School!!!

 Look at my First Grader!!!! Here he is the morning of the first day.  He LOVED summer vacation and was not thrilled about going back to school. And I of course felt the same way, he is such a joy, my big helper, my friend....it was good having him around.

Look at that cute face! He has class with a couple of his good friends so hopefully his class doesn't get too roudy!

 Can't you see the excitement on his face? At least this year he didn't cry...




Isaac on the other hand was SUPER excited to start PRE_SCHOOL!!! He is going at the school, and although I HATE that it is half day M-F, it is good for him. 

A little bonus, Isaac got to be the line leader that first morning. Look at his cute face. He's heard so much about school from Ashton and then, on the first day he got to be the much anticipated line leader.

The house is quite without these boys here. Ezra get some one on one which is AWESOME, and then I get a little time for myself to catch up on house stuff while Ezra naps.  I could get used to this!

Goodbye Kindergarten!!!

I can't believe how fast Ashton's first school year went.  And it's amazing to think how much the kid progressed from the start of the year. Looking back Ashton and I were both sooooo emotional.  Drop off was the worst. One of us was in tears for the first two months.  Part of the problem was that school here is full day. I mean, the kid has hardly been away from me so this was a big jump for us. I even let him earn days off from school for not crying for an entire week at drop off. But we adjusted by November. Of course I had to be involved as a could volunteering as the class mom, going on field trips and helping out with kinder art. It was wonderful to see him make friends, learn new skills and see his love for learning grow. We were especially fond of his teacher Mrs. Magnusson. I am sad that she retired this year and won't be there when Isaac starts! But in any case, we lucked out having her at all. Here is Ashton with some of his best friends, Nathan and Everett on their last day. The came home with loads of class projects!

And here he is Mrs Magnusson. Redland Oaks, you are a great school!

The Zoo!!!

We have had unusually amazing weather this week so we spent several hours at the zoo yesterday. Not only did we have great weather but there were several teaching/game booths that the kids loved. We were there for three hours and sure didn't get to far!

 The kids at the "mingos" as Ezra would say.

 Ezra loved all the hands on activities. He was especially fond the statues!

 Sporting a stamp for completing the bear chase. (The kids had to pick of all of the liter and climb into the tent before the bear (teenager) caught them.

 Checking out the bear paws, skulls and fur.

 Fishing activities outside the aquarium.

 Ezra was especially protective of the kamodoo dragon

 Nature bracelet!

 We finished up at the reptile house. The kids were too cute! Isaac had to take his time at each exhibit and tell me whether they were venomous or not and what kind of diet they had. Ezra loved hissing at ALL the snakes.

What a great time! So glad that we were able to have a heat free summer day at the zoo!

I want candy!

Ezra is our little sweet tooth. He LOVES any kind of sugar and is REALLY good at finding it. In fact in the mornings when I go to get him out of his crib the first thing he says reaching out his hand is "want candy, hold it". I don't have lots of candy in the house, but I do have a drawer always stocked with gum and occasionally some airheads.  He frequents this drawer to see if there is candy and if not he'll snatch some gum. This week he went to the drawer asking for candy, and I was soooo sick of him begging for candy I took out the candy and airheads and moved them to the top of the fridge. He was so upset I couldn't help take a couple of pictures.

Swim Meet!!!!

So swimming in Texas is big. TEXAS BIG. And since it gets so dang hot here we decided that Ashton was old enough to join the club. He has surprisingly not complained much about the practices which are 5 days a week for almost  2 months. Last night he had his first swim meet. Oh my goodness, it was quite the event. There were tons of people, tons of swimmers and he and I were both nervous. He had qualified to swim freestyle for the 6 and unders with a qualifying time of 47 seconds.

Here are a few pics of the big event.

Here's the team doing the pre-game chant.

And here he is with his buddies Thane and Carson. This is Thane's second year and helped ease Ashton's nerves about the whole thing. Ashton followed Thane in the same lane which definitely was calming for Ash). Carson is on the team and though he didn't compete in this race we were glad he came to support his friends!

And here is my boy in ACTION! It was so fun! and he did fantastic, coming down on his time by 6 seconds! We were so proud of our little man!

Too much candy will rot your teeth

Here is my crew after school on Valentines Day eating their goodies.

I never get tired of looking at that face! The kid was loving the chocolates. He took a bite right out of one of the mini chocolate bars with the foil still in its place. I wanted to take a picture of it but he gobbled up the rest of it before I got the chance.

I have to show off Ashtons' shirt because I made it! I let Ashton and Isaac design their shirts. Isaac is a simple guy which was awesome and Ashton likes all the bells and whistles, they turned out great though!

Some say that too much candy will rot your teeth and looks like they might have a case! Ashton went to bed that night one tooth short of when he started the day. It may have something to with the fact that it was loose before the day started and even more to do with the fact that Dad pulled the thing out and not so much about the candy. This is tooth number 4 for that kid! I tell you, they grow up fast!!!

PART-AY!!!!

I am a party person, my kids are party people. We LOVE to have parties and so we did a BOYS valentine party with cousins and some friends.  We played a couple of "don't brake my heart" games they loved!!! Here's game #1. It was supposed to be a relay but they just kept going till all the "hearts" were broken.

 

The boys were too funny. When the last egg hit, they new it! And they all had to scramble it to a gooey mess!

Game #2 was involved making cupid's arrows out of sticks from the yard and felt.  I then stuck a tissue paper heart onto some aluminum foil that was held in a needle point ring thingy and wedged into a tree. This time the boys were to put the heart breaking into skills into action.

This was a hit! Our last game was a scavenger hunt. I used little white cutout hearts and wrote clues with white crayon on them. After finding each clue they would have to paint the heart with water color to reveal the next clue until they found the treasure box of treats. We decorated treat bags, made bracelets for our moms and decorated sugar cookies. Too fun! I love these boys so much and am sooooo glad we got to celebrate.