First day of school Part 2

As soon as lunch was finished, it was time to get ready for school. Everyone went upstairs, brushed their teeth and got in their school clothes for the day. I am thinking as the week progresses, they will be picking out their own clothes again, and not needing the change of clothes before -and after- school. That should help make things a bit easier as well as help me keep laundry piles away from becoming mountains.


When everyone was dressed, hair was done and shoes were on, we headed out the door for some pictures before loading up in the car. Wyatt was fighting the sun, and I am pretty sure this is the only picture out of many that turned out of all three.


At the school we could see other parents and kids around the kindergarten area. Hopefully later this week I can send the kids to the playground area while they are waiting for their teacher. Today, the boys were just checking out the other kids backpacks. "There is another spider man!" "He has the superheros!" "Jax, look! His is like yours!"


When we got closer to the classroom, the boys switched their interest from the backpacks to the water fountain.


Soon enough, their teacher came out and collected her class. After quickly giving kisses to Don and I, the boys happily walked into their classroom.


I walked over and tried to get a picture of them in their class -luckily they were sitting where I was able to see them.




****After school****

A few things to remember...

-Lucas was sad and said he wanted to stay longer.
-Wyatt said he and Jaxon had "yucky" snacks (they had pretzel goldfish instead of regular goldfish)
-Jaxon was almost in tears before we got out of the parking lot. I think it had to do with the snack situation.
-Daddy diffused the situation by taking us out of "First day of school Icees"
-We now know NOT to buys pretzel Goldfish for snacks.

First day of School

(This picture was taken when Don took the boys to Touch A Truck in March, but I thought it was perfect for today)

School starts today. The boys are in the afternoon kindergarten, so it is about 10:45am now, and we still have almost 2 hours before their school day begins.

Don took the day off and he is in the shower right now. They boys are in their green Thomas tee shirts and underwear, Lucas is playing inside of Roxy's cage while she just lays next to her cage, panting away.

Wyatt and Jaxon are chasing each other around the house with laser guns shooting, Superman capes flying behind them.

I am starting to feel a bit jittery about it being the first day, but so far all has been well. We haven't made a huge deal of it, not wanting to cause any anxiety about it. The school is familiar to them since Lucas and Wyatt went to speech there once a week for about 6 months -and I am sure that is where much of all of our comfort is coming from. They will also have each other in the class room -the same class room we went and saw last week for the teacher meet and greet.

Asking Wyatt how he feels about school today he jumped up and down saying "good, good, good, good!" What is he most excited about? "Uh, the play class". I am thinking he means the play ground.

Jaxon says he feels "good" too. I asked him what he thought he would do today in school and he answered, "I don't know". I am not sure how he contains all that excitement.

Lucas on the other hand is "only happy". They are all too busy playing they caught an alien in the dog cage (now covered with blankets and towels) to be bothered with questions.



So at this point, there is no worries about school today.

At least not until everyone is dressed and walking up to the play ground....

Quilt part 3

I am slowly making progress over here. Seems like once I lost my steam, it took a week or so to pick it back up. Actually, it is more like I feel bad being locked up with the quilt. Once I get enough "family time", it is easier to decide it is okay to get some "mommy time" with this.


Here I have sewn two sets of circles together to make half a circle, then pinned 2 of the halfs together to make the full circle. On the side is the fabric I chose to use for the back.


See! Once line of stitching later and I have a whole circle!


Once I had all my circles done (18 in all!) Don and I laid 16 of them out on the bed to figure out how they should be sewn together.

I think I am about half way done...

Superhero Craze

Since a bit before the boys birthday, superheroes have been making a big rise in our household. Coloring books, books, a toy here or there and the boys thought it was neat. For their birthday, I made them superhero capes. Reversible superhero capes with a black side and a red side. Superman on the red side, and then Batman, Spider man and Captain America on the black sides. Jaxon wears his almost everywhere. Wyatt and Lucas sometimes wear theirs out, but not as often. If we go somewhere and tell Jaxon to leave it in the car, he gets a hurt looks on his face and asks, "How will they know I am Batman?"


Slowly our stash of superheros has gotten bigger. (Especially since a comic store near my moms house has opened up a couple weeks ago). The kids own more superheros than I even know of, and we have really relied on our NetFlix account for movies from X Men to Fantastic 4 (the boys call them the Awesome 4, no matter how often we correct them), to Justice League and Wonder Woman shows.


The boys love their Bat Man, Super Man and Iron man underoos, and since I have (reluctantly) started dressing themselves, most day you can find all three of them wearing one or two forms of superheros clothes.


Jaxon truly thinks he is a superhero. He scares the crud out of me, thinking of new ways to prove he is one. One day he had his hand in a drawer and was pushing on the drawer (with his hand still in it). When I asked him what in the world he was doing, he smiled and said, "It doesn't hurt, see?"


Sometimes I catch him jumping from the couch, a side table, or the stairs. "But Mom, did you see how my cape flys?" One day. he was touching the outside of the oven while brownies were cooking inside. "I can touch hot things and not be burned, just like Superman!"


Two or three times a week we call the Justice League before bedtime. It is all imaginary of course, but the Justice League puts the boys on call, and assure mom and dad that they will call if the boys are needed. So we tell the boys to get to sleep so they can be well rested, and off to dream land they go-Jaxon with his cape being used as a blanket (since we won't let him sleep in it) and sometimes one or both of his brothers doing the same.


I love my little superheros!

Inspiration

While hiding from my quilt, I was cruising the net. Maybe it started by blog hopping and turned into eating most of my morning, but I came up with these inspiration pictures of things I liked and may want to try in the future.

You know, when my quilt gets finished.



Would you like to share a link that inspires you?

Happy 5th Birthday!

This post is a bit late, but better late than never, right?




On the boys 5th birthday, they woke up to a room full of balloons. Since I had heard one of the boys leave the bathroom seconds before, Don and I ran to their bedroom door just in time to hear all their surprised gasps inside.



With the boys starting to get involved with superheroes, we thought some capes off Etsy would make a great birthday present. Unfortunately the women who makes/sells them never got back to me in time, so we came up with Plan B.


Plan B was to hurry and go to Joannes while the kids were in school and get the materials to make them myself. All three capes have a red side and a black side. Red is Super Man and the black sides vary with each cape -Captain America, Bat Man, and Spider Man. After 3 or 4 nights of sewing, the capes were done just in time for the boys birthday.


Since their birthday fell on a Saturday this year, they were able to have their birthday party on their actual birthday! Off to the park we went, where Daddy had lunch grilled and party ready.


I think ALL their little friends were able to make it to the party. Here are Andi and Jen's girls, some of Michele's kids and a couple of the boys.


At another table were Joselle's trio across from Cathy's boys and Trava and Lisa's children.


Wyatt and Regan playing chase
The weather was sunny, but really windy! We had a bunch of balloons, but had to keep them in the car since we could tie them down anywhere. The kids all still had plenty of fun running all over the place.


After the Happy Birthday songs were sung, Pops tried to get Luke to put his face in the cake. It is just something the two of them like to do whenever cake is in the room.


The only thing better than a birthday party is when it is time to open presents!


The last order of the night was birthday wishes. The park had been so windy during their birthday party, that we hadn't been able to have candles to blow out. Don and I sang Happy Birthday to them one last time and the boys all made their birthday wishes.

Wyatt: I wish for cheesecake!
Jaxon: I wish to go to Chuck E Cheese!
Lucas: I wish for another birthday!

Quilting part 2

My quilt is coming along pretty quickly. I sewed the little pieces together, and the next step was to sew the curved strips into the inside circle. All this pinning is taking so much time that I am afraid if I stop I'll never want to pick it back up again. So I have been going and going and going. All day, all night. Until my eyes felt like they were going to jump out of my skull in protest, then I stopped. And since have picked it back up a time or two, ironed a bit and then pinned some more.



Finally I got all the inside circle pieces sewed on, and began to work on the outer circle parts. Luckily I figured out a few ways to make the process go faster this time around (including getting my mom to help me iron!) and I have about 90% of them completely done.



I just have to get motivated to pick it back up and finish that 10% of pinning/sewing and then things will finally start to come together.

Roxy follow up

Roxy has found her place in our family. She puts up with all the torture loving from the boys, but gives to them as well well as they give to her. They tease her all the time -Wyatt loves to run to her, and run away screaming so she will chase him -but she eats their toys, so they are even I guess.

Roxy does not shed at all. We knew it could be possible that her coat would shed, but we are so thankful it was not the case for us. Her fur is so pretty and full. We got her a haircut a month or so ago, but with the weather being as it is in Las Vegas mid summer, the poor girl finds the coolest spot in the house to be the boys bath tub.

Roxy is now about 7.5 months old. She knows the basic tricks of sit and paw, as well as it seems she likes to stay close to me when we go outside now, instead of running off to greet any human she spots. She is a great watch dog at night, barking when she hears a noise, and then going off to investigate the sound. Don taught her to climb the ladder up to our summer pool, and we all get a kick out of seeing her doing it.





She has added lots of fun to our life, and we are so glad she fits in our family so well.

Jumbled Mess

The other day while sitting on the LoveSac in Annie's room while pinning my heart out on this quilt, I glanced up.



All put together, it is a jumbled mess. A longer glance made me laugh a bit because of how askewed it all was. With the boys playing in here in their new fort (why do they only play in here when I am trying to get some peace and quiet?) I have had to move the iron to right next to me. In order to do that, it needed lots of creativity to get it somewhat leveled. A broken drum, some unused baskets for the boys room now turned into a holding spot for clothes needing alterations or mending, and a discarded piece of wood almost gets the jobs done.

Lots of craziness going on in one small space, I am too well aware. But the little parts that make it up, made me smile and how put together it made a big mess. Just like my life. Probably looks crazy to the random outsider, but inside it all makes a bit more sense when you look at the little details in between.

Making a Quilt

I am finally making my first adult quilt. I made a child one last year for baby Gage, and another for my niece's first birthday a couple months ago. Both seemed to take a long time, and were challenging in their own way, but I am ready to step it up and make one for me to keep!

I have had the pattern (Denyse Schmidt's Single Girl) for well over a year. Since the pattern has been out for some time, it has been really difficult to find the same fabrics that she used in the picture. After lots of searching, I found all but a handful and then finally acceptable substitutes for the missing few.




The other day I finally started my cutting. It begins with about 30 pieces, and those need about 20 of each. My mom came over for a couple hours to help me get some of the cutting out of the way, but it still took me hours and hours to finish that first step.

Can't wait to start sewing so I can see it starting to come together!

Pioneer Days

A couple weeks ago, it was Pioneer Day. In our area there was a Pioneer Day celebration including a small parade followed by some festivities.

This was an ice cold river to teach the children about the pioneers who had to cross ice cold rivers during their journey. Here it was so cold, our kids used it to cool their body temperatures down!


There were also fun games for the kids. Pioneer games, of course. The boys made their own yo-yos and for the first time ever, they tried a three legged race.

The temperatures were around 100 at only 10 am, luckily the fire department made a stop and cooled us down. I loved the sound of all the people screaming in joy over being sprayed with the water.


Not sure that is how the pioneers did it, but it was fun for us!