher and friends.  He is looking forward to visiting his cousins in Dallas this summer.  He says he doesn't want to go into 3rd grade because he likes 2nd grade better.

Julia - Pre-K

Favorite Colors - pink, purple, golden, silver
Favorite Subject - playing centers, and Fun Friday box because it had more toys in it
Favorite Lunch Food - pizza, hamburgers
Friends -Maddison, Jenna, Bea, Reylissa (and then she started listing everyone in the class)
   
Julia came home singing various songs every day.  She loved "Fun Friday" because it meant more center time.  Julia enjoyed taking lunch to school and was one of a few that regularly took a lunch so that meant she was able to be the lunch line leader a lot.  She was so happy that a couple of months ago she learned how to swing by herself from her friends at school.  She loves to go out in our backyard and swing.  I enjoy watching her pumping her legs.

The highlight of the year for Julia was going on the fieldtrip to the children's museum.  She enjoyed riding the bus on the field trip and I got to be a chaperone.  This summer she is looking forward to swimming, going to Sea World, and going shopping.  She is excited to be going to kindergarten and learn new stuff.

(Julia recently told us when Grandma Mindy was visiting that she was ready for Kindergarten because she knows how to open a juice box, open a cheese stick, peel an orange, open up the cup of peaches, and she can swing by herself.)

Bug Eyes

LASIK patients wear protective goggles while they sleep for the first week after surgery to keep them from rubbing their eyes.  The logistics person at the refractive surgery center accidentally ordered a shipment of the the wrong goggles, so Matt brought some home for the kids to test out.  They actually have a bunch of tiny holes in them so you can see.  After trying them on the kids all ran around the house buzzing like crazy house flies.  If that is the effect they illicit the old goggles are probably safer for patients. 

Interests

Can you guess what each of the kids are interested in right now?

Kylee has turned into a voracious reader.  Once she finds a book that interests her she will read non-stop until she has finished.  When I go to pick her up at school she is always reading while she waits, then she will come home and read for a couple of hours.  She recently discovered she liked Harry Potter and then finished all 7 books in less than a month.  It would have been even faster if not for the days she plead to go to the library to get the next book in the lineup.  The picture of the books are some that she has read this school year.

Brayden is a Lego maniac.  He plays with legos, reads his lego magazines, plays lego games on the computer, and he makes lists of the legos he wants to buy.

Julia still lives in a pretend dress up world of princesses, fairies, and mermaids.  She had a really hard time for the month of January because her dresses were bagged up for precautionary measures so that we would not get some unwanted little visitors.  She was so excited to get them back.  She loves to lay out the different dresses on her bed and then she takes turns wearing each of them as she goes through the different scenes of Beauty and the Beast or another story.

Blake keeps adding to his stuffed animal collection.  He wants to have all his animals with him when he goes to bed at night.  In the morning he will get out of bed and try carrying all of them in his arms.  He usually loses a few along the way.

Update on kids

Here is a little bit about what the kids have been up to:
Kylee started piano this fall and is learning quickly.  I think she has a natural talent even composing her own little songs.  Kylee is crafty and has wanted to learn how to sew for a while.  We were able to find someone that teaches sewing lessons and Kylee so far has learned how to make an apron and a trick or treat bag.  Kylee has been quite the reader lately.  Being in fourth grade provided the opportunity for Kylee to be in the school choir called the Lyrical Leopards.

   Brayden also started piano this fall but it has been a little bit difficult to get him to practice.  He usually acts like he is about to die when he starts practicing.  Brayden enjoys drawing detailed action scenes usually including a number of knights, ninjas, pirates, and robots.  It is fun to listen to him relate in detail the elaborate story that goes along with his pictures.  I love finding his pictures around the house.  He recently made more remotes and an x-box game with paper and was "playing games" with Julia.  He will be starting basketball in a few weeks.

Julia started pre-K this fall and loves it.  She sings the songs from school every day. Some of her songs are 5 fat turkeys are we, number rock, days of the week, and months of the year.  She is learning things quickly.  She loves to ride the bus to school.  Julia is a good sister to Blake.  She is pretty patient with him when they play.  She is dancing again and gets so excited when it is Wednesday and she gets to go to her dance class.

Blake  has experienced a lot of changes recently.   In October he went off the pacifier and then moved into a big bed just a few days later.  It actually went a whole lot better than I expected.  Matt cut the pacifier and gave it to Blake.  He looked at it and then asked for the other one that was downstairs in the kitchen cabinet.  Matt cut the other pacifier and then brought it to Blake.  He showed him both the cut pacifiers and Blake examined them. He stuck in his fingers and saw that they were broken.  He didn't even try to put it in his mouth, he just handed them to me and went off to bed.  He never asked for them again.  I thought he would be the worst because he was the most addicted.  Blake had a harder time adjusting to when Julia first started going to school.  He would get upset when she got on the bus and would throw a little fit when we got back home and she wasn't there.  It took him a few months to get used to her being gone for half the day. He soon became my buddy and enjoyed hanging out with me at home.  Taking him to stores is a different story.

backyard

Matt always talks about how he loves hanging out in the backyard.  He usually goes out and spends time with the kids while I make dinner.  Lately with me on my own I have discovered the great backyard.  Even though it has more weeds than grass, the backyard has been great.  We have been enjoying the beautiful evening weather.  My sanity has been to have the kids go outside and play when I am making dinner.  I have seen some glimpses of a perfect family with my kids playing nicely.  They are pushing each other on the swings and jumping on the trampoline laughing together.   Then there are times when there is screaming, yelling, hitting, fighting, and crying.  Those are the times when I am brought back to reality.

Lazy Halloween

This year we were a little lazy in the costume department and we actually bought all our kids costumes. With Matt getting ready for deployment I thought that I shouldn't force him to stay up Halloween Eve spraying gold paint on a sleeper, stapling purple foam petals to a flower head piece, sewing spider arms to a shirt, gluing sponge spikes to a dragon, cutting out bone shapes for a skeleton, dyeing green peter pan tights, or piecing together R2D2 parts.

We trick or treated our neighborhood streets with Cleopatra, Boba Fet, Minnie Mouse, and the cutest little candy obsessed monkey. This Halloween season we learned a few things. Blake may be our craziest candy freak yet. He was given a lollipop at our ward trunk or treat and it was all down hill from there. He can't hold on to enough lollipops in his tiny little hands. He freaks out every time he sees candy. We had the other children eat their candy in secret. We also learned that Brayden comes in a close second with candy fever. He was picking up any dropped candy off the sidewalks and streets. Our homemade costumes will be back next year. We already have some picked out.

A few of our other Halloween festivities were carving pumpkins and making a Haunted Halloween Candy House. If some of the pictures look foggy its because they are. Matt went all out this year and got a fog machine and green light for the front porch. Testing it out the morning of Halloween in our house left things foggy for pictures.

Stuffed Animal Friends

My children love their stuffed animals. They develop bonds with them early on when they start sleeping with them before they can talk. It is so cute the way they hang on to their stuffed buddies, and to see them get so excited when they find them. I like to see how they snuggle their animals at night. The down side is that problems arise when their stuffed animal friends go missing.

Since we were homeless for a couple of months this summer we allowed our children to chose a few stuffed animals to keep them company while we traveled. When visiting family in Idaho Julia misplaced Randy her rat. We searched the night before we left and then again the next morning. We had to leave with the Morris family on a mission to find Randy and send him as soon as they could. They reported finding Randy a few days later. He was strapped in a doll stroller wrapped in cloth.

Before receiving Randy Julia would periodically ask for him. One night she asked, "Can we get Randy from their house yet. They need to mail it, then I will be happy and hug it." A week after we got to San Antonio Julia had a nice package in the mail. It was Randy and a few other items left behind. Julia was so happy to have her dear friend back.

One morning while staying at my parents house in El Paso Julia was playing with her animals and threw kitty over the banister. Kitty landed on the top of the grandfather clock. The next thing I hear is Julia calling Kitty from down by the clock, "Kitty can you hear me. Come down. Get down. Come. Come." It was so cute to hear her calling kitty, her beloved friend. Matt came to the rescue and helped kitty get down.

Armor All Facial Wipes

Today was a long day. We are back in San Antonio getting the house ready for us to move in. The painters finished with the inside of the house yesterday evening. I asked them to lock up when they left. When we got to the house this morning all the doors were locked with the internal deadbolts (no outside key access) and they had left through the garage leaving the only garage door opener inside. We quickly figured out there was no way in. After initially deciding to break a window, we made a trip to Home Depot for a crowbar to take out a window. Today was another 100 plus degree day and the kids spent much of it in the car with the air conditioner on during trips to buy and borrow tools and ladders. After we finally got the window out, Kristel walked back out to the car to check on the kids and found that Kylee, Brayden, and Blake had been wiping themselves down with "wipes" to keep cool. When Kristel explained that they weren't baby wipes, Brayden responded, "so that's why they smell like dirty socks!"

Schools out

We woke up Tuesday, January 20th to this.



This may not be too exciting for most, but for us it was a big deal. Our children have not had much snow experience. This was their first real snow day, and school was canceled. They were so excited to see the ground covered in snow. The snow started during the night and continued until 1 p.m. with a total of about 4 inches. The kids went out a couple of times during the day to play in the snow. It was quite the production since we don't really have clothes for the snow. We layered with pajama bottoms, then pants, shirt, sweatshirt, and jacket. Kylee insisted on wearing 3 pairs of socks. Then came the knit hats and gloves. Nothing was waterproof so the clothes and shoes got wet. When they came in I would strip the wet clothes off and warm them up with blankets and hot chocolate.


It never started to snow again, but it was cold enough that not much melted and school was canceled again for a second day. Day two started off with building forts in the living room. Then there were snow ball fights and playing on the trampoline with the snow. The children enjoyed their time home.



Are snow days worth the 2 Saturdays planned for make-up school days?

Beautiful colors

On Veteran's Day the kids had the day off from school. I wanted to go outside and enjoy the beautiful fall day.  The trees are red, orange, and yellow right now.  I love to see all the different colors.  The change didn't seem to last that long this year.  The leaves started falling off before the colors all changed.  Katrina and I took our kids on a walk to the park from her house.  The trail goes through the trees with the ground covered in leaves.  We are going to miss these neat trails when we move.