I am thankful for my van

This could be a post full of whining. But, in leiu of that, it will be a post of thanksgiving. What am I thankful for, you may ask? Just keep reading...

I am thankful that I am posting this from my sister's house in Ohio.
I am thankful that the 8 hour drive here only took 24 hours - it could have taken longer.
I am thankful that only 21 of those 24 hours were spent in my van.
I am thankful that the seats in my van are pretty comfortable for long periods of time.
I am thankful that my children are really, really good van riders and didn't mind granola bars for dinner.
I am thankful for portable DVD players and movies!
I am thankful that the WV turnpike was only closed for 5 hours - it could have been all night.
I am thankful that we didn't have to pay any tolls. $6 saved.
I am thankful that we arrived in one piece and the van had no dings, flat tires, or mechanical issues.
I am thankful for my cell phone and the ability to call family to see why traffic is stopped and to call 911 when needed (for another vehicle, not us).
I am thankful that I was able to stay awake behind the wheel until we could find a city with motel rooms available.
I am thankful for cheap motels for a few hours of stretching out and sleeping.
I am thankful that the beds didn't have bed bugs. I did wonder when I saw the room...
I am thankful for the beautiful scenery of snow covered trees and hills and that I had plenty of time to take all of it in and praise God for his incredible creation!
I am thankful for the memories created on this very memorable trip!

But most of all, I am thankful for all the prayers that were lifted up on our behalf and for being reminded that God watches over and takes good care of me and loves me more than I could ever ask or imagine.

Proud: P-R-O-U-D, proud.

She did it! Even though she was very nervous, Katey competed in her first school-wide spelling bee and she did GREAT!

This shot is just before the bee started.

There were 21 students competing from the 3rd-5th grades and Katey was the last 3rd grader standing!! She made it to round 4 and correctly spelled the words "holiday" and "applause". There was one more word she got correct but none of us can remember what it was! Katey was eliminated on the word "significant" and it was heartbreaking. She started off with "s-i-n-g" then stopped and asked the judges if she could start over. Unfortunately, that is against the rules, so she had to continue the word knowing that she misspelled it. We were so proud of her for finishing the word and keeping her head held high!

Getting ready to spell her 2nd word

When I walked Katey back to her class, she opened the door and all of her classmates whooped and cheered for her!! That was an extra special moment and brought a big smile to both of our faces!

For the record, Mike and I asked Katey afterward how she would have spelled her word if she could have started over. Signifacant. We told her that competing in the spelling bee was a significant event and we love her and are so P-R-O-U-D!

5K-Wordy Katey and Tied-Up Seth

What a busy and exciting weekend!!

We kicked off the weekend with a note in Katey's book bag from the principal (dun-dun-duh!) letting us know that Katey won her classroom spelling bee and will be competing in the school-wide bee on Wednesday! Now we are helping her with a spelling list which includes words such as: rendezvous, bromeliad, umlaut, barukhzy, knavery and euphemism. Wow! And we'll be looking up the meaning of many of these words...since some of them I have never heard of.

The next big thing on our weekend list of fun was that Seth learned to tie his shoes! We have been working on this for a few months now. Okay, probably 5 months, at least. Thanks to Daddy, the hard work has paid off! Believe me when I say that there was crying, there was wailing and there might even have been gnashing of teeth. But, with the reward of ice cream dangling like a carrot in front of him, Seth finally conceded and picked up the shoe laces. Wahoo!!

Look at those perfect bunny ears and that proud grin!

And now, for the big weekend event: Katey ran a 5K!! She has been in a program through school called "Girls on the Run" since September. There were 15 girls in 3rd-5th grades and 3 coaches. The kids spent 2 hours a week getting to know each other, talking about dealing with social situations that might be difficult and running. Saturday morning was the culmination of 2 1/2 months of hard work and all the girls did a GREAT JOB!! All of the elementary and middle schools in our county participated and we heard there were about 630 girls running. The weather was a little less than ideal, being one of the coldest days we have had this year. It was about 45 degrees and damp, but thankfully, not raining like was predicted! Above: Katey's team at Rocky River Elementary School

The girls are off! This is a shot of about 2/3 of the crowd that was running Saturday morning

Katey said it was hard and she got tired, but she was so proud of herself - though not half as proud as we are of her!! She told Mike that she would like to keep running with him and do another 5K - this time running alongside Daddy!

Our proud 5K finisher showing off her medal!

Katey with her running partners, Adajah and Ms. Lawrence

What a GREAT weekend!

Happy 6th Birthday, Seth!

We really do think this is the year of the never-ending birthday for Seth.

There was the big party and sleepover at Andrew's. Then we did a modified party with Grammy (complete with cake and presents) before Thanksgiving. Then we had a wonderful Thanksgiving in the TN mountains with Mike's aunts, uncles and cousins, where there where plenty of people to help Seth celebrate his big day. Finally, we arrived home the evening of the 27th (his ACTUAL birthday) and did presents and cake with just our little family. We thought we might forego the cake that day, but we were told quite adamantly that "I won't turn six until I blow out the candles on my cake!" No amount of reasoning would work - like, say, "Seth, you blew out candles on your cake with Andrew" or "You also blew out candles on your cake with Grammy..." In case you weren't aware, it only counts if it is on your actual birthday. Wonder if that makes me actually younger than I think I am? :-)

At any rate, the boy got to blow out all 6 candles on his birthday cake, on his birthday. See:


He made out like a bandit this year! We got him a new bike, Katey got him some Star Wars legos, Grammy, Grandma and Grandpa, Granny and Papaw and all the other friends and family who sent packages got him too many wonderful gifts to recount on this small screen. But, I will say that one of his absolute favorite presents this year was the book "No, David". Below is a picture of him reading it aloud to all of us. So cute!!

So, for the final time this year, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SETH!!!! We love you!



This last shot is at the request of the birthday boy. These are all his "lovies" - 3 of which he got for his birthday. For posterity their names are (from left to right, of course) Puppy, Vincey*, White Wolf, Brownie* and Beary. All of them are being covered up with Sheepy.
*Warning, these 2 names are subject to change. In the last 24 hours they have been Fluffy, Furry and Shovel in addition to their current names.

The Annual Birthday Party

Seth's birthday is coming up on Friday! For the 4th year in a row, we planned a combined celebration with Seth's buddy, Andrew. Alison (Andrew's mom) had the idea to do something smaller this year so we opted for a sleepover at their house with each boy inviting one friend. Everyone started out at Andrew's house with pizza and brownie cake, then headed to a fun little sports place where the kids did mini-bowling and arcade games. When we returned back to Andrew's at 9:15 PM we put on the movie UP and assumed that the group of 6 year old boys (whose bed times are usually around 7:30PM) would fall asleep watching the flick. Silly us! When the movie finished at 11 all boys were still awake - though, thankfully, sleepy.

After the big sleepover, and without any tears for mom's in the middle of the night, the kids had pancakes and waffles for breakfast and got to play and watch Saturday morning cartoons. All in all, it was an awesome birthday party! (Except for the part where Jen forgot the camera.)

So now you get to use your imagination. Here is a shot of the boys blowing out birthday candles.
And, here is a great picture of the gang playing mini-bowling. Oh, and this last one is my favorite! This is all the boys running around the living room and yelling to one another while their friend, Charlie, is still fast asleep on the floor - a boy after my own heart!

Now, if you are tired of using your imagination, you can check out the post Alison did on the party. At least one of us remembered the camera!

Happy birthday, Andrew and Seth!!!!!

What Every Mother Longs to Hear

I was up in the playroom with Seth the other night, hunting for the ever-illusive media center books. We were looking in the book baskets, under the couch cushions, under the couch, under the guest bed, on the train table, in the toy baskets... You get the picture. We finally pulled out the drawers under the train table and looked under them. No books to be found, but I hear Seth cry out with joy:

"Mommy, oh, there it is! I finally found my lipstick!"

Yeah, happy for you, Seth. Very glad you found your CHAPSTICK. Maybe you could get into the habit of calling it what it actually is and not mention to your friends that you like to put on "lipstick?" And, I promise, I'm not just asking that for my sake.

What a Memory!

We were sitting down to a nice dinner last night when Katey starts the following conversation:

KATEY: "Mommy, do you remember when we went to Chuck E Cheese and had pizza for a snack but didn't actually have dinner that night?"

MOMMY: "Um, when was this, Sweetie?"

KATEY: "Probably like a year ago..."

MOMMY: (Looking at Daddy with questioning eyes) "You mean when we met the Molendorps there last Christmas?"

KATEY: "Yes."

MOMMY: "Okay, what about it?"

KATEY: (As she is taking a bite of dinner) "Well, we didn't have dinner that night and I am still pretty upset about that."

Fantastic.

This conversation was quickly followed-up with an explanation of what holding a grudge is and why we shouldn't do such a thing. Oh, and it was also pointed out that we really haven't missed any meals since then and no harm came from foregoing dinner after having pizza for a "snack" at 4PM! I think we have our hands full with this little girl. We just pray that, when it comes to fun and wonderful things, her memory is just as good!

All I Want for Christmas...

It is one of my favorite memories. Granny would sit us down at the island in the kitchen and hand us the toy catalogs from JC Penny and K-Mart and wherever else she received them from and give us the order: Time to make a Christmas wish list. Oh, the hours of fun we would have pouring over the bright and shiny pages containing bright and shiny new toys and writing down our requests (page numbers included, of course!).

Well, it is that time of year again. We have already been receiving requests for Christmas lists for the kids so I put them to work the other day. This is what they came up with:

SETH:
He actually drew all his requests on the dry-erase board and then told me what the pictures were. Unfortunately, he erased it before I could get a picture - it was super cute!

Buzz Lightyear
Musical Triangle
Monster Truck
Guitar
Real puppy
A friend for his lovie, Puppy
A friend for his lovie, White Wolf
Kite
Book about Super Heros
Wii Games ("Crash Banidcoot 3...if there is such a thing")
The book "No, David"

Okay, this list isn't too bad. Most of it is pretty possible (except the real puppy. Sorry, not this year!).

Now for KATEY:
Leapster 2 ("It is fun for kids and educational so parents like it, too, Mommy!" Oh, my daughter, the walking TV ad!)
Candy Jewelry Factory
Easy Bake Oven
"Alive Pet Parrot" Quaker Parrot
Bird food and millet (Of course)
Lucky Charms
Cinnamon Life Cereal
Frosted Flakes
A snowy day (not the book - an actual day of snow!)
Heated Pool
Flute
Prince Caspian, the movie

And the list goes on and on and on with titles of books (let me know if you want ideas on them).

This girl has asked for cereal for Christmas (I feed her, I promise!). What?!? I'm thinking that the snowy day and heated pool are all a ploy to soften us up to the real parrot. Sorry Katey (and Mike), no more birds in this house!

So, there we have it. I'm sure this is just the beginning as the lists will surely get longer as the kids do more thinking about them. What fun it is to see the twinkle in their eyes as they talk about all the things they are dreaming of.

Fall Fun

Here is our hodge-podge post of Fall fun!

First, we spent some time carving pumpkins and roasting pumpkin seeds. Turns out that, while Katey was very excited to have roasted seeds, she doesn't actually like the taste of them! And, Seth wouldn't even try them. Oh, well. We had fun carving and loved the results.


































Next, we (and by "we" I do not mean me) raked leaves. The kids started out raking them into piles. Then they had fun jumping into them and throwing them up in the air. That is where the Mike portion of "we" comes in and where the leaves actually were raked up and gotten off the grass. :-)

Finally, October wrapped up with Trick or Treat. The kids picked out their costumes a month ago, so they were very excited to put them on and go candy-collecting. Mike took the kids around the neighborhood while I passed out candy with my mom. Seth lasted all of a half hour before deciding that he had plenty of candy and wanted to come home. Mike and Katey went back out for another hour or so. I think we cleaned out the neighborhood!! We all had fun and the best part is that the kids don't like candy with peanut butter or caramel. YUM!

My Life According to the Kids

One day I was sipping Diet Coke from a KFC cup as I was waiting patiently at the bus stop for Katey and Seth. When Seth saw my cup he was outraged that I ate lunch at KFC anywhere without him. So that got me thinking...now that both children are at school for 7 hours a day, what do they think I do while they are gone? I decided to pose that question to my little cuties.

Seth: You go to the store and get gas*. And read on the computer.

Katey: You go shopping sometimes. You hang out with your friends sometimes. You get gas sometimes.

Interesting...

*As a side note, a few weeks into school starting Seth was very concerned that we no longer stop to put gas in the van. I had to explain to him that I do that while he is at school. He now usually asks me several times a week if I got gas. I promise they are both referring to gasoline!

Apple Picking...or something similar to that

A couple of weekends ago we thought it would be a fun idea to take the kids to pick apples. I had mentioned the idea to Mike over dinner one night as a possibility but when Katey heard about it there was only reality in her mind! She was so excited to FINALLY get to pick apples that we knew we had to make it work out.

As most things in life, this trip didn't work out quite like we had envisioned. We have friends that head to Hendersonville, NC each year to pick apples. They say it is so much fun and there are lots of things to do. So, we thought we would make the 2 hour drive for our fun adventure. Then we saw the weather forecast and opted to head to York, SC which is only a 1 hour drive. The website for this orchard said they had a bumper crop this year and, way more importantly, they have the best apple cider donuts and apple cider around. We were sold! I called that morning to make sure they were open and off we went. Here were our surprises for the trip:

1. There were chickens at the orchard and the kids had a grand time feeding them some corn (thanks, Grammy, for the quarter to buy corn!).
2. We walked up to see how this works and were told that this was probably the last weekend the orchard would be open because the trees were almost bare. Grand...they didn't mention THAT part on the phone when I called.
3. We were sent out to pick apples with only our bags to carry them in. Almost all the apples left were WAAAAAYYYY up at the tops of the trees and it was posted that we should not climb in the trees. ???
4. A nice group was on their way back in and handed us a pole with a picking basket on it and pointed us towards some trees that still had apples. Thank you, nice group!
5. Many of the apples that were left in the trees were rotten.
6. Rotten apples attract bees.
7. Mike is strong and can hold Jen on his shoulders for quite awhile. The apple at the top of the tree was stronger and refused to be picked.
8. Sitting on Mike's shoulders is scary and I don't like heights as much as I used to...or maybe it is the feeling of wobbliness while sitting on shoulders that I don't like.
9. Katey loved picking apples and Seth was okay with it, too.

And, the hardest discovery of all: THERE WERE NO DONUTS OR APPLE CIDER!!!!

We all had fun despite the down-sides to the trip. Though, if we do this again next year we will most definitely travel the extra miles to Hendersonville!

Katey was better at being on Daddy's shoulders than Mommy was!

A Few of My Favorite Things

I've been thinking for awhile now about posting on some of the things that the kids are doing these days that I just love. So, here goes...













Katey
Probably my most favorite thing that Katey does at the moment is parenthetical speaking. What?!? We all know that this girl LOVES to talk and to tell stories. Her latest way to do that is to talk normally until she gets to a parenthetical side-note in the tale at which point she turns her head to the side a little and lowers her voice almost to a whisper. When the side-note is complete she returns to her normal speaking tone. It is amazing how many of her stories include parenthesis. For example, "Mommy, today in PE (I had PE today since it is Monday) I came in 2nd place in the race!" SO CUTE!!

Another thing that totally makes me smile is the expression in Katey's voice when she reads out loud. In Sunday School class she was asked to read a passage aloud from Exodus. It was one where God and Moses are speaking to each other. When she got to God's words she used a really deep and booming voice. When she read the words of Moses she sounded quiet and timid. When she read everything in between it was her normal voice. This child is creative!

Completely unrelated to words, I adore the loving nature that Katey possesses. She is so sweet with Seth and is a great big sister. She is so genuine with her gratitude and so tender with her emotions toward others.













Seth
I love that Seth is working on using proper forms of words at the moment and still gets them mixed-up sometimes. He is working really, really hard on using 'aren't' instead of 'am'. For example, he says, "I am a good bike rider, am I, Mommy?...oh, I mean aren't I, Mommy". But, even better than mis-using the tense and then correcting himself, he then scolds himself aloud. "Seth, you know that it is 'aren't', not 'am'. [then in a slightly different sounding tone of voice] Oh, right, I just forgot, sorry."

Some of you may be thinking that the word theme in this post is interesting. However, I would like to now point out that you are incorrect in your thinking. According to Seth, the theme is "in-stress-ting", but I am sure he will let your slip in thoughts slide just this one time. Hee hee hee

(And even though he has moved past this and uses the word correctly now, I can assure you that I will not ever park in a parking spot again. My van parks in 'spocks'.)

Seth came home from school one day talking about a bucket. He told us that everyone has an invisible bucket and when someone says or does nice things to you, the bucket gets filled. If someone does mean things to you then your bucket gets empty. Okay, a nice, concrete way to think about how your words and actions affect people around you. So, why is this one of my favorite things? Because a couple of times now when I have picked Seth up and snuggled him and given him lots of Mommy kisses he has looked at me with this happy little face and declared, "Aw, thanks Mommy, you filled up my bucket!"

Mike
No stories here. Just wanted to point out that Mike is one of my favorite things. I Love you!!

Aw Autumn!

I love the Autumn! Changing leaves, pumpkins, Indian corn, relief from the summer heat of NC, apple recipes, getting to wear clothes you haven't seen in 6 months...what could be better? (At least at the moment - in a couple of months I'll be longing for summer again!)

We decided to kick off Fall at a local farm called Aw Shucks. Mike took the kids there last year while I stayed at home with a cast on my foot. So, I was excited to be joining the family this year for such a fun event. And, the kids both made mention that it was my first time to go and were excited as well. The coolest part about Aw Shucks is the corn maze! The kids took turns navigating us through the maze and we discovered that Katey is excellent at reading and following a map. (Much better than her Mommy!) If you want to see an arial view of the maze, click on the "Aw Shucks" underlined above.We also had fun with the other activities at the farm. The kids fed fish in the pond, played in the tree house, took a hay ride, saw some sheep, horses, chickens and turkeys, tried their hand at cattle roping, took a nature walk to spot birdhouses and even participated in a duck race!

The kids riding on the cow after they both roped him. So cute!

Okay, so it wasn't REAL ducks that they were racing, but it was really fun and I think they liked using rubber duckies and being able to pump water even better than if they were the real thing. :-)

All in all it was a fun day. We decided not to purchase pumpkins just yet as there wasn't much variety when we were looking. Even with the promise of getting pumpkins somewhere else soon, Seth was not a happy camper. So, we left on a bad note with lots of tears and frustration and Seth saying he didn't have a good time at all today. However, after a nap, he declared that Aw Shucks was a lot of fun! (Naps are the cure-all for any ailment...that is why I like to take so many of them.) Katey was unwaivering in her declaration of fun and has now asked when we can go pick apples. Go figure.

Oh, and did I say that I love Autumn partly due to the relief from the summer heat? We trekked through the corn maize in 80 degree weather and sat on the hay ride sweating! Not that I am complaining, but it did feel a bit counter-intuitive to participate in such Fall activities while hoping to find a little shade somewhere. Gotta love North Carolina!!

I'll end this post with a few cute pictures from the day. Enjoy!

The Best of Intentions...

Last spring Katey asked if we could have a vegetable garden. Well, it was probably more like a plea for a fruit and vegetable garden and the request probably consisted of an apple tree which the girl is dying to have in the yard for some reason, even when we tell her it would be about 15 years before the tree produced fruit. But, I digress. So, Katey asks for a garden along with detailing elaborate plans on what should be grown and how we can sell extras to make money. We decide to go slow and plant a few things in a container. The only thing that came up were cucumbers. The vine was doing really well and had all sorts of little cucumber babies on it. Then we went out of town and forgot to ask neighbors to water it. When we returned there were dried-up cucumber babies. Katey and I were so sad and vowed to try again this year.

Spring rolls around this year and we decide to do a few things in containers again (really, digging a plot of land and having to WEED would so not be happening around here!). This time I did a little research and we ended up planting beans, peppers, cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. We started them from seed in the house and were amazed at how quickly some of them grew! At the appropriate time, we transplanted them to pots and put them outside. And then we waited. And waited. And waited.


Finally, we had 2 beans. Now, the beans were a last-minute, non-researched decision. And, only one plant came up. So, this summer, we have had about 7 beans total. Sad.

Then, a cucumber appeared. We were so excited! It got bigger and a little bigger...then it started getting round. For some reason, we ended up with a cucumber BALL! Seriously, it was about the size of a pool ball. What in the world!?! But, there were many more sprouts, so we ate our tasty little cue-ball and waited. And waited. And watched the vine die a slow death for no apparent reason.

Next came a pepper. We watched it grow for 3 weeks, I think. Red peppers take FOREVER to get red, by the way. When it finally turned red, it was probably 1/3 the size of the peppers you buy in the store and a bug had gotten into a piece of it, so we all had 2 bites of a very small, though yummy, red bell pepper.

Finally came the tomato. Katey LOVES tomatoes. I had envisioned having to give tomatoes away to neighbors, knowing that the plants usually produce like wild-fire. Not ours. We had one, yes that is right, ONE cherry tomato. But, as you can see, Katey loved every, er um, THE bite of it!

Shouldn't a tomato plant be fuller and more leafy than this?? That is our pepper plant in the background.

So, all in all we probably spent $40 in containers, soil, seeds, fertilizer...and had visions of saving so much money on produce this summer. 7 beans, 1 cucumber ball, 1 tiny pepper and a cherry tomato. That is roughly $4 per vegetable. Awesome.

Maybe next year we'll just break down and plant the apple tree.

Will Wonders Never Cease?!

We are, at times, a house divided.

VS. Now, I say "at times" as I am not quite the Ohio State Buckeye fan that my family probably longs for me to be. I can't name even one of the players at the moment, and the only way I can tell you that they are playing is by reading the status updates of friends and family on Facebook. (I'm sorry family, truly sorry).

Mike is a big Michigan fan. Now, he isn't an over-the-top, have to postpone or reschedule or cancel our date because Michigan is playing Notre Dame, kind of fan. (Thank you, Sweetie, for still taking me out last Saturday!) But, he is a big fan.

With all of that being said, my wonderful, loving, sometimes likes to push your buttons, die-hard Buckeye fan mother got Katey and Seth OSU T-shirts for Katey's birthday. Not only that, but she has been programming them since birth to do the O-H...I-O chant along with "Go Bucks!"...much to the disgust of their Daddy. And, it seems that no matter how hard Mike tries to get a, "Go Blue!" out of them, the kids just find OSU to be their team of choice.

Somehow we got on the topic of the OSU game on Sunday after church. Being a sub-par fan, I had no idea if they had won (or whom they had played). Seth and Katey were chiming in, hoping with all the hope they could muster that the Buckeyes won. Then Katey pipes up, "What sport do the Buckeyes play?" That's my girl!! :-) After a small discussion of it currently being football season, Mike decided to try, once again, to sway the kids to the dark side (hey, Michigan blue is actually a darker color than scarlet, right?!). The conversation went something like this:
Mike: Do you know what a buckeye is?
Katey: A nut!!
Mike: And do you know that Michigan's mascot is a Wolverine! Do you know what that is?
Seth: I think wolverine is in the comic books or something like that.
Mike: Yes, he is a SUPER HERO, but also it is a mean animal that can fight! Would you rather be a nut or a cool super hero/animal?
Katey: [Growl] Daddy!
(This decision is impossible for her as she doesn't like to be called a nut but doesn't want to side with Daddy on this one!)
Seth: I like the Buckeyes. Stop talking to me, you are making me angry!

The rest of the afternoon was spent with Mike trying to sway just one of the kids to his side and neither of them budging - for no good or apparent reason. Poor Mike. The Averill genes might be strong enough to make both kids look like exact duplicates of their father, but obviously the Hendrickson genes make you bleed scarlet (and grey). Hee hee hee.

On another topic altogether...
Seth decided yesterday to wear ANKLE SOCKS to school! He pulled them out of the drawer and said he would wear them to school. Some friends and I were pondering over this yesterday, wondering if he sees that other kids in his class don't wear socks pulled up to their underwear or if maybe he was teased or something like that. So, Seth gets off the bus, comes in the door and immediately takes off his shoes and socks, declaring that the sock bothered him all day. Okay. Then, this morning I send him up to his room to get dressed. I head up to check on the kids a few minutes later and find him digging through the sock drawer. He pulls out another pair of ankle socks (what, 2 days in a row??!!) and he says, "Well, I guess I'll wear these again today." And then it hits me...

Mommy needs to do laundry. :-)

School!

We are now several weeks into the new school year so I thought I should perhaps do a post about school. Katey is in the 3rd grade now and Seth started Kindergarten. I was pretty nervous about getting both of the kids up and fed and dressed and ready to head out the door all by 6:45 each morning, but so far all has gone pretty smooth (or is the proper form of the word smoothly?).

Here are the kids on their first days of school - Katey started a week earlier than Seth thanks to Union County's staggered Kindergarten start.

Please notice Seth's socks in the picture. They are his signature trademark these days. Socks must ALWAYS be worn pulled up as high as they will go and ankle socks just WILL NOT due!

I simply could not post without including a picture of Seth with his backpack on. I love Kindergartners with huge backpacks! Adorable!

And, while we are on the note of adorable, here are Katey and Seth getting on the school bus together for the first time. I will note that it isn't the picture that is dark...this is what the morning looks like when the kids get on the bus (WAAAAYYYY too early in the morning!).

Seth kept telling us he was "curious" about the school bus (we think he actually meant "nervous") so Katey, being the wonderful big sister that she is, told Seth that he could sit with her on the bus. Awwww!! What do you think Seth's response was?

A) Okay
B) Thanks Katey, you are the best big sister EVER!
C) No thanks, I'll sit with someone else
D) I think I want Mommy to drive us to school

You got it; the answer is C!! Such a loving brother... But, what you cannot see from this picture is that Seth is holding Katey's hand as they boarded the bus together. :-)

The first few weeks of school have proven to be exciting and emotional for our family. We have already had melt-downs over homework (from BOTH kids!), forgotten jackets and agendas, missed buses, almost missed buses, tears over missed and almost missed buses, excited squeals for cheese pizza day in the cafeteria, stories of teachers and classmates and PE and Music and Spanish, and an overall joy of being back to school. Yup, I think this is going to be a GREAT year with lots of ups and downs...

Oh, and before I end this post, I have to include a link that you need to read if you haven't seen it already. This is a blog post from our dear friend, Alison, about Seth and his good buddy, Andrew. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did! And, thanks to Alison for such a sweet, sweet entry!

Two-Wheelin'

It is a proud moment when training wheels are removed from a bicycle. And we were very proud (and hopeful) when Mike removed the training wheels from Seth's bike...A YEAR AGO!

From that time forward, we had been bribing Seth with Bruster's Ice Cream if he would just learn to ride his bike. Usually the conversation went something like this:
Us: Seth, we really want to go out for ice cream tonight, will you please try to ride your bike?
Seth: Um, no thanks.

On occasion we could get him to at least try, albeit half-heartedly. But, all along we knew he could do it if he just made his mind up to do it. If there is one thing we have learned about this kid in the last 5+ years it is that forcing him to try something doesn't usually go over too well. But, if you can get him to just want to try it, all is well with his world (and ours).

So, Sunday afternoon we again suggested that he learn to ride his bike and this was the response we got:














Cute, isn't he? :-)


After 2 or 3 attempts that looked something like this:
















He did it!!
















And there was much rejoicing and eating of ice cream! :-)

How did that happen??

Last Thursday we celebrated Katey's 8th birthday. Seriously, how did that happen?? It is hard to believe that the tiny little baby I held in my arms just yesterday is now 8! (And, by the way, how did I get old enough to think that 8 years happened in the blink of an eye?!?)

Katey got to choose her birthday dinner. It came down to Costco Rotisserie Chicken with mashed potatoes and corn (all squished together with salt added, of course!) or homemade pizza - Katey's 2 favorite meals - and chocolate cupcakes. In the end, pizza won out so we rolled out dough and Katey spread on sauce and cheese and was delighted when the pizza crust bubbled up while baking. It is the little things in life, isn't it? :-)

I assume that you are now wondering why there is an enormous chocolate cake sitting in front of the birthday girl instead of cupcakes. Yeah. So Mike's mom makes an AWESOME chocolate cake recipe for all the birthdays and everyone always raves about how delicious it is. I talked Katey into letting me make Grandma's special cake but doing it as cupcakes and she was super excited about it and I was all warm and fuzzy inside thinking about what a special privilege it is to make your child's birthday (cup)cake and how a tradition is being passed down through Mike's family. However, that isn't exactly what happened. Katey was at Costco with me and as we walked past the bakery she began to drool at the sight of all the delicacies. She eyed the ginormous chocolate cake (the thing weighed 7 pounds, y'all - no joke!) and quickly changed her mind from wanting homemade cupcakes to needing this cake. I think you can connect the dots. While it definitely wasn't Grandma's Chocolate Cake, it was pretty tasty and our family enjoyed it for 5 straight days!

While pizza was baking Katey made a beeline to her presents. As you can tell from the picture below, she was happy to be opening the gifts. Though, when we asked what her favorite present was we were told, "Darien giving me a hug for my birthday." Uh-oh. Darien is our 8 year old neighbor that both the kids love to play with. Katey always wants to give him hugs and he always runs away screaming that he doesn't want any hugs. So, it really was a big deal when he brought a card over and hugged her when giving it to her. Sweet.

One of Katey's other favorite gifts is the i-pod she bought with birthday money. All of the sudden this child LOVES music and loves listening to my i-pod. So, we found a used one on e-bay. Now Mommy just needs to get music downloaded to it so she can use her own!

It certainly was a great birthday! Seth is already telling us he can't wait for his birthday (in 3 months) because birthday's are so much fun. We think it is because he and Katey get to eat cake for so many days in a row. :-) But, he is right - birthdays are a lot of fun! A little bittersweet for Mom's and Dad's, but fun none-the-less. Happy birthday, Little Monkey!