First Week of School

We got Leah started back to school and we fumbled our way into our new schedule without her.

I have recently discovered that Grant has a love of cleaning, or you know, he's just entered that far too short phase of wanting to do EVERYTHING on his own.

Here  he is vacuuming before our PAT visit one morning.  He's always loved the vacuum, unlike most small children he's never been scared of it.

I was telling my sister about it and we decided we could just give him the vacuum and let him go do his thing.  It would be just like having one of those Rumba vacuums but without paying a ton of money for one.  Ha!

One day I was talked into going on a walk and then, as is usually the case, I was talked into going to our neighborhood park.

Sadly, when we arrived we found this mess...

Dylan was so sad to see the park flooded.  Darn rain.

He looked at me with puppy dog eyes and said, "Mommy, why will it never stop raining???"

Just broke my heart.

So, we decided to go home and have a snack, because I am all about eating for comfort.  Ugh.  This is Dylan's attempt at eating a healthy snack in lieu of his visit to the ER for being "clogged up."  He says he likes celery, but he sure doesn't gobble it up like he "likes" it.  We are working on improving his veggie and fruit intake, but it's going to be a slow process.  Where do these stubborn children come from??? 

This never happens...

I don't even recall where we went after dropping Leah off at school on this particular morning, but at 10:30am when I pulled into the drive way and looked back they were both out like a light.

 The previous week, Grant turned the big 1-8...months that is.

Why these children are in such a hurry to grow up is beyond me?

We took him to his 18 month check up and this is what we found out...

 He is a tall, skinny, big headed kid.  Sounds about right for our children.

Grant is such a blessing to our lives.

At 18 months old he loves to:  clean, eat, dance, run, laugh, give kisses (with an occasional "love bite"), take baths, quack like a duck, repeat anything and everything you say, throw away his own diapers (while saying "pew-wee"), wear Mommy's sun glasses, go "ousiiiide" (outside), go up and down stairs, play with the big kids, play peek-a-boo, climb up into his brother's loft bed, and draw/color.

His nicknames include, but are not limited to:  Munchkey and Boo-boo

His favorite foods are yogurt and bread (of any kind).

We love you little Munchkey!

(now please stop growing up so fast!!!)

Okay, I digress, now onto the rest of our week.

 What in the world would we do without Little Tykes???

This smile is what I look forward to every single morning.  Be still my heart!!!

 We took the kiddos to Parents Night Out at church on Friday.  Dinner and a movie are always a welcome treat for Mommy and Daddy, and the kiddos have an equally fab time.  It's a win/win!!!  When we arrived to pick up Grant he came running over to the door with a huge grin on his face shouting "Hiiiiieeeee!!!  Hiiiieeee!!!"  It was the BEST!

How adorable is he in his jammies dragging around his blankie?!?!

 The weekend proved to be a really nice relaxing, with just the perfect amount of fun, kind of weekend.

First up, we had to go get our annual supply of freshly roasted Hatch Green Chiles at a local greenhouse.

They send a big truck down to Hatch, NM every year and bring them back and they will roast them right there in the parking lot for you.  We bring our half a bushel of roasted green chiles home, put 2-3 in baggies, and freeze them to use all year long.  Green Chiles are definitely one thing we miss about living in New Mexico.

 We spent Saturday evening at a super fun birthday party for a special 5 year old friend.

Her Mommy is one of the BEST party decorators I know!

Mr. Clean was Mommy's little helper as usual.

We finished the weekend up with an always fun "Make-Your-Own-Pizza" night.

Is there anything he can't do???

Look at that talent!

I'd call the first week back to school a success.

Now we must focus on getting Dylan ready to go back to school.  Preschool starts on September 4th...stay tuned!!!

First Day of 1st Grade

Tuesday August 13, 2013

Well, it finally arrived, Leah's first day of 1st grade!!!

She was so excited to finally get to go back to school and see her friends everyday, and while she probably wouldn't admit to it, I am convinced that she is a much happier person while on a more structured schedule.  More structured than the one Mom provides for her, anyway.

I was sad to see the summer come to an end, but I was also so very excited for her to jump back into learning new and exciting things everyday.

 She and I had a fun time putting together this little "teachers survival kit" for her to gift her new teacher, Mrs. Harris, with on the first day of school.

Daddy had an important meeting at work that morning and was unable to be home to watch Leah get on the bus.  However, he did what every good dad would do, he went out and got some delicious "First Day of School" donuts for our big 1st grader to enjoy before heading off to school.

 Oh man, where in the world has the last 6 years gone???

Couldn't leave the brothers out of all these first day of school pictures.

This was as good as it was going to get, at least they were all looking at me.

 I let her ride the bus and then I met her at school so I could take the obligatory "first day of school" pictures at school, because I am "that" mom and PROUD of it.  Ha! 

First Grade here she comes!

 I assure you I only stayed a few minutes.  Then it was time to go get the boys and figure out what we could do to keep our selves busy for 7 1/2 hours until she came home.

I know it will shock no one, but that afternoon we had a nice little rain shower that brought in some cooler temps.  Grant, my little outdoors man, wanted to go outside to enjoy the rain.  I needed to cool off so I thought it was a great idea.

It was so refreshing and tons of fun watching Grant enjoy the water.

 Then there were lots of "fun" stuff like this....

He enjoys cleaning things up so much it's almost like it isn't punishment to make him clean up his mess.  Little stinker!

 "Busssss, Bussss, Bussss????"

Grant chanting and watching for Leah to come home.

 She made it home and with a big smile on her face, no less!

First grade is fun!!!  

She is in a great school, with a fabulous teacher, wonderful friends, and another awesome year of learning ahead of her.

I am one proud Momma.

Fun At Exploration Place

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far!

We have had a pretty good one.

It kicked off with a cake for a customer of mine.

Her sweet little boy is turning 2 and he loves golf and Spiderman.  I think we came up with a creative way to combine the two.

These types of cakes are my favorite.  I enjoy the creative challenge a lot!

 One of my kiddos favorite activities this summer has been playing with shaving cream.

Grant was able to join in the fun this time.

 Grant had a BLAST, as you can see.

At one point he looked up at me while rubbing shaving cream all the way up his arm and said, "Uh oh" and then laughed and laughed and laughed.

Ornery little stinker.

Saturday we loaded everyone up and headed to Exploration Place.

They have a dinosaur exhibit that I've been wanting to take the kids to all summer.

Dylan was so excited when we told him about it, but I was worried he would be a little scared of them.

 When we got there my worries were confirmed.  We could hear T-Rex from the car.  Dylan kept nervously saying, "They're not real though, right Mommy?"

This was as close as he was getting...

 At the last minute he finally joined his siblings for this sad, pathetic picture.

Poor guy.

Once inside Dylan spotted this piece of artwork hanging from the ceiling and announced that it was a "dinosaur net" for catching dinosaurs.  I love his little imagination.

 "Whoa!!!" Grant said as I wheeled him up to look at the water below.

 The kids all really enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit.  It was fun watching Leah slowly and cautiously creep around each corner unsure of what would be staring her in the face next.

Uncovering fossils

Next up...building with blocks!

It was the perfect entertainment for my little kiddos ...

...and my big one too.

Engineers paradise

 Dylan was so excited when he discovered the hard hats.

Mommy just said a little prayer that we wouldn't get lice.  Having little ones completely turns you into a germaphobe, if you weren't already one.  Ugh.

 Man this little guy is getting harder to keep up with by the minute.

 While Leah and Dylan were playing in the Vet Clinic, Grant decided to go explore the bug station.

 Dr. Dylan removing a tick from the horse.

 The Arkansas (pronounced "R-Kansas" by native Wichitans) River is seriously swollen from the incredible amounts of rain we've had.  As I sit here and write this blog I can hear the next set of thunderstorms rolling in.  Praying there is not any serious flooding from all of this unusual amount of moisture.

Speaking of weather related things...the kids always enjoy a good tornado/hurricane simulator.

All in all we had a great time exploring.  We had a fun day and best of all it was nice to finally get to spend some time with Daddy again!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

How We Stayed Busy While Daddy Was Gone

So, literally 12 hours after we arrived back in Wichta from our Vegas trip, Nathan boarded his first of two flights to get to the UK.  He needed to be there for a couple of weeks for work related things.

Here are some pictures of what we did to stay busy while he was gone.

I bought the kids a little kiddie pool to play in.  Of course, being a boy Dylan had way more fun making mud pies than actually playing in the water.

Leah has been fixing her own hair.  She must get this talent from her Aunt Sam, because I sure can't use a bobby pin to save my life.

 The house looked like this a lot.

On one trip to Wal-Mart they were uncharacteristically well behaved so I treated them to one arcade game each.

Let's just say if I had to choose who to ride with, I'd probably go with D.  For barely being able to reach the pedal he is quite the little race car driver.  He'll tell you that he "won", but he actually "won" 5th place.

Grant is my good little napper.  This particular day he was ready earlier than usual, and decided to just cuddle up on the window seat.  Poor guy.

 He is growing up so darn fast.  He uses a fork like a champ, walks all the time, can drink from his sippy cup while walking, climbing into the car by himself and is adding words to his vocabulary every day.  Today Leah was teaching him his colors and I heard him say purple and red.  Nathan even said he seems like a completely different kid in just the 2 weeks he was away from him.

There was lots of cuddling going on while Daddy was gone. In just the last 6 days of the month of July Wichita received 6.32 inches of rain.  CRAZY!!!  So we've been spending A LOT of time indoors. 

Dylan has been "driving my solar car to California."  Making his Daddy proud and putting his imagination to good use.

My dinner dates one night this week.  Dylan dressed himself from the cowboy hat, to the tie, to Grant's size 18 month shorts (???). 

***They did not, in fact, wear the noise canceling headphones in to dinner.***

 I can't put into words how thankful I am for modern day conveniences.

The kids so enjoy "watching" Daddy fly on the internet plane tracking system. It really helped curb the "Is Daddy home yet???" question.  So much easier for them to understand when they can "see" it.

 It's that time of year again...school shopping.

Leah's new school kicks.

 Daddy's flight landed at 7:30pm on Wednesday night which meant another "fun filled" time at gymnastics with both of the boys in tow.  Ugh.  We ended up in the car again, thankfully it was pretty nice out.  I had to change Grant's diaper and then managed to distract him with a sucker til Leah was done.

After Leah was done we raced to airport to pick up Daddy!  We sure do miss him while he's gone, but we also appreciate all of the hard work he does all over the world so that we can live the life we do.  Love you sweetie!