Dalton's First Day of Pre-K

Dalton went back to school this past Monday the 22nd. Same school, same teachers, many of the same classmates...not much changed for him except that now he goes 3 days a week.

But still, it's exciting to head back to school. So he did his annual picture:


And showed us his backpack (it's the same as last year's...he didn't want or need a new one):


The whole family went to take Dalton to his first day--even Easton because Easton's school starts 15-30 minutes after Dalton's, which is actually kind of a pain because he can't even get in the building until 15 minutes later and the schools are maybe 3 minutes apart. We're going to have to find a way to kill some time in between some days if Jason's not dropping D off.

But he was excited to be on his way:


And he cracked us up on the drive. Seriously, the boy and his unintentional comedy...it's too much to keep track of. But man is he funny. So this time he was telling us that little kids think like this:


And grown-ups think like this, "Hmmmm":


Finally we made it to school.

We all walked him in. Emery's dad is in the background there as well as Holton's mom and sister.

When I picked him up and asked if he had a good day he said, "Yep and I didn't even pee in my pants." :) Okay then. He really didn't have much to say about his day...I bet it felt a lot like last year. The students that are new this year didn't even join them for the first day so it was probably just buisness as usual. I know he played with Emery and was bummed that she didn't ride home with us because I "said she was going to ride in our car!" Which she will be...now that Easton's in full day school I have an extra seat to bring Em home with us as a favor since I'd be up there anyway and her dad works from home.

His whole first week sounded rather uneventful which was just fine. I'm happy to start getting in to a school year routine again. Autumn needs to get used to it too. That first day both boys were in school she heard some static over the baby monitor and was all, "Eassie, come down!" and I said, "He's at school" so she changed to, "Dah-Doh?!" "Nope, he's at school too." It's just us girls 3 mornings a week now. Looking forward to some special time with my girl...even if we're only grocery shopping.

Next year it'll be her turn!

Owl Birthday

This morning we celebrated Autumn's 2nd birthday with a local family brunch. Except 2 local family members didn't even make it and one was laid up during...read on.

Autumn has been very excited about her "owl birthday" coming up. She doesn't particularly love owls on her own but shortly after her 1st birthday I chose owls for her theme for her next birthday. Seriously. I had considered ladybugs but went the owl route for some reason. My amazing applique-ing friend made a shirt for Autumn in December so I didn't really feel like changing it. It was a very casual event. I didn't go owl out like I should have/could have. Oh well.

When the first guests arrived I was in the shower and two of the 3 kids were still in their p.j.s so Jason took Autumn to get her dressed for her big day:


So, I made a few owl cupcakes for her:


We went with pink and brown for the colors:

That was the extent of our guests...Jessica and Caise, Gramoo, and Grammy and Grandpa John back there. Janna and Lauren couldn't make it this morning. :(

It took me a bit to get everything all together and ready to serve. We tried some brunch enchiladas for the first time and I re-made a couple of things like my doughnuts in pink and brown, of course, a fruit pizza which I didn't photograph but was very pretty. This delicious artichoke and ham strata, some mini blueberry muffins, some breakfast potatoes, my mom made coffee cake for me, and I made this punch that we've had a couple of times but I used raspberry sherbet instead of lime to make it pink. :)

As we were sitting down to eat I realized Jason and Easton weren't around and hadn't been for awhile. I went to investigate and apparently Easton was feeling nauseated up in the bathroom. Great. I came back down and we started eating. Then I heard the little dude get sick upstairs so I spent more of my time with him. He wanted his mama. He had another round pretty quickly after the first one, laid around crying about his tummy hurting so bad. Eventually he moved to my bed:

He's been fine ever since, though but as we weren't sure, we had him stay upstairs just in case. We didn't want him possibly germing up anyone else.

So Jason and I took turns with him and sometimes he was up there by himself watching a movie or playing Angry Birds and the party went on. Autumn got to open some presents...we're saving the stuff from us for her actual birthday on Wednesday.




Princess stuff! Someone's excited!


Caise too!




She was very excited to open the Baby Stella that Gramoo so carefully researched and selected:








She loves that Stella has a pacifier:


Thank you, Gramoo!


And Stella watched as her new mommy opened a new Baby Stella outfit from Grammy and Grandpa John:


Autumn got her first Barbie-type doll: a Belle ballerina from Caise as well as some Ariel bath toys. Plus a Disney Princess purse from Lauren with all sorts of girly princessy things inside. Our girly girl was in heaven.


And even though most everyone was super full from brunch, we brought out Autumn's owl cupcake:

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And took off her adorable shirt so she could eat it. Look at her tongue all ready to dig in:


Yum!


Yay!


Sparkly birthday princess!


Just love how Dalton dotes on her:




A little fun with Grandpa John who joined her for a cupcake:


Oh my! I'd say the cupcakes were a hit!


And pretty shortly after that Autumn and Stella went up for a nap, our guests headed out and we let Easton come downstairs. He's been just fine and is even eating and drinking. Hmmmm. I'm not sure what was up but I hope it's over, that's for sure!

Thanks for checking in. Can't believe our baby girl is about to be TWO!

Two (and a half) days in, school seems to be going well for Mr. E. He really doesn't talk about much that happens at school...at least not in the detail I'm hoping for: He went to art yesterday and he did a "free draw" of some rainbows. It rained when they were at recess and the teacher didn't notice...the students did. The boy with the Angry Birds shirt is named Jack. He got to work with "pattern blocks" and made the Statue of Liberty and a soldier (and he did go into great detail telling me which shapes he used for which parts of his creations). There is a Scooby Doo book there he likes. They haven't started on their computers yet. Oh...and he doesn't get much time for lunch.

I think the school is genius and they do recess first. Seriously, this is so smart because the kids don't rush through their lunch in order to get outside to play...instead they get to do that first and come in supposedly all hungry and thirsty.

But here is what I sent:

(Plus chocolate milk and two golden Oreos.)

and here is what came home:

(Plus half a chocolate milk and one golden Oreo.)

He said he didn't have enough time to eat. Huh??? It's not like he's got to get outside. Does he really have enough friends already that he's chatting? He's not the chatty one in most groups, usually. I'm really wondering if she doesn't give them much time (the kids eat in their classroom, not in a cafeteria) OR if he didn't like what I sent even though he said he wanted a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich. Cheetos are a bonus and he knows that. He's not a big chip person but he does enjoy Cheetos from time to time so I bought them just for his lunchbox and he ate nearly all of his peaches instead. Mr. Healthy.

The school charges a student fee for school supplies and their technology fee and field trips. That means all school supplies are provided and I didn't get to do any fun "back to school shopping" with E. We bought a lunch box and a backpack and that's it. Instead I got a few different containers for his lunch and snack fixin's and some fun things like cookie cutters and hard boiled egg molds and such as my school supply shopping. :)

Today he wanted to have one of the hot lunch offerings. He's a picky eater so most of their hot and cold choices really don't appeal to him but when I read him: "cheese pizza by the slice with a whole wheat crust, baby carrots, sunflower seeds, milk, and fresh fruit for dessert" he said "that sounds healthy, I want that!" and we ordered it (I think). I'm anxious to hear if a.) he got it and b.) he ate it. Next week he's scheduled to try their "all natural beef hot dog on a fresh baked bun with organic ketchup, sea salt pita chips, baby carrots, fresh fruit, and milk". He loves hot dogs and we don't buy them for our house. I'd love if he could have them at school now and then. We'll see what he thinks of it next week.

And hopefully he'll fill me in on more of his days. It's driving me crazy that more of his awake hours are spent at school than with me and I want to know exactly how he spends all that time!

Easton's First Day of 1st Grade

Our little first grader came out of his room as soon as the clock turned 7:00 this morning. Who knows how long he'd been up but the boy was excited. Autumn and Dalton were still asleep and we had over an hour before we even had to leave the house so he took his time having some OJ then he got dressed and played a little Angry Birds to pass the time while I made his breakfast and packed his lunch.



Those eggs aren't mutant...they're supposed to be heart shaped. Easton recognized it. I wanted him to know they were supposed to look like that so he wouldn't be afraid to eat them. :)

He sat to have a bagel and show me 1st grade:


Meanwhile Jason got Autumn and Dalton up and finally we decided to leave the house about 10 minutes earlier than planned. But first we had to take our "First Day of School" pictures:


Showing us this year's backpack:


Then we were off. I wish he was looking forward to his first day at his new school a little more:




Oh wait. His excitement was positively contagious.

Even though this isn't the school our neighborhood feeds in to, it is super close to us. Even closer than last year's school. Closer than Dalton's school, in fact. So we got there in no time at all. The whole family came along for the occasion:

(Yes, Autumn is now forward facing. Jason wanted to do it awhile ago. I talked him into waiting till 2 but she got car sick driving up to the mountains the other day and I thought turning her a few days early would be okay and might help with her car sickness. However, I feel like I should go off on a small tangent here to mention the recommendation from car seat aficionados is to rear-face them till their car seat manual says you can't anymore because of their rear-facing weight limit or if they get too tall up the back. Rear facing is safest. In the case of the Tiny S children, all 3 of them could/should/would still be rear-facing based on weight as our seat's rear facing limit is 40 pounds and not a single S kid weighs more than that. Still. However, Easton is too tall to rear face. The law here says that they must stay rear facing until they are 1 year old AND 20 pounds. So we're not breaking the law, even if it's not the safest option we still believe they're pretty safe. I'd have kept her rear-facing awhile longer if Jason was on board and Autumn wasn't suddenly car sick. End tangent.)

So, anyway, back to school...the school doesn't start letting kids in till 8:15 so Easton and I hopped in line with all the other excited families while Jason, Dalton, and Autumn stayed in the car. We met a kid who was going to be in Easton's class. "Z" we'll call him but it might be "X"...anyway, both E and Z/X had sharks on their shirt and Z/X was wearing the same super rad General Grievous tennis shoes Easton has (but wasn't wearing).

Finally they let us in:


Easton's school shares a building with at least 2 other schools (last year there were five in there, I think!). Anyway, his school is on the 2nd floor:




I had him lead me to his classroom if he remembered it (we went for Back to School night on Friday). He was cautious and looking carefully for his teacher's name on her door:




But he didn't get to read her name because he saw her instead! Ms. H greeted him with a handshake...doesn't she look friendly?


She seemed super great the short time we spoke with her Friday night. And she complimented Easton on his eyelashes then (and his cool hair and cool name) and this morning she grabbed his little face complimenting his eyes and eyelashes again:

He does have some pretty amazing eyes and his lashes are enviable, for sure.

Ms. H told the kids to pick whichever cubby they wanted...Easton did:


And then he made himself a little name tag:


Which the cutie then decided he wanted to decorate:




He started sticking it on the back wall of his cubby but it was for his shirt and the cubby sign was going to come later, I believe:


And then I decided I probably better mosey on. He gave me a giant hug and I didn't want to leave but I did. I pointed out some kids coloring and some boys looking at a book and encouraged him in one of those directions. This last one makes me a bit sad as he's looking back at me:


Then we left. I got a little misty eyed but I never did cry. Even though he's at school for more than 7 hours now!!! My mama's boy will now be spending more of his awake time at school than with me! :(

Jason drove us home and headed off to work and the little two and I had some breakfast, watched some Elmo DVD from the library, hung out with the neighbors across the street for a bit, had a snack (the same one I sent for Easton today), and then we took Dalton to get his back-to-school haircut, hit up Walmart, and back home for lunch and quiet time without my Eassie. I kept thinking of him, wondering how he was doing, if he'd eaten yet, if they'd played outside, if he'd had to go potty...

Lunch was a little weird. Dalton and I were at the table and Little Miss was throwing a fit on the floor:




Luckily it was almost naptime for her so that she could be up in time to go get her biggest bub. We left half an hour before school got out so we could be among the first in line, and we were!

Easton forgot that I'd packed him a snack so he didn't eat anything while everyone else did. :( Maybe no more Angry Birds while I'm telling him "important" things like the fact that he's got a snack packed in his backpack. He reported a good day. That his favorite part was the tour they took and "lunch recess" where he played "spies" with "one of his best friends" whose name he does not know but the boy was wearing an Angry Birds shirt. He told me that from his lunch he had "all my yogurt, about 8 pistachios, all of the eggs you packed for me, 1 grape, and 2 cookies" "Only two cookies...why?" "Because I didn't eat all my lunch". Awwww. What a good, honest boy. He said he doesn't like grapes that are big and cutting them in half won't help, they're just not as good overall. I made a mental note. I'll pack him something different tomorrow!