The First Day of School: Mikey

Time for Mikey's first day of Pre-K!

He won't let me call it preschool.

He tells me, very matter-of-factly, that, "Pre-K is the name of the class I am in that is in the building that is called preschool."

He was very excited about being in Pre-K.

But when the day came to actually go......

Well, he was less than excited.

One of his bestest pals felt the same way.

There are 23 kids in his class (including him).  It was kinda overwhelming to see them all out on the playground.  It was even overwhelming for the grown-ups.

This is only 14 or 15 of them.....

It kinda helped that his first day was also my day to "work" at the preschool.

So he was able to get into the swing of things easily.

Here he is sharing Donatello in front of the class with Teacher Dorothy.

He had a lot to say.

A little art project.....

..... and then doing the calendar and the pattern.....

....and getting to be "line leader" because his Mommy brought snack.

It was a crazy first day at presch.....Ooops.  I mean Pre-K.

When we got home.  It was back to normalcy.

Knocking down spider webs with sticks while wearing his "bitey spider whacking" outfit.

This past weekend we attended a "Walk for Wishes" event

to benefit Make A Wish with some of our preschool buddies.

Here's Katie palling around with a fellow preschool alum.

Mikey was ready to roll.

Literally.

He rode in the stroller.

The walk started off cheery enough.

Katie and her friend decided it was going to be a "RUN for Wishes" and took off with Huzbend in hot pursuit.

Then there were the rumbles of thunder.

Then there were some raindrops.

Then LOTS of big, giant raindrops.

And then a full on downpour.

Holy soakage, Batman.

But, we all made it to the "finish".

We were a tad soggy, but happy that we could help grant some wishes in our own small way.

GIRRRRRRLLLLL POWER!!!!!

The First Day of School: Katie

And so, just like that, summer was over.

It was back to school time.

"Waaaaaahhhhh"

We attempted a group bus stop shot.

Success!!!

There's a lot of kids at 'dat 'dere bus stop.

And then it was time to get on the bus.

(Finally.  The bus is always late on the first day). 

Mikey and I had to run up to the school to help host

a "Tears and Cheers" PTA event that morning after the bell rang.

We didn't know if we would make it on time to see Katie get off the bus.

But, we did!

UGH.  400 POUNDS OF SCHOOL SUPPLIES ARE HEAVY!!!

Phew.  Mom can you help me with this?

We were able to show her to her classroom and give her a kiss goodbye.

And then it was off to Costco, then to a friends place to get a 

donated projector working for the preschool, then to get a haircut for Mikey,

then back to the bus stop, then to preschool to try to get that projector working again.....

You see how it goes.

School starts and so does EVERYTHING else.

Fall = Time to be busy in a less sunny way.

Good thing we have plenty of Legos around for when the rain comes.

Oh.  And it's also time for giant spiders to invade our house.

You've seen these guys before on the blog.

Giant House Spiders.

They run really fast.  Gross.

Catching Up Summer: Part Seven

There was a recovery period after the family left.

It was good that Katie was in her theater camp that week.

Mikey on the other hand, was pretty lonely.

Joey was gone.  Katie was at camp.

He got up to some crazy stuff trying to entertain himself.

Here is his "SnakeEyes" costume.
Notice the snake.

I'm not quite sure what this is.

This time a butterfly super hero.

Ready to flutter in and kick ass or something.

He even became invisible at one point.

(Any four year old worth his salt knows that turning your clothes inside out makes you invisible.)

"Mom-uh!  You CAN'T see me!  I'm invisible!!"

It was time to settle into a "get ready for school to start" routine.

With semi-earlier bedtimes.

We tried.  I swear.

There was one last thing we had to do before school started.

Visit the Fair!

Every year we have to visit the chickens and the dogs.

It's funny, 'cause they are in the same pavilion.

Just on opposite sides.

Mikey was NOT impressed with the chickens.

Then it was time for rides.

It seems the only reason the kids want to go to the Fair nowadays is for the rides.

Forget cows and baby piggies.

Oh wait.  Can I revise that?

They go to the Fair for rides AND ice cream.

This year I managed to avoid all the carnival games by explaining that I could buy the same thing at Oriental Trading for less money.

It worked.

Oh wait.......there is a little love for the cows!

This one tried to eat Katie's hat and then drooled on her.

She loved it.

One last ride before we headed home.

And then it was the last day before the first day of Katie school.

We hung out at the house and did a blissful nothing.

The calm before the storm.

Catching Up Summer: Part Six

Katie just reminded me that I forgot to post a picture of one of her art projects.

This is a picture of a rose.

And it's funny, 'cause I painted a picture of a flower on a completely separate occasion and they look REALLY similar.

Creepy.

Okay.

Now onto the next set of summer events.

This is gonna be a long one......

We've got Katie's 7th Birthday AND a visit from Aunt Kelly, Granma, Joey and Sophie!

The visit started off slow.  And that was okay.

Here they are enjoying chocolate rice cakes on the deck.

Then Katie and Soph kicked it up a notch.....

Katie's 7th Birthday came in the middle of their visit.

She wanted a "sea cake".

I frosted and she decorated it with Katie and Joey made fondant creations.

Yum!

Then she opened some presents.

This picture is just SO Katie.

She's engrossed in a Batman book and there's a set of MLP's

(My Little Ponies, for those not up on the lingo)

on the floor next to her.

The next day, while Mikey was at summer camp

and the family was sleeping off the cake, she decided that she

wanted to go get her ears peirced.

This had become a constant question since she attended Girl Scout Camp.

I had no reason to say no.

I explained all that was going to happen and that it was gonna hurt.

She STILL wanted to go.

There was no deviating her off the path.

And so we made the pilgrimage to the mecca of ear piercing......

She was excited and determined.

Then the marker came out and Katie's demeanor changed.

She was serious and quiet....for a change.

And then, it was time for the gun.

OWEEEEE.

The first one was a shocker.  Katie jumped out of her seat.  I don't think she expected it to hurt that much.

She had tears glimmering in her big blue eyes and held my hand for the second punch through.

She took some deep breathes when it was done and held back the tears.

The lady shoved a lolly pop in her mouth and quickly got out the mirror to distract her.

She was ecstatic.

There's nothin' that a lolly pop can't make better.

Having pretty blue flower earrings in her ears didn't hurt either.

We spent that afternoon at a local park.

Then it was home to eat some pizza and get ready for the Glow Run.

It was actually called the "Electric Run".

But we thought Glow Run was a much better name.

It was really, really fun.

It was at night.  There was lots of glowey stuff and lots of booming dance music.

Kelly had to warm up before the big run.

It actually ended up being a big fast walk.

Two strollers and a tired 7 year old kinda slowed us down.

No worries though.

Still had a good time.

We waited at the start line a looooong time.  We had gotten there late and there were A LOT of people.

Did I mention the booming music?

It was pretty loud.

The kids loved it.

There were "party buildings" that had their own dedicated theme and music.

Here's us in the "bubble house".

Joey did great.  He ran for about 10 minutes, I think.

Then decided to take a break in the stroller and well, fell asleep.

Here we are close to the finish.

The finish line was actually right outside a building which housed a huge party.

Awwww-hawww-some!

Joey slept through the SUPER LOUD music.  Couldn't believe it.

We took a few minutes to dance along.

I think the kids coulda stayed till the end.

They were totally into it.

Everyone got to sleep in a little late the next day.

Katie's birthday party wasn't until the afternoon.

It was at a ceramic painting place.

On Katie's choice they had decorated the place with a Hawaiian theme.

So, we made Katie-designed "Volcano Cupcakes".

Chocolate cake with strawberry pie filling inserted in the center.

Topped with chocolate frosting with the pie filling drizzled on top to 

look like a volcano erupting.

They were DE-LIC-IOUS.

Crazy sugar overload face.

Mikey just about bounced home.

We had some extra time at the end of the party, so they broke out the face painting supplies.

Here are the Rose Triplets.

And the butterfly twins.

Then we got home and the kids ran off the sugar with a nice game of backyard soccer.

Okay.

There's no rest for the totally awesome.

The next day we lined up to run the Mini Muddy Buddy.

It's a child-sized mud run for kids age 4-11.

Poor Soph couldn't run, but she and Granma were good cheerers.

Here's a pre-run game face photo.

Mikey and I were first.

Here's our run in it's entirety.

It's a bumpy video.  I apologize if you get a little sick watching it.

And it's long.  Almost 5 minutes.

Mikey decided that he was going to do a mud walk and

not a mud run.

Here's a vid that Granma took from the sideline of us.

Here's Kelly and Joey and their journey though the mud.

And last, but not least, Katie and Huzbend.

This was the aftermath.

It seems like the adults took the brunt of the mud explosion.

Katie did a pretty good job getting dirty.

We had to get the mud off somehow.  The lake was mighty convenient.

Mikey wasn't too sure.

But, lucky for him, he wasn't really dirty and didn't have wash off in the lake.

When you get to our age, 

You gotta suck it in and stick it out to get a good photo.

Then we drove home for a nice relaxing afternoon.

Like, reading books on a phone.

I guess I shoulda put this on the previous update with the summer camps stuff.

Ooops.

The kids last day of summer soccer was the same day that the family had to leave.

Mikey's ready to play.

Mikey cracks Joey up.

Next, it was Katie's turn to play.

Here she is with her soccer ice cream.

It was enjoyed by Granma.

Then everyone had to say goodbye.

As my sister said as I hugged her, "It never gets any easier, huh?"

And she's right.  It doesn't.

And then my Mom went and did something that made me cry for the rest of the day.

She called me "Kiddo."

Ugh.  

I didn't expect to hear that.

Something about hearing that word just set me off.

A whole bunch of emotion wrapped into that one word, I guess.

Memories and feelings that I hadn't thought about in a while.

I just had to remember how I explained it to Mikey when I was 

helping him calm down the day he didn't want to stay at summer camp.

It's okay to miss people you love.  And to be sad that they are going away.

But, you have to remember, that the people that love you will still love you even when they go away.

You can be strong and brave knowing that there are people out there in the world that love you no matter what.  And, as you know from preschool, they will always come back.