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!!

Let there be light!

Second week of April 2015...

This girl loves cereal.  Unfortunately it just becomes a messy ordeal in the morning when we give it to her.  She spills Max's or hers all over the place and then eats it off the floor.   Oh man...

Happy girl.  She's so happy and cute, she draws lots of attention when we eat out.

I had to supplement Emmalyn's milk intake with frozen milk and some formula this weekend.  I just don't have the output needed. :(

She waves all the time and has started blowing kisses.

I swear she says "yeah".

She is super cranky when you try to wipe her boogers and she produces SO MUCH DROOL!

She's demanding and screams loudly to get attention.

I got to read books to Maxwell's class during their library time this week.  I took a pic as I was leaving and captured Maxwell blowing me a kiss.  :)  He's fine now when it's time for me to leave.

Jacek, Maxwell, Harper, and Malia

The other kids get excited when I come to read to them too. It's super sweet.  They want to hold my hand or walk by me or talk to me.  I love getting to know the kids that Maxwell goes to school with.

...and since I was out of the office already, I stopped at In-N-Out for lunch.  Delicious!

My little swimmer - he loves swimming lessons.

Ha!  Those baby shades are so big on her!

FINALLY!!! We had a soccer practice.  We ended up having to rent space at the indoor facility but I am totally willing to pay a little bit to help get more out of this experiencing!

Cousins

My house is so dark.  Here's how "lit" it is with the lighting installed by the builder.  There are no uplights and the little solar powered lights along the path to the front door hardly do anything.  It's been my biggest dislike about my house.  I feel like it's not very inviting.  So finally we are doing something about it!!!  This is the "before" pic.

Here is the "after" with just the newly installed LED lights (that are on an automatic timer - - it's soooooo awesome!  They come on when it gets dark and go off in the morning.  I never have to turn them on or off and I didn't even notice a change in my power bill!)

And the full "after" with the new lights and the old lights.  I love it so much!!!  I am incredibly happy with the lights on the house and the lights on the path.  

She loves her time at the park

Video - Emmalyn is so different from Maxwell in that she loves puppies!  She's super cute in this video and then a stroke of luck, we caught her very first "kiss" on video!  She figured out how to make a kissy sound!!! and boy is it cute.

So tired that she fell asleep before the end of our bedtime routine.

Maxwell basically stays dry now at night.  He may have 1 wet pull-up in 3 weeks.

One morning this week, he woke up and called for me like he always does.  So I went into his room and he wanted me to cuddle.  When I got up into his bed he goes, "There's still hair you can touch." because he wanted me to play with his hair.  :)

She loves playing with books in the morning when she wakes up

Miss Mary Ann and Jared came to cheer Maxwell on at his soccer game.  We are so blessed to have such great neighbors!

We were planting our spring flowers and Mary Ann was working on her yard outside as well so Maxwell decided he wanted to take a bunch of flowers over to give to Mary Ann so they planted them together in her front yard.  She was so great with him and let him plant them even though they didn't match her other landscaping.  He was so happy! (I think he had more fun helping her than he did me!)

Helping Momma water after everything was done.

All planted and ready to go

Hopefully we'll have lots of pretty flowers soon!

There's been so much rain lately that lakes are starting to fill up.  We went on a random drive toward the closest lake until we found it.  Of course, once we got there, we didn't have much to do but at least we saw the lake.

He found a walking stick to use on the way back

Happy to be outside

She's looking so big to me here!

Gotta love that belly

However when you see her in perspective to other things, you see how tiny she is!

You can see her trying to say words when you prompt her.

She's standing forever and I saw her pivot today and move one foot - - getting closer to walking!!!

Her screams quickly make me crazy.  Ugh, girls.

Maxwell and I were talking about long tails in the car, and I mentioned that monkeys have long tails.   And Max goes, "At splash academy, the kids that were tigers got tails." (He was referencing the circus put on by the kids when we were on a cruise)  So I asked him what tigers say (because I have been trying to get him to say "ROAR" since the cruise because he didn't say it when the tigers were up on stage).  He goes, "I can't tell you but if you ask Emmalyn later, she can tell you."  ha!  can't fool this kid!