3rd week of October, 2016

She loves the slides and is fearless (even in her cute dresses)

He was really into it and was even serenading me with my own rock ballad.  "I love you.  I love you, yeah!  I love you.  I love you, yeah!  I love you, mommy.  I love you, yeah!  I love you, mommy.  So much, the rest of your lives.  And so much that I love you.  I love you so much that I'll never ever forget you."

All three of them had guitars to play rock and roll.

Enjoy some of the kids' "rock and roll"

Peter and I went to meet with Maxwell's teacher after school for Parent/Teacher Conference. 

 (I had gone a few weeks ago to talk about how he was doing.  I asked to meet with her because I was concerned that we were more than one month into school and I still felt like I was yet to see him being challenged or learning anything new - especially in math.  She showed me some of his writing and drawing and talked about how she was challenging him to give her more details and tell/show her more.  She basically said that in regards to math that they would only be covering kindergarten curriculum.  I asked if he could possibly go to first grade for math and she said she would ask the principal (the answer that came back was no).   I was really hoping to walk away feeling like she was engaged in helping him learn and grow this school year but unfortunately I didn't walk away feeling much better.  She said they were finishing up assessing each of the kids and that the kids would be put into learning groups for certain subjects with kids at their level.  So, my hope was that being grouped with kids with higher skills would help a little.  So, when I showed up today I was hoping that I might get a difference experience from the P/T Conference.) 

Here was her feedback.  Subitizing is basically having the kids look at dots and comprehending what the number is without having to count the dots (think dice).  So I said what numbers should he be working on and she said numbers above 10.  So, I guess we will work on that.

Maxwell's picture about the pumpkin patch.   I'll translate -

"I saw pumpkins.  I saw lots of pumpkins there."

We are still getting cucumbers from our garden!

Happy with her Halloween sticker

Britt had lunch with the boys at school and brought Emmalyn along.

I had a work trip to attend NACS - The National Association of Convenience Stores convention.  It's fun to spend time with some of my CROSSMARK associates plus it's a good opportunity to spend time with my clients as well.  I also walked the floor collecting bags of candy/snacks/trinkets/etc.  It is such a huge convention!

Me, Alla, and Maureen went to dinner at this crazy restaurant called "the Vortex" in Atlanta

I got the burger in the middle.  It was delicious but oh so unhealthy. I got a salad as my side to compensate but it was covered in bacon, cheese, and croutons so not very healthy.

While I was out of town, they had a dinosaur exhibit at the school one of the evenings.  The kids all had a good time.

Peeping into the neighbor's yard

Silly kids.  It's a very small hole.

Being goofy with Uncle Joe - she adores him.

This will be Maxwell's Halloween costume. We got it out to try it on.  He LOVED it.  He specifically wanted to be a blue ninja.

Ninja moves

And of course, she's got her own ninja moves.

We got our garage doors and front door re-stained.  After living in the house 4 years, they needed it.  They look so nice!!

First Week of October 2016

Maxwell writing love notes to family we've seen lately like Natalie and Aunt Tammy.

We are excited to be starting a new semester of Kindermusik!  

Emmalyn came with Maxwell and I to his pediatricians to get our flu shots.  She loves going to the doctors - always!

Woo hoo - we did it! (I think this might be his first time getting it in his arm.)

Emmalyn sat outside and enjoy a healthy (ha!) lunch of a McDonalds happy meal while Maxwell was in his Kindermusik class.

Maxwell has moved up to the "young child" class where he will be learning how to read music and how to play a glockenspiel - it's like a xylophone.

Rootbeer floats and a movie at home

Enjoying her candy bracelet from our "boo" stash (see last post)

Maxwell doesn't have homework other than reading but this particular book had instructions on making a treasure map so he had fun doing that.

Helping Momma with the gardening

Maxwell's sort of report card for writing.  Not bad to have all but one marked off when he's only been in class 1 month.  This is the form with the expectations for the whole year.

I had put up Halloween window clings and this pumpkin was destroyed by Emmalyn.  She's not horribly destructive but certainly more destructive than Maxwell is.

Comin at ya!

Peter and I really enjoyed seeing Rent together.  It's been more than a decade.  I really love the music, especially the first half.

Maxwell had spirit week and one of the days was walk to school day.

We didn't walk the whole way but we drove the car across the street into the neighborhood where the school is and walked part of the way.

Emmalyn loved tagging along on the walk with Mom and Dad.

One of the other spirit days was "wear your pajamas to school" which he has NEVER wanted to do and he totally wanted to this year.  That's a big change for him.

Sweetly sleeping during her nap - puppy on one side of her head and turtle on the other.

Britt and I took the kids to the Heard Museum to check out their live action dinosaur exhibit where the dinos move and make noises.

Maxwell was excited to use his map to guide us along.

The first dinosaur we came upon.  The kids all look happier than they really were.  We had some scared kiddos.

She would wave to the dino but only from far away.

Maps - always a win with this age

This one is called the "Utah Raptor"  It's pretty scary looking.

This one spits at you.  They were much more life like than I was expecting.

Playing in the wood town before we left.

Maxwell is doing tennis lessons outside and in the morning this time around.

Emmalyn and I checked out the pumpkin patch after Kindermusik one day.

My little readers

We stopped by Costa Vida to take a selfie in order to try to win free Costa Vida for a year when they opened.  We ended up meeting the owner and he let the kids come in and check out the restaurant and the bubble wall.  He was a really nice guy and we can't wait for them to be open!! (sweet pork salad - yummm)

Emmalyn is awful at picking at her scabs.  She just doesn't leave them alone and so they stay wounded forever.  As much as I don't like bandaids (they are addictive for kids!), we have had to put those on her to get her to leave them alone.
She says, "hip hip hooray" so cutely!
She will add "for?" on the end of questions. For example, "What are you going to work for?"
She can open all the doors in the house now except the back door because it's more sticky and hard to open.  This is both a good and bad thing because you can't keep her out anymore.
Emmalyn can take off her pajamas and diaper by herself in the morning (zipper pjs and shirts/pants pjs).
Twice in the last week she has peed on the rug on the bathroom.  GRRRRR.  One time, it was right after I had her sit on the potty and nothing happened.

Maxwell is now tall enough that he can turn on the lights!  Our lights are high on the walls and so he'd have to get a stool or something to turn them on.