something so you won't forget me

This morning I had a Dr's appt and Daddy pitched in to take the kids to school for me. As I was eating breakfast, Alyssa made me a necklace and said "here is something so you won't forget me!" and she popped it around my neck giving me a big hug and kiss.

I had Dennis take a photo so you could see the lovely necklace and how colorful it was. I said to Dennis, "It's a good thing I don't work outside of the house, I can only imagine what she would have me wear if I was gone all day instead of an hour!"

I did wear it to my doctor's office and got lots of compliments from the receptionist, nurse, doctor, the technician and even people I passed by... but it was all worth it when Alyssa came out of kindergarten to see me still wearing it. She gave me the biggest hug and said "Mommy, I missed you!"

Silly, sweet girl!

oatmeal?

Today for lunch, I pulled out the peanut butter and the huckleberry jam, only to turn around to "No, Mommy, I want oatmeal for lunch!"

I found this kind of funny for two reasons. 1) I had just posted how cute it was to watch her make her own lunch. The fabulous PB&J and 2) it reminded me of a story when she was 2, almost 2 1/2 when she first decided that the only thing worthy to eat was PB&J... literally after about 2 or 3 months of eating only PB&J, one day at lunch I put her sandwich in front of her only to be startled with a big "yuck, what is THAT?" When I said "PB&J". She said "I DON'T eat PB&J" so I had to make her something different only to find the next day she requested PB&J.

You would think I should be used to this but today when she asked for oatmeal I couldn't help but laugh. When I took the photo, she first gave me a frown until I told her her grandparents would see this and so she gave all of you this...

angry bird...

Today after kindergarten, Alyssa and I came home to make lunch. I decided to take this photo because I find it absolutely amazing and precious to watch her make her own lunch.

I wanted to remember how sweet it is. The way she pushes a chair up to the counter. How she sings while she spreads her jam and peanut butter, licking her fingers the entire time but don't tell Dennis about that! How she insists on only Grandpa's huckleberry jam (what will I ever do if he stops berry picking and making his jam?) How she wants to do it all by herself even cutting them into butterflies afterwards which she declared was kind of hard and needed a little help today. This is what lunch is like right now after kindergarten and I love every minute of it.

Below is a little surprise... or at least I hope it is. I tried not to say anything just in case it didn't happen but it did!

Tonight was our annual street performance faire on Main Street (I love this sort of small, sort of big town!). Alyssa's dance class was invited back to perform their "Rockin' Robin" right there on Main Street! She was thrilled to be "on stage again" even though she was quite concerned about wearing her tap shoes on the pavement. 

She is on the right closest to the camera. This is the beginning of the song where it goes "tweedle deedle dee, tweedle deedle dee"

another part of the performance...

"rockin' and singin'... " but I love the fact that 7 Eleven is my backdrop!

Coming off stage and flapping her wings!

It was so sweet and so much fun to watch her get into the whole thing again. She loved being with her classmates again. She also love having a huge audience - several of our friends came and she really loved that! Her own fan club!



the anticipation...

... of back to school, for me, isn't really about the kids being back to school and gone for part of my day, although I did benefit from that today as I slipped into a 90 minute hot flow yoga class, but the anticipation of back to school for me is Thursday... or more specifically, Thursday folders...

For me, it's that little red folder peeking out... loaded with goodies and surprises for me ... a little peek into their life at school... seriously, the anticipation eats at me all week long, and on day's like today when they want to play a little after school on the swings or the tether ball, I am itching to get my hands on that folder...

Alyssa's folder was filled with art projects... sigh, heart melts and I see the same Chester the raccoon reappear with the Kissing Hand story. It's a lovely story and Alyssa was excited that she knew the story from when Jaiden was in Kindergarten, of course, she is very fond of the kissing hand and often gives me one for the day.

The only treasure in Jaiden's was his M&M Math... the rest was paperwork, not artwork either, a little sad for me. But he and I spent a good 10 minutes talking about his M&M Math and there were some tricky questions on there. Question number 10 was probably the highlight for the entire class, which read "Now you can eat them!" He was definitely proud of his smiley face sticker which you can't see very well here.

Well, it's another 7 days to the next Thursday...

a few wise words...

I keep meaning to post and then it gets late and I am tired... tonight is no different except that I have been meaning to post this since Tuesday morning. Our school had a fundraiser at our local baseball game, where our school's choir sang the national anthem. While we were driving to the game, we were asking the kids about school, what they liked, how it was going etc. It got a little quiet for a few minutes in the car and then Alyssa broke the silence.

A: The boys in my class are misbehaving and goofing off a lot.

J: Well, that is what boys do.

A: Well, Mrs. B doesn't like it and neither do us girls.

J: Everyone will get used to it. It is just what boys do. They get silly and goof off.

A: They shouldn't. It's not nice.

J: No they shouldn't but boys can't sit still for long and so that is what happens.

All I could do was snicker in the front seat. Dennis too!

A is for apple...

... and so we begin the 1st day of school.

Jaiden's morning highlights:

~ when I went to wake him up, I noticed his neatly laid out clothes were no longer on the floor, then I noticed he had slept in them?!

~ breakfast request: pancakes

~ hot or cold lunch: hot

~ why he slept in his clothes... so he could sleep an extra 5 minutes longer

~ excited or nervous about school: bummed summer is over

my sweet 2nd grader

who I promised I would put up an ugly face if he smiled for me.

Alyssa's morning highlights:

~ slept past 7 am, in fact I had to wake her at 7:45 am... now why can't she do that on weekends and summer vacation?

~ first thing she asked for: where's my special coffee? followed with where's Daddy?

~ also enjoyed pancakes

~ excited or nervous: excited for homework! and to learn to read!

~ social butterfly or shy girl? so very social as she reunited with her best friend, Marayah (who we thought had moved away) as well as many more

my sweet baby kindergartner

and her chicken face...

my all time favorite iconic back to school photo... when they walk out the door and start down the street... it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about how much they have grown up and another year has gone by...

my sleepy and hot class of 2024 kindergartner... I forgot that they did these crowns on the first day so I was bummed I didn't get a photo of her walking out her classroom. She was ear to ear beaming and bubbling with lots of hugs, smiles and kisses. She LOVED her first day and can't wait to go back for more.

Jaiden had a great day too but he CAN wait another day, maybe a week, quite possibly a month before he heads back - but he was excited that Mrs. Murphy will be handing out the cleanest desk award each week. After this summer's award for the stinkiest sock award at camp, I am hedging my bets that it will take him a little longer to get he cleanest desk award!

fashionista

While Daddy and Jaiden went to get their hair cut, I was treated to a fashion show of Alyssa and Jaffy (her giraffe). After the 3rd outfit change, Alyssa requested I take photos, here are her last two outfits...

Bumblebee twins

purple fairy twins

And then before I knew it was time to eat, bathe and get ready for school?! Yep, school starts tomorrow and I can hardly believe it. I am not nearly as prepared as I was last year since we got home so late and only a short time to pull it together... sigh, oh well!

These aren't my best photos but I thought it was so cute that both kids still like to lay out their clothes for the next day so here is a sneak preview of first day outfits!

Jaiden's attire - love that he still puts his underwear on top of his shorts!

Alyssa's ensemble complete with a pearl necklace and pink heart pendant (one of her treasures from my gramma for dress up costume jewelry but in her eyes, it's really fancy!)

alpine slide.... whee

It turns out Park City is really full of mini ski communities - the mountain is huge! I would love to go back some time when I could actually ski it but in the meantime, we found the summer play ground and Daddy and the kids took a short, well actually long, ride down on the alpine slide. This was much longer than the alpine slides we have been on before.

going to the moon

I am actually a day behind in this blogging on the road, but I am thrilled to be able to type these posts while Dennis is driving and then when I reach a place with wifi, I can submit these straight from my iPad! I am so in love with all of these technical toys... My 7d and my iPad make quite a pair...

Okay, so onto what we did yesterday! We did visit the moon... Craters of the moon, just outside Boise. It was very interesting even though I felt like I had been there before because it was so similar to Sunset Crater in Arizona. The kids were not too excited to do the walks but became more interested when we started exploring some of the caves or lava tubes... not exactly sure which they were. Here are a few photos of the lava field, and a few of the caves.

and the laughs go on and on and on...

What kind of car does Luke Skywalker drive?
A Toyoda!

Why did the little skeleton feel left out?
He had no body to play with!

How do monsters get to school in the morning?
On the ghoul bus!

What do you call a bear in the city?
Lost!

Thanks to our new 101 crazy kids joke cd, this is what we are hearing over and over while we drive through this...

a make shift dollhouse...

In May, Uncle Woody surprised the girls with cleaning and setting up Cyndi's and my old dollhouse. Courtney and Alyssa were delighted with it and played endlessly with it while we were visiting then. When we returned on this trip, Courtney and Alyssa were able to choose and divvy up the dolls and furniture. Alyssa is in love with hers... so much so that she carries her shoebox into each hotel room and finds a place to set up home.

more visiting...

It has been a busy week filled with lots of work and some play. On Monday, we visited my Mom at her house and then drove over to my Oma and Opa's place for a much longer visit than I expected. I had hoped we'd get to spend some time at the beach but sadly that didn't happen. The kids did get to go swimming in their condo's pool for 2 hours, which was a good thing because the time prior was inside and trying to keep them entertained without getting too crazy! I didn't take any photos inside prior to the swimming but here are a few outside at their condo's pool.

bittersweet

Today, we spent time at my Papa's farm. My sweet sister had done the bulk of the work by going through literally every nook and cranny in their house and putting aside anything she thought one of us would like. I had some specific requests so I had those set out and put near my car but the rest of the day was spent sorting and sifting, while my dear brother and his friends did the hard labor of cleaning out the shop and barn. I took a little time to wander and photograph the relics that were brought out of the shop and barn. It made me so sad to see all of this knowing this would be the last time I would be wandering, snooping and enjoying my grandparent's farm.

These are a few of the details I tried to capture, a lot of these I envision post-processing but that will wait until I get home. The last photo is of Jaiden, Wesley and Karina, in the barn, consumed in their own play (I think Wesley had his DS with him at the time). The three of them spent a lot of time on that pile of hay, who knows what they discussed or if they talked, but for me, it reminded me of all my memories with my sister and brother growing up on their farm, and it was bittersweet to watch the cousins experience the farm one last time

ice tea stand

This was sent to me by Tyler's mom while Jaiden was over playing yesterday afternoon. They looked so cute so I zipped over to buy some iced tea. I guess they sat out there for an hour and no one came by. I was informed I was their first and only customer! but they were happy to be out there eating popsicles!

twins...

"Can we be twins, Mommy?" or "Is today twin day, Mommy?"

This is a question I am asked frequently and so I indulged her.

We now have not only matching hats but matching dresses so we can be twins. I must say despite the fact that I resisted this at first, I am thoroughly enjoying her excitement when we are twins. I know this will pass and so in the meantime, I feel a bit self conscious in public wearing matching dresses, but I smile knowing one day she will have no desire to be associated with me... let alone a twin!

And I am throwing one more photo in because:

my dear Peep, Viv took these photos

AND I really ADORED this one of Alyssa that she took.

 

There were several others but this one was too precious to not include. In a short 15 minute visit, Viv managed to capture Alyssa and I exactly as we are. I love that kind of talent and I had to show her photos off, not to mention it is the rare time I am actually on the other side of the camera!

 

Thank you Viv!

rocket boy and twist & twirl girl

Happy August! Is it really August 1st? Didn't I just ask where did the school year go? And now, I am left wondering where the summer went? Only a couple more weeks until school starts. In the meantime, you will find us here...

at the pool because literally, I feel like I live at the pool lately! Today wasn't as hot, but these two would swim, play in water even if it was 50 degrees out there!

This is rocket boy...

... he has me count from when he starts to finishes...

currently he is at 5.5 seconds.

He also discovered if he took off his swim shirt and lay down, he'd go faster - fast enough to shave off a second!

And this is twist and twirl girl...

... her latest jumping board move and what a little cutie she is!