2012 Week 40

I asked Tyler if he wanted to send anything special to Wyatt for his birthday.  His response was "I want you to take a picture of me and print it out so he knows how happy I am for his birthday."

We were discussing what how to decorate/carve pumpkins this year and Tyler said "I want mine to look like this face" then struck this pose.

Fall/Halloween decorations are all put up now - the house feels so festive!

Snails! I say "ew" but the kids found the fascinating.  We had 5 or 6 climbing up the porch post after a few days of rain.

Getting Wyatt's birthday card ready to send to him.

Home made marshmallows and pumpkin spice syrup for hot chocolate!  We tried out these new recipes this week and both of them are winners.  MMMMM.  And with the rainy and cooler weather this week it was just the right thing.

We also had a very long weekend this week.  Sam got an extra day off on Friday and we took full advantage of having the kids in school and went out for a "day date."  He borrowed a helmet and we took a ride on the motorcycle to a nearby town where we tried out a new restaurant.  Then we wandered down the tiny Main Street and had dessert at the fun frozen yogurt place.  I had a fantastic time.  It felt more like a date-date than we've had in a very long time.

Then we came home and hit the lumber yard (haha), as we had more than one project on the list for the weekend.  (including putting new shelves in the pantry - my gift request for my birthday)

Saturday found us wanting to do something fun with the family.  So we headed off to Raliegh to the State Fair.  Only it turns out we were a few days early for the Fair.  We ended up at the Children's Museum instead where we had a lot of fun, especially in the sports section that we hadn't explored in previous visits.  Kaitlyn had her first lesson in (giant) chess - and won against her dad, with a little help from me, her dad, and some random guy waiting that probably wanted his turn with the board to come around a lot sooner.

Sunday we tackled the pantry and other projects...

2012 Week 39

Mid-term reports came home this week.  Both Kaitlyn and Tyler are doing amazingly well - yay!  (not really surprised are we?  We have fantastic kids!)  I got a little chuckle out of the teachers comments on Tyler's - compliment, compliment, compliment and "but sometimes he likes to play too much"  lol  Yup - that's our Tyler.  He is a 5 year old boy after all.

The is what I see outside the dining room window almost every evening after school, snacks and homework are finished.  The kids and usually a friend or two pull out the baseball stuff and play.  None of them really have a clue how to play, but they seem to have plenty of fun anyway.

Sam had a sewing project he wanted me to do.  Of course I picked up the supplies but hadn't pulled out the sewing machine to make it.  He was either fidgety or really wanted it done, because one day he had me show him how to run the machine and he did it himself.

And our fun fall family outing this week - Apple Picking!  We've had BEAUTIFUL weather the past couple of weeks, then sure enough the one day we plan to do something outside it turns icky.  Oh well, we decided to brave the slowly falling rain anyway and didn't regret it.

Once we got home the kids worked on "science projects" for a while, using a book Kaitlyn brought home from the library.  It still astonishes me that more often than not, both of my kids choose informational-type books instead of ones for pure entertainment.
While the kids were busy with that Sam and I were in a Fall Food mood :)  We looked up a recipe for Pumpkin Moose with Gingersnaps and Sam got to work on that.  I whipped up a batch of pumpkin/cream cheese dip for the apples we had picked and put a pot of spiced apple cider on the stove.  I love Fall!

2012 Week 38

Pretty rainbow on my walk with Sally one morning.  The big storm didn't hit until that afternoon.

Tyler has taken to sleeping with as many stuffed animals as we will let him sleep with - or that he can sneak into the bed after we tuck him in!  Shamu is one of his favorites lately, thought most of them get a turn.

Craft mess all over the place.  Lots and lots and lots of sewing, painting, etc going on

And our first real craft show was Saturday!  The set up went well, it was a beautiful day, lots of people (and people watching!  It was Mule Days in Benson, so there were plenty of "cowboys/cowgirls" with fun cowboy boots and outfits).  Overall sales though - blah. :(

Tyler lost his first tooth!  (9/23/2012)  He decided to have an apple with his dinner and that was all it took to get it to finally fall out.  He was pretty excited.  I whipped together a Tooth Tin for it and Sam took him to the grocery store to pick out ice cream to celebrate.

I'm really not sure if he got any sleep last night.  I realized I needed to check on the tooth fairy status at 3AM and when I went in his room I found him wide awake.  He never did fall asleep after that.  Good thing that tooth fairy is sneaky and still managed to leave some money!

 

2012 Week 37

It's been a very full week, with a lot of different things going on.

Lots of crafting on my part.  A friend and I are going to participate in a craft show and I've been working on items for that, plus new items for the etsy shop.  One morning this week I even managed to get Sally and baby Isabella over here for a photo shoot/hat modeling session.  She's a very happy cutie pie :)

We found Tyler had a loose tooth, then shortly thereafter discovered that the adult tooth was already pushing through behind it.  So I rushed to find a dentist and get him in for a check up.  The check up went very well and Ty's teeth are fantastic.  And the dentist said not to worry - his 2 bottom teeth will soon be falling out on their own.

It's time for the annual round of children's consignment sales, which Audrey always gets me excited about.  So I spent some time pulling together and tagging anything the kids were no longer using then headed to Audrey's on Thursday.  She had signed us up to volunteer at her son's school so we could get in on the pre-presale :)  So we had an hour of sorting and setting up, and hour running the cash box, and another hour of fun finding great deals for the kids.  Most of the rest of the day I just tagged along with her on her errands and routines with her kids (super-busy Thursday for her), then we were able to leave the kids with her husband (and mine were home with Sam, obviously - so nice!  And you know they had fun) and hit our second pre-sale then out for a yummy dinner (shrimp and grits!  The only southern food I get excited about, and only at one of her favorite local restaurants), but skipped the opportunity to see a movie (really annoying when you get to go see one for once and nothing sounds good) and started in on party prep for Maddy's bday party the next day.  We went to bed at some point around midnight.  Friday morning we hit one more sale (at this point we both had quite a few new things - including replacement slippers for Tyler's obviously well-loved and well-used old pair in the photo), then I helped out with errands/party prep until it was time for me to head home and get ready for my own party.  We had a family over for dinner (first real dinner party this year - no idea why we don't do it more often!) and it was a lot of fun.

Saturday it was back to craft show prep with more projects and a trail run of the tent set up for the craft show (we needed a photo of the set up for annother show application).

2012 Week 36

Just finishing up the long Labor Day weekend.  No real plans or Have Tos allowed us to spend plenty of time relaxing at home or at the pool.  Sam even had time to make homemade cinnamon rolls MMMMM.  We all overidulged that morning and had more than one for breakfast!

"No I can handle it!"  That's what Tyler said when Sam asked if he needed help finishing his second cinnamon roll.  In the end he didn't finish it, but he did eat all the icing off the top!

 Ahhh pool time.  Our neighborhood pool has saved us from many a hot and cranky free day at home.  We've gotten very good at quickly packing up the cooler and the bags, slathering on the sunscreen and spending a few hours in the water - sometimes enjoying the company of the neighbors but often getting the pool all to ourselves and enjoying that.
The kids absolutely love swimming and Tyler in particular has made huge improvements since the first of the year.  His latest accomplishment is swimming under water.  He takes a big deep breath, puffing out his cheeks, then under he goes!  He's actually faster at the under water part than he is with his doggie paddle across the top of the water.

You rarely catch Kaitlyn without her goggles because this girl LOVES to dive in the water, swim underwater, and have races across the pool with me as often as I will agree to it.  She's gotten pretty "tricky" lately attempting to "dive" backward or doing twists and turns or funny feet positions when she jumps.

Sam was in a particularly playful mood on Monday and was throwing the kids in the water and letting them stand on his shoulders. 

The long-awaited first day of Kindergarten arrived!  Tyler was so excited he woke up before 6:30 AM and we easily had him ready to go out the door, plus take the time for some decent "first day" photos and he still had enough time to clean up his toys (so the house was even clean on my first day having it all to myself)

I drove him to school on the first day - more for my own peace of mind than anything else.  Tyler had no problem finding his classroom and seemed to know exactly what he should be doing once he got there.  No hesitation, no fear - just confidant and fully ready to start the new school year.

I was a little sad all day knowing that my little guy is getting so grown up - but I didn't cry! ;)

He did great riding the bus home - and Kaitlyn did a great job as a big sister making sure he was where he needed to be and that he followed the rules on the bus.  And instead of being tired after his long day at school, he was hyper - and teasing!