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.

Maxwell goes to Kindergarten!

The night before, Maxwell read "The Night Before Kindergarten".

We laid out his clothes for the first day the night before (He calls this making a Maxwell).

I wrote his teacher this note all about Maxwell.

Landen and Hayden ready for the first day.

The whole day I was just excited for him.  No tears were shed (pretty good for me).  But it was hard to feel sad when I just knew he was so ready for this!

First day of Kindergarten - he wants to be a police officer when he grows up (I had no idea what he was going to say when I asked him the question so this was a surprise to me.)  Then he wanted to draw a picture of himself and me on the chalkboard too.

Ready to go!

Peter and I drove him to school (we left Emmalyn at Mrs. Mary Ann's) and walked him inside.

He found his spot for his backpack - number 11.

He just walked in so confidently, hung up his backpack, and went to class.

Saying good morning to Mrs Garza

Looking for his spot at a table.  The dad in the picture was blocking Maxwell's spot so he had trouble finding it and I could see him getting a little nervous when he couldn't find his spot.

Found it!

And then we left...

He immediately got engaged in working on his page.  It was no big deal to him.

Emmalyn had a great time at Mrs Mary Ann's and didn't want to leave when we came to pick her up.

Peter and I had both taken the day off so once Emmalyn was home with Brittany, we got started on our date day.  We dropped off his car to get some work done on it and then had breakfast at Panera. (Or - more accurately, I had breakfast at Panera while Peter watched because he was doing intermittent fasting.)

We drove back past the school when it was time for recess and watched him for a minute.  He was easy to spot thanks to those yellow shorts.  He was playing on the playground with Landen.  There are more than a 100 kids in Kindergarten and they were all outside playing on this playground.  There isn't any large field or grass area like when I was in school.  Just the playground and some bball hoops and cement.  The line to get down the slide was quite long.  :(  It was good to see him having fun though.  I wish I could be a fly on the wall and watch his whole first day!

After we spied on Maxwell, we went to the craft store to buy the wood letters for Maxwell's birthday pictures.  After that, we went to the mall to have my wedding rings inspected (I do it twice a year).  Peter decided he wants to start a new tradition of buying me jewelry on the first day of school, so I got some topaz earrings and a pretty pearl bracelet.  We will see if this tradition continues...

A funny thing happened as we were walking to the jewelry store.  We ran into Emmalyn and Brittany!!  Apparently Britt had brought her to the mall to play on the kids playground (she was missing having all the boys around).  She was still wearing her PJs...not a usual occurrence according to Britt.  Emmalyn was sad the first day and asking where Maxwell, Landen, and Hayden were.  She's going to be lonely home alone all day for the first time.

Emmalyn was NOT happy when we left.  Poor girl just wanted to be with her mom and dad but we had a kid free day planned.

After the mall we picked up Subway and went to visit my old boss, Michelle, who had just had a baby - Jack.  He is so tiny!!  It was a odd juxtaposition of events to be around this little baby on the same day I had dropped off my baby to go to school.  It's just amazing how my baby Maxwell turned into a school-aged kid.

Baby Maxwell - big kid Maxwell

A little snapchat fun with Emmalyn

After our visit with Michelle, it was time to pick up Maxwell so we went and waited in the carpool line (that took forever!!!)

I was excited to grill Maxwell about his first day.  He said it was a good day.  He asked if he could have school lunch tomorrow because those kids got chocolate milk (laugh, priorities for a 5 year old).  He also asked if I could do scooby doo crackers for snack.  Uh, not going to happen.  I'm sure it was a bummer to have his healthy lunch next to the many treats of those sitting at his lunch table.  He said the best part of his day was getting to go in Ms Corrigan's class twice.  Apparently they move into other classrooms for parts of the day.  He is in the same rotation group with Avery, his friend from our neighborhood, for "specials" and they sat by each other.  Specials are Art, Music, 2 days of PE, and Health & Wellness.

After we picked him up, we took him to target to spend a giftcard he got for his birthday - he loved doing that!

Pokemon cards

Then, we stopped on the way home for an ice cream cone to celebrate the first day of school.

Emmalyn loves playing doctor

Look at how tight that curl is!

Playing with chalk

More bike riding practice

Emmalyn running after them.  He was able to ride down our side of the street all by himself!  Now, we just need to work on starting and stopping.

The next day of school, we dropped him off again (because I wanted to get a pic with his teacher since we haven't done that yet).  He was very excited to go.

I asked her impression of him.  She was he was a very sweet boy, was a good listener and did everything she asked.  She used him as an example to the other kids a few times of how he was behaving, like in line.  (proud momma moment)

He is bringing home papers with coloring...and cutting lines.  He did write his numbers and alphabet.  It all is so very basic.  It may take a few weeks before he is challenged.  Hopefully he is challenged at some point.  He has sight words to learn but since he since he already knows them, we are making them spelling words for him to practice.  The kids don't have any formalized homework in Kindergarten.  They want the kids to have time to play, be kids, and just ask that we read with them every day.   I love it!

On the third day, Maxwell was nervous to be dropped off rather than walked in but he said it went okay.  So, a great start to public school!