After the challenging day we had with her yesterday (she had a major tantrum when she didn’t get to do something she wanted because she didn’t listen and follow the rules), it felt so good to have her be happy and smiling and cuddly. 🙂
Category Archives: Kids
Our little Sparty fans
Aaaand this is how she went out to dinner.Â
New JTOK artworkÂ
No, she can’t just smile normal.Â
A two-tutu day
Patriot Day and first Morning Program of the year!
Katie is 3 years 2 months old today!
Diva at the bus stop
Weather alert dog
I was putting Owen to bed and he heard what sounded like thunder. I didn’t think we were expecting any storms so I told him I thought it was someone moving their garbage container. And then Maggie appeared, trembling. Maggie never comes in his room…which means it was thunder.
I practically had to carry her out because she desperately wanted to stay there. Poor thing.
Two princesses
Grade 1 Morning 2
I wanted a closeup of his hair but the pic didn’t turn out too well. And I’m still practicing getting the front spikes just right—it’s a good thing he’s not picky!
He took a book this mornimg. 🙂
I know the number of parents will lessen after the first week…but WOW there’s a lot of people at our stop this year.
I’m actually kind of looking forward to NOT having to go (it’s only a requirement to be there for kindergarteners) but then I miss chatting with my friends…so I’m sure I’ll skip some days (so Owen can gain some responsibility) and go some days (so I can talk to other adults). 🙂
Yes, we have this much time in the morning.Â
You’d think they hadn’t played together in months.
Home from school!
Katie tracing letters
Kindergarten & 1st Grade
It’s a water table kind of day.Â
Katie and the kittensÂ
Owen’s first day of 1st grade!
We bought a bunch of new lunchbags for Owen in various patterns—red owls, multi-colored dark stripes, pirate treasure map, etc…and what one did he want to use for his first day? The pink multi-colored hearts!
I figured I should prepare him for kids teasing him about it (I didn’t actually expect it, but better safe than sorry).
Me: Owen, what would you say if some kid made fun of you for bringing a “girl-colored” pink heart lunch bag.
Owen: [You could see his heart sink.] I would say that was mean.
Me: Yes, it would be mean. You just tell them you like pink and it’s a cool color.
Owen: [Getting sassier.] And if they ask me if it’s because I love anyone? I’ll tell them NO!
Me: You don’t love me? Or daddy? Or your sister?
Owen: Well yes. 🙂
And then it was time for pictures! I did Katie while Owen got his shoes on. She had to sit on the very top step.
“Mama, take a picture of me upside down!”
The same questions I asked him last year. The funny thing is that he usually just spouts something off the top of his head! Like I can’t remember the last time he asked for an orange—it’s always strawberries. And I can’t tell you the last time we watched Incredibles–it’s usually Lego Movie or Wreck It Ralph. And it was the very first time I heard anything about wanting to be a policeman. Kids are silly. Oh! And the favorite book? I think we’ve read it maybe twice that I can remember, so I asked why that book and he said “Because it shows how you take care of me and love me.” Awwww.
And then it was off to the bus stop…where it was hotter than hell. Holy wah. It was horribly hot and the kids were sweating from running around. I love the first day of school, though, because there were more parents there than kids! 🙂
I was really excited about his new backpack—it’s from Costco and is much more well-made than the Minion one he had last year…but it’s really overkill for him (it has a laptop pocket, room for lots of pens and pencils, a phone, etc.). We’ll see how it works, but we may end up getting a bit smaller one.
Last day at the pool!
Labor Day is officially the last day our pool is open, so we headed down early—hoping that it wouldn’t be too crazy busy because they were having a BBQ (free food brings out everyone and their brother who NEVER come to the pool any other time) from 1-4. Fortunately, it wasn’t that busy when we got there at 11, though it got steadily busier as the actual BBQ time got closer.
I took a bunch of pics with our waterproof camera which is always fun because it’s so bright out you can’t really tell what you took so you can’t tell if you got any good pics until you get home and check them on the computer!
I like this one because Owen looks like a stingray.
Katie enjoyed pouring water on daddy.
And throwing water at him. This was a lucky shot!
Another ham in the family.
Katie loves it when daddy goes to the bottom of the pool so she can walk on him.
They each had a hot dog and chips…then Katie had a second hot dog! EEK!
A full pool. Quite a difference from the empty pool we normally have when we’re there.
Tom ended up taking Katie home a little early and I stayed with Owen until about 3:30. He would have stayed longer but I was exhausted—we’re rarely at the pool that long and I was done with the sun.
Dinner with new friends!
So last night at our dinner, some new friends (that we’ve technically known all school year—their twin girls were in Owen’s class—but we just never actually got together since we were all busy) said we were welcome at their house any time and to just come over. I said we would never just show up unannounced, but if they invited us, we’d be there. So he said “Great! We’re having people over tomorrow. Come to dinner!!” So we agreed immediately!
The kids had a BLAST. They actually have two sets of twins—the girls (in first grade) and boys, who are one. One of the twin girls is in Owen’s class again this year. Katie loved everyone and kept an eye on the babies! We had an amazingly DELICIOUS authentic Indian meal and met some friends of theirs that were really great. They have a huge back yard (probably three times the size of our Jacksonville yard!) so Owen was running all over. They have a playset, too, which Katie loved.
After dinner, this was happening—the kids all having fun taking pictures with someone’s iPhone:
We hadn’t planned on staying longer than maybe two hours (sleep schedules, you know) but we were all having such a good time and the kids were busybusybusy that we ended up staying until ALMOST 11! Holy wah! (We had prepped Katie by making sure she napped beforehand, but she still did really, really well.)
We look forward to many more fun nights with them!!
Excited to be wearing Elsa!
He’s such a ham.Â
We have a shark in the family!
Owen graduated from Turtle 2 to Shark 1 today!
Working on his breast stroke:
And Katie still working on her floating.
She’s VERY good at the floating and she can jump in no problem…she just needs to jump in AND THEN roll over onto her back by herself…and then she will graduate to a red cap! I had a talk with the owner about what to do if/when she does graduate…because I honestly can’t see her swimming and I hate to pay $90/month to just play in the water and not learn anything. She said to just try it for a few weeks and see what happens—they don’t push the kids at all and if she isn’t afraid to be in the water on her own she might learn more than we think. But if it’s not working after a month, then we can reconsider—and also, she said they normally don’t do drop-in lessons, but if we wanted to come once a month for a drop-in lesson to make sure she still knows how to float, they’d let us do that. So, we’ll see.































































































