Counting 100 Froot Loops

This coming week the kids are finally celebrating the 100th day of school (a bit belated due to snow days) so Owen’s weekend homework was to count out 100 small things to bring to class. Since both kids HAD TO HAVE Froot Loops but it turns out neither really like them, we use them whenever we can for art and school projects (you may remember them on his disguised Thanksgiving turkey). 🙂

Counting out one each in 10 cups.

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Thankfully it didn’t take that long to put 100 pieces in the cups one at a time. 🙂

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Along the way I tried to teach him a little bit of math—reinforcing counting by twos, fives, and tens and how counting by tens relates to beginning multiplication (4 x 10 = 40 is the same as counting 10-20-30-40). We’ll see if it sticks. 🙂

Katie peed on the potty!

We haven’t officially started potty training yet, but every now and again we will ask Katie if she wants to pee or poop on the potty. Sometimes she wants to but nothing happens and other times she wants nothing to do with any of it.

But tonight when Tom asked her she said yes! And then actually proceeded to tinkle!

We all made a big deal about it and she got to pick a toy from the toy bin! I think Owen was most excited, getting out the toy selection and picking her toy—until we told him she got to pick her own toy! To his credit, he was still excited for her!

She picked those growing capsule animals:

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Of course I’m not expecting anything to come of this. Owen did the same thing and then it was another two years (!) before he was actually potty trained.

Snow day…with daddy!

Only 184 pics of playing in the snow this morning. Narrowed down to 30. The best one? Before we got outside! Katie wasn’t much for looking at me today!

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Maggie thought she wanted to go outside with us…but of course she can’t stand the cold and snow. Even with a sweater. 🙂

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Getting buried by daddy!

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The neighbor girl came out while her dad was shoveling. Owen said he liked her after about 13 seconds. 🙂

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Owen’s turn to get buried by daddy!

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Racing to the top of the hill!

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Ten pictures snapped in 10 seconds and not one with Katie looking at me!

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Sledding in the back yard (from the neighbor’s yard to ours)!

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After almost two hours outside? Hot cocoa!

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Changing rooms!

So, remember about two weeks ago when we set up Owen’s new bunk beds? And I thought we made a huge mistake because they were really low? Well, Tom fixed that part and gave Owen more headroom…but then it came time to change the sheets. And…I came to the conclusion that buying the bunk beds quite possibly ranks up there as one of the worst decisions I have ever made in my life.

Hoo boy.

Of course the kids love them—Katie runs in there every chance she gets to zoom up and down the stairs and loves being on the top bunk…and Owen loves his “double decker” bed (like the double-decker couch from The Lego Movie). I, on the other hand, pretty much hate them with every fiber of my being.

The problems started when I realized that I couldn’t use the bed skirt that goes with the sheets. That wasn’t SO bad, but it was just the first strike.

Then I came to realize that I literally COULD NOT make the top bunk. The mattress is too hard and too heavy to lift (from the ground) to wrap the fitted sheets around. The way the bed has to be placed, there’s not enough room for me to walk around the other side—even if I could lift the mattress. (Come to find out later after talking to friends, the mattress we had placed on the top was really meant to be on the bottom; a much lighter and more flexible mattress was supposed to go on top. So I briefly thought about buying a more appropriate mattress—but decided against it as time wore on because I mostly didn’t want to spend any more money on something I already disliked.)

The bottom bunk was somewhat easier to make, but still annoying—because of Tom having to lower it, it sits directly on the floor…which means any time you’re dealing with the bed (changing sheets, folding clothes) or dealing with your kid in bed (reading books, kissing him good night), you’re on the floor. Which obviously I can still do but it is so much more comfortable with a regular size/height bed.

But still, I honestly thought I could power through it. And Tom helped me make the top bunk. And the kids were SO happy playing on it…

And then the cat puked on the clean sheets and I had to change them again the very next day and I decided that even though I love my children, I just don’t think I can live with these damn bunk beds for the next X number of years. I mean, I could easily see myself getting more and more bitter every time I had to change the sheets. I had talked to Tom about selling them, but he didn’t much want to do anything because he just hauled them all up there and set it all up and “fixed” them. But then, he’s not the one that needs to deal with the day-to-dayness of it.

So I made the decision to just list them and see if we had any interest. I posted them on a Facebook sale group, saying we just bought them off the page, they just didn’t work for us, asked for just what we paid…and crossed my fingers. I had a response within two minutes and three more people after that who wanted them. We made plans to pick them up in a few days (today) since I wanted Owen to have them for his sleepover.

Of course, Owen was bummed when I told him we were getting rid of them. I had to explain that it just wasn’t easy for mama to deal with making the bed and it really took up too much room (not really, but at least a decent reason he could understand). He was sad but eventually shook his head and said “Mama, I understand. But I’ll miss my double decker bed.” Awwww. /sniff

But, I promised him we’d do something special in his room when the bed was gone…and let him put up the Despicable Me decals I’ve had for ages but had just never gotten around to letting them put up. (Yes, it drives me absolutely insane that they are placed willy nilly, but I’m saving my objections for things that really matter.)

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And then we let Katie put up more Doc McStuffins decals that we’ve had for awhile but have just been holding on to until we needed them for a good reason. They were actually a bunch of duplicate decals from what she already had on her wall, but there was a life-size Doc that was new that she was enthralled with (she likes saying that Doc has a big head!):

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A sleepover success!

Everyone slept through the night—WOOHOO!

Owen got up about his normal time (6:30) and let his friends sleep in. Katie slept in until about 7:15 and they got up about 7:30.

They played some Xbox while we were making breakfast.

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Breakfast was pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, and hot chocolate. The boys ended up not liking the fried eggs, but couldn’t tell us what kind of eggs they liked! (See, it’s not just Owen who can’t answer simple questions.)

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They got picked up around 10 and neither one really wanted to leave! I guess we did a good job!

Owen has already started planning his next sleepover saying he’s inviting six kids (and he wants it next weekend!). We had to tell him sleepovers were special things that only happened occasionally. Then he decided his next sleepover would be three girls (and he named them).

Sigh.

What have we created?!

But it was AWESOME seeing him interact with his friends. And just the fact he HAS friends makes us SO extremely happy. 🙂

Owen’s first sleepover

Owen’s first sleepover was tonight—and it was the first for both of his friends, too.

The kids played for a bit, then we started Fruit Ninja, which they all thoroughly enjoyed.

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It’s somewhat exhausting—and they can only really play one at a time—so then we did Crash Course which they could all play at the same time.

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Manuel doesn’t have pets, so he was ENTHRALLED with ours (you’ll see more pics later). 🙂

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Getting ready for cake!

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Time for a movie! Katie enjoyed the sleepover as much as the boys did!

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Getting the boys ready for bed about 9. They lined up for a picture, each with one of Owen’s stuffed animals—and here Owen was realizing that they each had one of the primary colors!

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Overall, it went pretty good. The boys were boys (roughhousing and such) but they are all fairly similar—very nice, polite, not too terribly rough, and they listened well. We were most worried about putting them to bed and what happened after that since neither of the boys had had a sleepover before. Of course, their parents were on call to come get them, and I had been updating them via text and pics throughout the night. So they all got their PJs on, brushed their teeth, and decided who would sleep where. We told them they could stay up and talk, but they couldn’t be too loud (since Katie was sleeping next door). I read them a story, pointed out all the night lights, told them that if they were scared at all or if anything was wrong to come get us (and we could call their parents), asked if they had any questions (no), and then turned out the lights, crossed my fingers, and went downstairs.

Within minutes, we heard them coming down the steps. 🙂 Apparently the boys were scared of the big stuffed bear, even though they had all been playing with him. But no biggie, Tom just went up with them and threw it in the guest room.

The second trip down (again with all three of them!) was because the kid who decided he wanted to sleep on the top bunk was apparently suddenly afraid of heights and didn’t want to sleep on the top bunk even though we went over that before. But no biggie, we asked if he wanted Owen to sleep on the top and he said no, he wanted to. Ooookay. Back to bed then, and we sent them upstairs.

The third trip down was to tell us that somehow the top-bunk-kid needed his bed made again (turns out he had pulled off all of his bedding to sleep on the floor). Okay, no biggie, Tom went up and got the bedding issue settled.

At this point, I told Tom we should go upstairs to our bedroom so the kids didn’t have to come all the way downstairs each time. So we did. 🙂

Minutes later (the fourth time out of bed), two had to go to the bathroom—even though they all went before getting in bed.

The fifth time, someone was scared of everything in the room. We added another night light (in addition to the three already in there).

Then we heard them talking quietly and we thought maybe that would be the end of it…but then we heard loud thumping and lots of noise so Tom went down and and found them all out of bed! They got told they could talk but they had to stay in bed. We heard more talking but nothing crazy.

About 10, we finally noticed they were really quiet. Tom checked on them and they were all out! We crossed our fingers and hoped it lasted!

Owen’s been buying food again.

I don’t think kindergarteners should be left in full control of their lunch accounts.

So at the beginning of the year, we anticipated Owen buying hot lunch now and again, so we put $20 in his account. A few months in, I happened to check his account and saw a lunch deduction. I questioned it (emailed teacher, etc.) and found out he had purchased a pretzel. That was fine with us, the lunch people fixed the deduction to show the cost of a pretzel vs. the cost of a lunch, we had a talk with Owen about buying food at school, and life went on.

Fast forward to last night when I get a robocall from the lunch account warning us our balance is low, and we have $6.90. WAIT. WHAT? The last we knew, he bought a 75¢ pretzel in October. I looked up his account, and yep, there were four lunches purchased—one in October, November, December, and one JUST THE DAY BEFORE!

WHAT?!?!

We figure maybe somehow some other kid had randomly punched in Owen’s account number. So I fired off an email to his teacher, saying we tried to get an answer from Owen but that’s near impossible (oh, he isn’t quite sure what we’re asking, but then says yes he had a burger (but that was the one I brought him for his birthday)) and he says he doesn’t even know his lunch number so I can’t imagine he’s punching it in. We do know from past experience, however, that if the kid doesn’t know their number, they just give their name and the staff deducts it later.

The teacher writes back that in talking with her assistant (who usually goes to the lunchroom with the kids), she remembers a time or two he bought a lunch (once when he couldn’t find his lunch bag—WHAT?!?!) and once he bought a milk—but the others she had no idea so was going to ask the lunch people.

So I’m sitting here just gobsmacked. Of course the money isn’t the big deal here—we just need to get Owen situated with buying things and telling us he did so we’re not shocked when his account is suddenly $13 less than we think it is…and if I’m not packing enough food and he’s still hungry he needs to tell me! He has been adamant he has never bought anything aside from the pretzel! And he has never brought home an uneaten lunch. We told him he wasn’t in trouble at all—we were just trying to figure out what happened. We asked if he was extra hungry so bought more food? No. Was he buying food for someone else maybe? Or giving away his lunch? Nope. Ugh.

So, I was eagerly waiting to hear the post-lunch report.

And boy, was I surprised.

[The assistant] talked to the cafeteria lady and we all seem to feel that it is pretty accurate. I think there were only four lunches purchased and a couple of extra items and three of the purchases were made prior to January. It is really hard to expect a child to remember what he/she did a couple of hours ago, much less a couple of months ago. We will try to make sure that Owen does not purchase lunch unless he needs to. The cost for lunch is $2.90, so it doesn’t take much to go through twenty dollars. I hope this clarifies things for you.

Well, honestly, it doesn’t clarify much of anything other than you are pretty sure he did buy that stuff. They did give us an exact printout of what he bought, and it still blows my mind. Owen is not a big liar—granted, his memory for things non-Lego is pathetic—but I can’t believe he’d forget BUYING LUNCH THE DAY PRIOR.

Needless to say we’re not putting any more money in the account this year. And for future, I’m setting a “low balance reminder” for like $1 less than what we put in his account so we’ll get notified when he purchases anything.

And we’re hoping this behavior gets better in first grade!

Story time and volunteering in Owen’s class

As part of the Star of the Week stuff, family members are welcome to come in to do something special. We chose to bring in a book for me to read during story time. Of course, I wanted to read one of the cool books we’ve had specially made for Owen with his name in it but he wanted Pirates Love Underpants. 🙂

Hallway artwork:

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Owen’s SotW poster on display:

Owen's SotW poster on display

Owen is Line Leader this week so he gets to do a bunch of things in the classroom (this will likely be super boring for anyone except grandparents 🙂 ):

Their Groundhog Day predictions:

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Of course, Katie wanted to go sit with Owee during their other story.

sitting with Owen for story time

But it didn’t last for long:

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And that didn’t last long either… Soon she was back over playing with the toys:

“Mama! A lion! Mama! Mama! A hippo! Hippo! Chomp chomp! Crocodile! Kangaroo! Hop hop!” While placing each animal on the floor around her. 🙂

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Trying to keep her occupied so she doesn’t bother the class:

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I saw this and laughed. It seems to say a lot about kindergarten in one picture. 🙂

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After storytime, I had agreed to stay and volunteered to help while the kids did their daily center activities. I lucked out this time and Owen got to be at one of my tables. 🙂

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Katie is a bit more outgoing now and doesn’t want to stay in the play area while the kids are working so she kept bothering me and I finally just gave her a sheet of paper and let her color with the big kids.

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What they sing before every snack time:

Birthday dinner, cake, and presents!

Even though we went to Red Robin this past weekend to celebrate Owen’s birthday… AND I took him a Five Guys burger on his birthday at school… We still went out to eat for his birthday dinner! 🙂 (Yeah, we like going out to eat.) 🙂 We tried a new pizza place that’s close to us and it wasn’t too bad. I’m actually getting sick of pizza so I had a Stromboli which was pretty good. And Katie was introduced to the Parmesan shaker. 🙂

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When we got home we Skyped with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob, sang happy birthday, ate cake, and opened presents.

Then I gave Owen his gift certificate for the Magic School Bus monthly experiments. Before he opened it I explained it was from mom and dad, Gramma Jean and Grandpa David, and Papa and Grannie—and I was sure he’d be over the moon!! And of course he couldn’t have cared less, LOL. He just couldn’t understand that it meant 12 new experiments (like the volcano he just did) and kept looking at the paper like Aaaand?! I kept trying to explain it and I think he finally started to get an idea…but he probably won’t fully get it until the packages start arriving (it should be mid-month).

Things never turn out as you expect when kids are involved. 🙂

Candle time!

Oh and noticed his cake pretty much as soon as he walked in the door after school. He had to put the candles on himself—immediately if not sooner. 🙂 it was especially excited because these were the cool silver candles he picked out at the dollar store.

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Satisfied with his work! (He really did do a good job—spacing them out very evenly along with the Happy Birthday sign.)

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