Category Archives: Videos
Bouncy Birthday Party
Owen was invited to a birthday party of the twins in his class (the same family that gave Katie her black ballerina outfit a ways back). It was at a bouncy place that had glow-in-the-dark lights. Tom took him because (long story short) I was told Katie couldn’t participate. Tom said when he got there, Owen turned super shy…but quickly got into it and had a BLAST.
And here’s Owen racing up the slide! I made sure he wore a neon shirt so he’d really stand out! And action video!
Here’s the group:
And some of the boys from his class (Xander, Colton, and Manuel).
And then after the party, they stopped at Wendy’s for dinner!
Daddy throws the kids around
Gingerbread houses in Owen’s class!
Today was Owen’s last day of school before the holiday break and we were invited to decorate gingerbread (graham cracker) houses with them! (It was also PJ Day for the whole school!)
Earlier in the week, parents had glued the crackers to a milk carton to speed things along.
The teacher offered a house for Katie to decorate, but I had my hands full helping Owen and his classmates. And she was having fun with the toys.
But then she came over to see what was going on and of course had to get involved. 🙂
Video?
Oh boy, now she’s helping with frosting.
“No! My seat!”
Happy boy!
She ran right over for story time!
Then it was time to pack up and go!
Silly kids and a loose tooth!
Owen’s front tooth is SOOOO loose that we keep telling him to just pull it out. At dinner we talked about how the Tooth Fairy doesn’t pay for teeth that fall out and can’t be found (like if he accidentally swallowed it). I told him I would match what the Tooth Fairy gave him last time if he pulled it out tonight. Uncle Rob promised him FIVE dollars if it came out tonight. Owen REALLY wanted the $5, but as it turns out, he didn’t want it bad enough to pull put his tooth.
Taking turns flying Uncle Rob’s Christmas present.
They tried it in the house first—and it worked a little, but really needed more space. 🙂
Christmas with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob!
We celebrated Christmas this morning because Owen was home from school…due to ongoing constipation issues (he had been heavily medicated but NOTHING was happening and I hadn’t wanted to send him to school just in case).
She LOVED her princess tutu, crown, and wand! After about 10 minutes, we were all tired of the wand because it lit up AND made noise! (The crown lights up, too, but thankfully doesn’t make noise!)
Uncle Rob helped Owen with the Legos after Owen got stuck and I tried and gave up. 🙂
CHUCK E. CHEESE!!
Owen has wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese for quite some time now. Neither Tom nor I wanted to go because the food really sucks and it’s just a money pit. So, we told Owen that he could go when Uncle Rob came down (that way it would be seen as a super special treat and he wouldn’t ask us to go all the time). He was actually very good about being patient—it’s probably been over a year that we’ve been telling him this.
So when we learned that Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob were going to be here this week, Owen knew what was going to happen! And boy was he exited!
Me: So who’s all going to Chuck E. Cheese?
Owen: Me and Uncle Rob.
Me: Just you and Uncle Rob? Not daddy?
Owen: No! Daddy, too. But not Grandma or you or Katie. Just the three boys!
The plan was to take separate cars to see Santa and then the boys would go to the restaurant and the girls would go home. I figure why get Katie excited about it when she really didn’t care to start with. I did, however, make Tom promise to take pictures. 🙂
These are the two pics Tom texted me.
I really really hoped he had taken more than that…and he had! 🙂 I saw these when he got home.
His $45 “prize”—a Dory fish from Finding Nemo.
Yes, they spent about $45 total on food, drinks, and games…and he only got a trinket worth about 49¢. It was a great lesson…we asked him if he’d rather have the little fish or a big Lego set. He obviously choose the Lego set. He was surprised that he could have had something so big instead of something so small. We said it was okay to go and play games and have fun, but it was really expensive so that’s why it was a super special treat that we didn’t do very often. He said from now on he’d rather have the Legos. 🙂
Owen reads his letter from Santa
Santa wrote Owen a long letter that came in the mail today. He pretty much read the whole thing by himself. He was thrown by a few words (like receiving and according) and by a hyphenated word but overall I was very impressed…and so was daddy who rarely gets to see him read.
Here’s the last part of the letter:
Back at the playground
Riding the horsey!
She loves prepping food for us!
Lesson with dry ice
I ordered something frozen from QVC. It arrived with some dry ice remaining so we showed the kids what happens when you put it in water.
Sitting where she shouldn’t.
I turned around to see a very proud little girl, sitting somewhere she shouldn’t. (No, it wouldn’t likely hurt the crate, but it was sagging a little and I didn’t want it to become a habit.)
Katie says she wants to dance, but…
She thinks Papa’s cookies are delicious.
Of course she was saying it without prompting before I started recording…but damn this is cute.
Jingle Bells all the way
Katie’s version of Christmas favorites.
Katie loves scissors!
Katie LOVES cutting and if I don’t keep an eye on her, she’ll end up at the table cutting any paper she can get her hands on. Fortunately, she’s not half bad. 🙂
Look who we ran into at the book fair!
Owen had just watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (movie #2 where Dobby was introduced) so we thought he’d be really excited.
Nope.
I’m glad I’m not a turkey!
Owen singing my favorite song from the feast. This makes me smile SO much.
Don’t look down!
Tom decided to carry BOTH kids up to bed…and they all loved it.
Owen’s Thanksgiving Feast
All the kindergarten classes were having a combined Thanksgiving Feast today. We had all signed up to bring something and Owen really wanted us to come, so I kept Katie up from her nap and off we went.
To say it was all a bit disorganized would be an understatement. I joked that at least it wasn’t a state dinner—it was just a kindergarten meal. 🙂 The feast was supposed to start at 1:45 and at 1:35 the last of the kids were still eating while parents and teachers were cleaning the empty tables and taping colored paper tablecloths on. No one knew which teachers were going to sit where so all these parents had no place to put their food donations and just kept moving them around.
Katie was being good, actually, and kept herself busy with an acorn she had scooped up on the way in. And then playing with my Visitor sticker.
Then I realized that parents were just making plates ahead of time and putting them on the tables—so the kids wouldn’t even get to pick what they wanted. I knew Owen wouldn’t eat any of it (except maybe the corn and a roll) so I had packed his lunch. But with all the confusion (and seeing that their class assistant was running around setting up), I was positive the lunch would not make it to the cafeteria. I asked her if it was okay to get his lunch and she said yes, so I had to take Katie to the classroom. The classroom was dark so I figured the kids were all being held somewhere beforehand. So it was a quick grab, but I was glad I did it because I got to see the other turkeys that had been disguised! 🙂
On the way back to the cafeteria, I saw all the kids in a lower hallway with their feather headdresses and pilgrim hats. Owen saw me and got very happy. Katie, of course, wanted to go down and sit with Owee. 🙂 Back in the cafeteria, Katie wanted to hide.
The centerpieces:
I grabbed these entrance pictures from the school’s Facebook page. Each kid walked in with a “friend” from another class, so each Native American walked in with a Pilgrim.
Then it was time to line up for the exchange of necklaces:
And then the first few songs. Things seemed to be going as expected. Owen was happy and laughing.
Then the singing started. And he saw me. Remember his meltdown/panic attack last year when he was line leader for his pre-K graduation? Yeah, it wasn’t a one-time thing. I do not have a public performer. And I could slowly see it happening—he was getting shy and starting to tear up and definitely wasn’t participating. I’m not sure if it was performing in front of a big crowd or seeing me or a combination of both…but it killed me to watch.
Here’s exactly what I saw. Poor kid.
And then it was over and he got to come sit down to eat lunch and he was fine.
But he REFUSED to put his hat back on so I just took a picture of it.
And by then, all the plates of food the parents had set out were ice cold. Which didn’t really bother Owen as he was eating PB&J—though he did have three bites of corn and a roll. I picked at the rest of the plate but it wasn’t very appealing cold.
While everyone was eating, they were playing a slideshow of drawings the kids had done in the computer lab.
This was Owen’s:
The music teacher came up while Owen was eating and asked him what was wrong because she saw how he had been acting. She told me that he was amazing in class and loved to sing!
They had a second set of songs planned for after lunch so I tried to tell him that he didn’t need to be shy and that he just needed to look straight at me and pretend that no one else was there…and that I really really wanted to see him sing and I knew he could sing the songs because he sings them at home all the time. He would barely even look at me or acknowledge what I was saying! He said he didn’t want to do them and wanted to come home with me. I told him that wasn’t an option. I told him again if he was scared to just look straight at me and don’t pay any attention to anyone else. I got him to laugh a bit and kept my fingers crossed.
Lining up—so far so good.
And then he actually participated in the closing songs! Without melting down! YAY! I’m guessing it was more luck of the draw then my pep talk but I’ll take it. 🙂
Proof I was there! (I found this pic on Facebook afterwards!)
Heading back to class!
Katie rides a horse!
Tom took Katie out running errands and found this at the woodworking store.
Owen can count to 100!
Out of nowhere, Owen says he can count to 100. We know he can (though usually with a bit of help) but of course we joked that he couldn’t and he’d have to prove it. He did. 🙂
It took me a few seconds to start recording and make it look like I wasn’t. 🙂
Owen’s after-school athletics program
If we leave when we should to pick him up, we get stuck in bad traffic and what normally takes eight minutes takes about 20 (not bad in the grand scheme of things, but awful when you’re used to eight) and we barely make it on time. If we leave early enough to beat the traffic, it takes the eight minutes but then we’re there 30 minutes early.
Today we left early. Amazingly, Katie sat in the chair (with her dolly) for quite some time.
This is what we got to watch. Owen is behind the instructor (in orange).
I’m hoping they have another class like this in the spring—he LOVES it and there’s only two weeks left!
Post-nap chatty Katie
I’m pretty sure baby Suki is from a Doc McStuffins episode. 🙂
Bath Bubbles
The first time our master bath tub has been used!
She wanted to eat them.
Lunch and library with my little man
Ironically, I had planned on coming in for Owen’s lunch today (since Tom was going to be home!) and he was super excited about that. When I got there, I saw them still out at recess.
I watched him play for a good five minutes before one of his friends saw me and pointed me out! Then he came running over to give me a hug over the fence. 🙂
Eating lunch! He is SUCH a card—I was stealing his apple pieces and he thought that was hilarious and kept laughing and telling all his buddies that I was an apple stealer. I do have to say that I am glad Owen eats all of his lunch—I’d say maybe one kid aside from Owen ate his whole lunch, maybe four picked at about half of it, and two didn’t eat more than a few bites.
While we were there, his classroom assistant teacher came up and said hello then said “Aren’t you proud of Owen for his award?” And I basically said “Yeah, but I didn’t know anything about it so we weren’t there! And his dad was home, too!” You could see the light bulb go off and she apologized, saying they were working late at school last night and totally forgot to email or call, that she remembered at 10 and assumed it was too late, and then forgot in the morning. She seemed to feel badly. I felt a little better since she did apologize, but honestly I was still pissed. Of course it would be US this happened to and no one else since the beginning of school. 🙁 She did say she had him keep the award so they could take a picture of him with it sitting in the teacher’s chair so hopefully I’ll at least get that. [[Note: Owen didn’t bring the award home and I haven’t received any word of any picture and he said they didn’t take one. Sigh.]]
Anyway.
I heard her mention that they were going to the library after lunch and Owen asked if I was coming, too. I said I sure could!
It’s a process, let me tell you. They all had their coats (since they had had recess right before lunch) and their lunch bags (since they had just been at lunch) so they had to deposit all that stuff outside the library! Well, actually, the coats went in a pile outside the door and their lunches went in a pile inside the door. Then they all filed in to the story area where the librarian read them a book.
Then she handed out apples with their names on it (which I later learned has their borrower code on it for checking out books) and told them to go get their books! I had thought we would be in there for 10-15 minutes with kids looking for and picking out books, but by the time the last kid got his apple, the first ones were checking out. By the time I walked over, Owen had his book already checked out, had his lunch box, and was waiting in line to leave! Apparently the library is a very well-oiled machine. 🙂 Then on their way out, they had to grab their coat (which the teacher had lined up all along the hallway). I hugged Owen and said goodbye!
Katie takes flight!
We had a MOPS get together at Flight, a trampoline park (the same one Owen went to recently for a birthday party). She LOVED it—as if there was any doubt. 🙂
There was one tiny accident at the end where another little girl slid down the trampoline and apparently ran over Katie’s finger. Both were crying but Katie was over it in about a minute. 🙂
It’s a little expensive (we had a group discount today) but we’ll definitely go back. 🙂
She’s good with shapes and puzzles!
She wanted to play this game so I just let her go. I came back to see she had put the pieces in the correct spots.
Coats and shoes are hard.
She was having a problem taking off her coat (which I missed most of) but then she got it…but this still happened. What a DRAMA QUEEN. 🙂
Ballerina Dance
We got this dance costume from a friend thinking we might use it for Halloween but we ended up using the cheerleader. But since she loves ballerina skirts, I put it on her today and she just danced and danced. 🙂