New socks and shoes! (I wasn’t planning on getting him shoes, but I found them on clearance at Marshall’s!)
This is what Katie does during the games.
This might be the kids’ favorite part: snack time! (I seriously wish we could do away with it—it’s not like these are serious athletes who played a rigorous game and need sustenance.)
Owen decided that he wanted to walk to the bus stop by himself. I’m perfectly fine with that as he’s a good kid, he needs the responsibility, and there are lots of other parents down there. 🙂
Katie wasn’t happy—she wanted to go so she could play with the kids. (We’ll go sometimes but not every day.)
She watched for him from the back steps. When all the leaves are gone she should be able to see them, if barely. We can hear them now because they run around playing and screeching.
This is what she kept saying. Poor kid.
He’s pretty good at hitting the ball!
See, I told you. The second game? No pics and one measly video. 🙂
Owen’s teacher emailed me last night to let me know he was getting the award this morning and that he didn’t know about it—so she left it up to us whether or not to tell him. We opted to keep it a surprise—and Tom was luckily able to make it, so we kept that a surprise, too!
He doesn’t see us…
Doesn’t see us…
Then sees daddy!!
Such a happy little boy!
Owen’s part is about at 2:11.
Mrs. McLenigan and Mrs. Stulman did a great job with the kids—all four 1st grade award recipients were from their kindergarten class!
The first official game was rained out last Saturday, so tonight’s game became the first actual game! It was held at a field in a neighboring city (if you wonder why it looks different). As usual, the first game has many more pictures than I’ll post for subsequent games! 🙂
Tom is the Assistant Coach this season! The fall season isn’t as big as the spring season, so no official shirts for the coaches (boooo!)—only hats. (The kids also just get plain colored tees with the name of the little league county on it instead of a team name and logo.)
Once more, he’s a head taller than everyone else on his team!
Of course she doesn’t ever really watch the game, and tonight she was exploring a new park—throwing stones in the river.
(No, he didn’t have to go potty. Apparently he’s a natural at the baseball moves.)
Me: Katie, don’t play in the dirt.
Katie: Mom–it’s sand!
How did she get to be such a smart[ass] little girl? 🙂
They’ve been trying to teach the catchers to tag out the runners (it still doesn’t count as an out since it’s t-ball) so Owen is doing his best…
And actually CHASING them down. 🙂
Pllaying before lessons started.
Then Katie had some successful jumps…
…and she graduated to Turtle 1 (red cap)! (It took her 11 classes, or just under 3 months of classes!) Unfortunately they were out of red caps, so hopefully she’ll get it next week and then we can take her official photo!
Now I just hope they can rearrange some students so that their classes are more convenient—there’s no Turtle 1 classes adjacent to Owen’s Shark 1 class so we have to be there from 11 (when his class starts) to 12:30 (when her class ends). They said they’d try to get us something better so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.
The kids were playing crazy after Owen got home. They rarely played like this when they were together ALL summer… It went on for about five minutes before I started recording!
Of course, as soon as I stopped recording he said “MOM! I LOVE PLAYING WITH KATIE!”
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.
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.
She wasn’t able to pull her swimsuit up in one try…and she didn’t want Owen to help her get her arms in. Sigh.
Owen just finished his “100 Books in 100 Days” and “200 Pages in 100 Days” Challenges!!
It wasn’t all easy—he fought the workbook pages a bit and got WEEKS behind but caught up at the end when he realized he might not get his surprise. 🙂 Also, to be honest, he really probably only read a total of 60-70 books, but a bunch of them were small chapter books (like 10 pages per chapter, three or four chapters per book) so he got multi-credits for those. And this was his reward!
I love when the kids amuse themselves.
Katie has the jumping in down and the floating down…now she just has to get the middle part of getting into her back by herself.
We were headed into the city to have lunch with friends…and since it was semi close to a subway stop, we decided to make a fun trip out of it! We had to drive north about 15 minutes to catch the metro where it starts.
The kids were super excited about riding a train!
At the restaurant, Kabob Palace.
We wan into a bit of a snafu on the way home—long story short we weren’t paying attention and ended up on the wrong train (headed north instead of south) so we had a 20-minute wait for the next (correct) train.
And the car was a bit more crowded than our first trip so the boys had to stand for one stop.
They both loved it and wanted to do it again immediately. 🙂 I’m sure we’ll go somewhere again, but I’m also sure it won’t be a regular thing because this simple, short trip cost us about $22 in fares (it’s about $3.50pp each direction)!
I was on my walk when I noticed Owen had started pushing Katie! And she was loving it!
Katie came up and asked if she could run. Sure! So off she went!
Welcome to a typical Katie tantrum—she wanted to put her socks on herself but the first one got stuck within seconds. She started this as I walked forward to help her—and it went on for a good 15 seconds before I started recording and continued for at least 15 seconds after I stopped.
I had promised Owen we would take him so today was the day! Both kids had a blast! (I remembered to take cups!)
Owen was very proud of this:
This hasn’t been her best response yet but of course I didn’t have the video running on those. 🙂
Owen saw this Hurricane machine while he was at his activity camp last week…and begged me to go in it…so I told him we could do it after a swim lesson when daddy was there. So today was the day!
She did this for a good 15 minutes today.
She always wants to comb my hair but I only let her on days that I wash and condition it.
He said it was costume day so we did this (he can’t get in/out of his costumes by himself).
ABCs while shopping.
This is what she was busy doing while I wasn’t watching. And this is her pout when I tell her she needs to pick them all up.
She tried a ham and cheese (no condiment) sandwich—and actually ate most of it!
I decided to make my all-time favorite garlic toast today because the bread was on sale B1G1 at the store.
“Mama, I want to put the water in please.” Except 98% of it didn’t make it in.
Outdoor lap selfie!
The little stink beat me!!
I think her issue was she couldn’t get her shoes off while the tutu was down and of course she didn’t want to sit down or ask for help.
Dropping Owen off at his activity camp, Katie has decided she wants to run around.
She didn’t do as well today with her jumping and floating but she’s still fun to watch.
Katie did amazing at swim class today! (We were here on a Saturday for a makeup lesson.)
And Owen actually had a one-on-one lesson so he got a lot of practice in—and did well with his side-breathing.
She’s not even posing. This is just a natural look. Hoo boy are we in for trouble… 🙂
Getting better at floating—lasting longer in the float position little by little.
Then guess who suddenly LOVED jumping in?
She loves wearing her goggles now! We think that’s why she liked jumping in this time!
And another natural look LOL. I missed the actual eye roll. 🙂
Owen wanted to open his presents as soon as we got home…and Katie really wanted to help. She had a hard time accepting that these were OWEN’S PRESENTS and there were none for her. But he’s a nice brother so he let her help on a few.
Then we took a little break so I could go walk on the treadmill and they could play on the bounce house…and also so Owen wouldn’t blow through all his gifts in the first day!
Afterwards, I noticed Owen was wearing a new Minion #selfie shirt and I asked if he knew what a selfie was. He said no, so we took this picture:
And then he grabbed my phone and took this:
Back to the gifts! 🙂
