A gift to Katie from a well-meaning aunt. While Katie does love puzzles, of course she doesn’t have the attention span for this (hell, I barely do) but she really wants to color it. If it was up to me I’d just throw it in the trash (well I’m not an idiot, I’d give it away). But guess who will end up doing it all?? Her face just about sums it up for me too. 😂
We had promised the kids we’d take them shopping after Christmas to spend some of their birthday money/gift cards. (We’d postponed shopping due to the move and then we just forgot about it but when I took them Christmas shopping for each other they both obviously wanted to shop for themselves.)
I went with Katie and Tom went with Owen. They each had $35 to spend. Katie kept trading items out of the cart as she found stuff she liked better. It took her a bit to understand that she couldn’t just get everything she wanted. I had to guide her a little bit but she did well.
She loves being a mermaid. (This was a last-minute purchase that was her entire budget but she also had an expensive doll she really wanted. So to make my life easier, I let her get both and now she has used up all of her Target gift cards as well!)
I wasn’t thrilled about this huge animal but I was thrilled it wasn’t a 200-piece Shopkins set. She also got a huge 24″ Barbie-type doll so all of her gift cards are now gone (she had Target ones as well but since she went over budget, they’re now mine!).
Owen bought a bunch of random smaller stuff that I’m sure will be played with for a week and then lost. 😂 But he was happy today!
It only took 44 years, a kid who loves Legos, grandparents who were willing to buy the set and the electronics 💗 and a last-minute extra set of tracks to fit around the tree stand… It ended up needing some parental intervention [to get the power hooked up correctly and the tracks in an approximate circle] but Owen did the bulk of it.
I was out shopping today and ran across this game.
Holy cow the memories came flooding back!
I kicked ass at it back in the day when my cousins and I each got it for Christmas. (Google tells me it came out in 1982, which is about exactly when I thought it was—I guessed I was around 8 or so.) This is what the box looked like then.
I asked on Facebook if anyone remembered it, and my cousins did—and amazingly, said her kids played the very game a short time ago!! I wish I still had mine, but I wasn’t about to pay $17 for it. 🙂
We didn’t even know this place existed until a few weeks ago, so I found discount tickets and off we went! It wasn’t quite as exciting as I’d hoped it would be (and one of the rides was shut down) but the kids had a really good time so that’s all that matters!
The Roar Run is a PTA-Sponsored fundraising event in its sixth year. We are hoping it’s on a weekend next year—it’s a bit difficult getting there to enjoy the other events when the kids don’t get home until 4.
Katie is becoming a master hula hooper!
Stretching before the race!
We were watching the relay races and Katie wanted to try the wheelbarrow.
Neighbors!
Nine minutes until race time!
The group of neighbor kids running together! (Tom was taking the pic down at the fun run starting line.)
Katie came in a minute or so behind Sophia—but we had seen her on daddy’s shoulders for a bit!!
And the same pic close up as she crossed the finish line!
More neighbors!
Love a family photo!
Stacey and Lorenzo, Sophia and Enzo
And I had to try a selfie. It’s a bit more difficult with six people!
We had the results as they were happening and these were the finals (Katie missed a medal by one place—Sophia came in #3):
Nick and Gracie making Christmas M&Ms (the rest went into Lisa’s monster cookies).
Just a few brats to cook…
All the kids like to fish but they say Aubrey is the one who loves it the most and is the best at it. She apparently gives lessons to other kids at their house!
Katie caught a fish!
Someone took an unplanned jump into the river (learning you can’t walk on lily pads):
Drying off…
I think this picture is a tradition.
And the mandatory annual family Christmas photo! Every year they give us grief about taking it… And this year with the craziness of the move I didn’t post it immediately and they were all asking about it!! So there. :p
And the annual kid comparison—Katie is getting closer to Aubrey but Aubrey is still ahead (which should be the case, as she’s almost 9). And as usual, Owen is definitely taller than Gracie…
But I think he beats Nick this year!!
Last year:
More fishing!
After a campfire and s’mores it was time for bed. The kids decided to all sleep in the living room… Poor Timmy. 🙂
The day started by opening a present from papa and Grannie (that has been in our closet for probably two years now)—doll bunk beds. She was over the moon!
Picture with the birthday girl!
Opening her birthday cards—the same card from two people and the zebras matched her outfit! What are the odds?!
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…
Since we are trying to cut down on the amount of stuff we have, I decided that one of the two HUGE stuffed bears was going to go. We picked Owen’s since it was the most bedraggled—and he really doesn’t play with it anymore and it just sits in the corner of his room. So I posted it for sale cheap and someone came and picked it up within a few hours!
