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Author Archives: Jen

We have our own little Rainman.

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Tom brought home his whiteboard from work and left it in the living by room. He walked by later to see this—Owen had completed a bunch of addition problems:

2 + 2 = 4 + 4 = 8 + 8 = 16 + 16 = 42 (his first error) + 42 = 84 + 84 = 168 and on and on.

By the time I got home, he had done more:

He kept adding sums…and did them all in his head. Once I started going through them (which I told him I had to do for it count as his nightly math homework), there were a few errors, but really still impressive. I’m not sure if you can see it, but he went all the way up to 16001664 + 16001664 = 32003128 + 32003128 (which wasn’t the right answer but it was close).

Sometimes he just blows our minds.

I’m going to miss running into friends at the playground!

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We hadn’t been to the library playground in forever so we went today. We were the only ones there for quite some time and then two ladies showed up with two small kids. I didn’t pay much attention to them but Katie was playing with them and then I heard the boy call her Katie. In a tone like he knew her. And it turns out he did! It was the kids of an old neighbor (who is also a first grade teacher) who were there with their sitter (their aunt) and a friend. 

This is the stuff I am really going to miss.

They wanted to run so off they went!

Katie was ahead the whole time but then stopped for some reason so he passed her and “won.” 🙂

 

Owen and his bedtime issues

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I was in Owen’s room this morning and commented that I was impressed that he had made his bed. Oh…no, he says, he sleeps on top of the covers! Why? Because 1) he’s warm and 2) he doesn’t want to deal with pulling the sheet up (because it’s always totally kicked down to the bottom of the bed and he apparently has a huge problem fixing it). So I went to check on him tonight…and yep, on top of the covers, NOT in PJs (another thing he does even though we ask him not to), ab FD sucking his thumb!!!

  

Dual Birthday Pool Party

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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:

;

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!

Surprise! Today was Katie’s last day of Pre-K!

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Yes, I said surprise. I had NO idea whatsoever—I just assumed they finished next week along with the rest of the school.

So, I dropped her off and a short while after I got home, I got a text from the class assistant (our friend) saying Whoops, they must have dropped the ball and forgot to send home the sheet about today being water day and could I bring a suit and towel for her. So I ran back to the school and dropped the stuff off and put her sunscreen on (they are not allowed to do it). Water day should have been my big clue since we also did it last year, but my brain is going in so many different directions that it didn’t even occur to me that water day was the last day of school. So I went to pick her up and saw her walking out with her art folder AND IT STILL DIDN’T HIT ME until the teacher said something about it being the last day and they enjoyed having Katie… Huh? What? Ahhhh, then it all became clear. Of course I was thinking WHAT THE HELL?!?! How could I not have known that today was the last day? Well, it wasn’t on the school calendar (and I live by my calendar). So I was bummed I didn’t have teacher gifts ready…so I will take them in Monday when I drop off some educational stuff for the classroom (donations as we purge).

Pool, Day 11: Pizza dinner

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Everyone at the pool is really nice—everyone plays catch with Owen (we have no idea who this is but it wasn’t the first time he’s played with it Owen).

Owen pushing a bunch of girls around the pool. 🙂

Playing with Daddy!

Proof I’m actually there!

And tonight we surprised the kids and ordered pizza for dinner at the pool. We do it once a summer…so we had to get it in quick this year.