Last day of school: Field Day surprise!

After Owen gave me the yes/no business about his end-of-year grade party, I decided to surprise him and just show up at the whole-school field day event. (I had asked if he wanted me to go and he said no again.) He was happy to see me and eagerly let me take pictures of him with his friends. 🙂

The school as I approached.

Mohammed, the kid Owen ran around with the whole time.

Every kid wore one of these. They got a sticker each time they completed an event/game/activity.

I get kind of choked up when I see this. I don’t want to leave.

Racing off to the next thing.

I was surprised when Owen wanted to do cup stacking—I wondered how he knew how to do it because he’d never mentioned it.

And then I watched him do it—ahhhh, he has NO idea how to do it. (I later showed it to him on YouTube and of course he loved it.) You can watch it in the video compilation at the bottom of this post.

We saw our friend Gavin and he wanted to give Katie a hug but she started to be shy.

Miss Christina, Katie’s teacher.

Showing me he can now climb to the top. When we were there for back to school night, he refused because he was scared. We told him he’d be able to do it by the end of the year.

He mastered the rock wall, too!

This is about as high as Katie gets. They don’t play on this playground in her class—the pre-k kids have their own smaller playground.

Waiting for face (or arm) painting.

Finally getting over her shyness with Gavin.

Katie wanted to get her face painted but the lines were pretty long and I wanted to be able to follow Owen around, so I told her not unless the lines went down. I turned around to talk to someone for a minute and when I turned back, she was getting her face painted by Miss Anne (our friend and Katie’s teaching assistant). I asked Mrs. Stuhlman (Owen’s kindergarten assistant who I had been talking to) how that happened and she said she just took her over and sat her down—the privilege of being a teacher! So Katie got to cut ahead of like five kids!! Mrs. Stuhlman asked if she might get Katie in her class next year…and I had to give her the bad news that we were moving. 🙁

Owen getting an alien on his arm.

I let Katie do some of the games that didn’t have big lines. She was waiting to throw baskets (video below).

Katie with AJ, a neighbor girl who is in first grade. She’s a tiny thing.

I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten my face painted (that wasn’t a thing back in the day) so when the grades were switching areas and there wasn’t a line, I sat down to get a quick flower to match Katie’s. Gorgeous work as usual by Anne and her daughter!

Lining up getting ready to switch to the fields for flag games and kickball.

I may have to redo this photo, but you can see three tiny black dots in the sky. They were dragonflies! The field was swarming with hundreds of them! It was the strangest thing!!

After flag games were done, Katie and I left. It was HOT and we hadn’t planned for it (I was in jeans and a black tee shirt and we hadn’t brought water—and we hadn’t thought it was going to be so hot and humid). Thankfully our neighbors stayed and got a few pics and videos (see below).

Owen waiting for kickball.

Having a BLAST in the water!

Me and Katie back at home…

I am SO glad I went and was able to take lots of pictures. We are going to miss this school so very much…

Dual Birthday Pool Party

After watching the forecasts and worrying about the weather all week (the forecast varied from thunderstorms to 60% chance of rain to light rain all day)…we decided to go ahead with the party and it ended up absolutely perfect!! It was overcast at the start and gradually got sunnier and warmer throughout the party—enough so that I had Tom grab my suit when he went back to get the cake!

We had 60 guests (kids and adults!!) and the pool was probably the busiest it will be all season (aside from the days they have cookouts with free food or night swims with free ice cream). But it all went smoothly, everyone had a blast, and there was plenty of pizza and cake for multiple helpings (once I started cutting the serves 48 cake and realized my small pieces were still not small enough to get me close to 60 pieces, I started halving those…and then ended up having half the cake left so kids got seconds and thirds).

The gaggle of dads. They didn’t move from this spot the whole time. 😂

Us moms:

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The kids were fairly patient about opening gifts once we got home…and they LOVED everything. They got Bop It (thank heavens I found the volume control!) and Owen picked up on it right away, Katie dug right into the glitter glue and construction paper, Owen picked out his favorite baseball cards from a new pack, Katie put together her Disney Lego, we’ve been shot multiple times by Owen’s new nerf gun, and both kids were OVER THE MOON about all the gift cards and getting to go shopping once we move! They both said it was a great birthday!

My launch party was a success!

So, I just had my first in-home party (my business launch!)…and while I thought it was a total hot mess, they told me everything was fine and they had fun. (There were only six ladies and they are all good friends so I could be honest with them and ask for their honest opinions.) I dislike selling and feel like I stink at it so really just felt like I was pretty much out of control the whole time and consequently I felt totally off my game and I felt like I looked like an idiot (I know we are always hardest on ourselves). But they all seemed happy and bought stuff so it’s all good. And I know it will get easier with practice…

We didn’t take any official selfies but I did snap a few quick shots so I could remember who bought what (I was still figuring out how to use my credit card system!)

 

Why do I have to leave these people? Stupid military.

Another awesome Friday night gathering where all the kids get along (tonight there were 15!), the adults get along and have an amazingly fun time (tonight included shots of fireball whiskey, cigars, and stories about tattoos and piercings), and reluctantly leaving just before 11pm. I can cry just thinking about leaving…

 

My friends made me happy cry!

I was hosting an online Facebook party for this cool new lipstick and had included people from all times of my life…and the consultant was posting fun games for them to earn raffle entries. This one she did was so sweet and the responses made me happy cry. 🙂 I’m posting it so I can look back on it when I’m having a bad day. 

  

Owen’s half birthday pool party!

The wait was finally over—the day for Owen’s postponed birthday pool party! And the weather was perfect!! We had 19 kids and 14 adults!

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The timing was perfect: at the end of every hour, the lifeguards take a 15-minute break and all kids must exit the pool. So we used this time to have our pizza lunch!

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The second break was time for cake! Of course, I had completely forgot to put the balloon in the cake…

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So it went in the leftovers so I could take a picture. 🙂

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Two of the kids from his Kindergarten class (who are about his size so he looks normal!).

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Everyone had a great time! The kids LOVED the water shooters and, while a few got broken, each kid was able to take one home. We guessed pretty good on the pizza—we ordered five and ate about four. There was enough cake to leave out a few pieces and freeze a nice chunk for a later date. The best part was after 10 minutes of cleaning up and packing the car, we were DONE. 🙂

Owen leveled up to Turtle!

I wanted him to practice floating before his lesson…but it took some bravery to actually get in. He loves the water (and he could touch the bottom) so I have no idea why he was so nervous.

So the lesson started and I was poolside, half watching him and half talking to another mom. It looked like he was doing all the same things he’d done at his last lesson, so I wasn’t watching THAT closely. Then all of a sudden he’s in front of me with the instructor and he’s holding a red ribbon and a red swim cap and she’s telling me that he passed into the next level! (To do this, he had to successfully jump into the pool, flip himself over, and float for 15 seconds…three times.)

Then as a new Turtle, he started to learn actual swim strokes! He was actually in class with his friend Gavin!

Saturday Night Spaghetti #2

Our second dinner went just as well as the first—even with a last-minute guest switch up! One family couldn’t come because of a sick kid, so we invited Owen’s coach and his family and they were excited to come! (They’ve recently moved here as well and understand how hard it is to make friends!)

Katie had a friend she knew and Owen made a new friend (only four years old but they got along great). 

Here, Tom was rescuing Lambie from the kids’ table so she didn’t get dunked in spaghetti sauce. 🙂

  

T-Ball Opening Ceremonies

Tom helped Owen get dressed for the opening ceremonies! I’m not sure who was more excited.

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Owen was hamming it up in the mirror. Please excuse the disaster of a room. (We’ve been getting the downstairs ready for a dinner party so lots of stuff is being dumped in our room!)

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Doing a little fielding practice with his coach.

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We have to bring a ball for Katie to play with—she loves to play catch and she’s actually pretty good!

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Running the bases just for the fun of it.

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He had his tongue out in lots of the pictures!

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The T-ball teams were the last to walk in.

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All the teams lined up (all teams from all age groups):

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And then it was back home to clean for our dinner party…and to get ready to go back to the fields for Owen’s game at 1:30!