Author: Erica (Page 42 of 269)

This weekend Jennifer introduced me and the kids to the game Sequence.  Apparently we have owned this game for years and never played it.  I admit that I had looked at the box many times and said, “Yuck.  What a boring looking box.  That game is probably dumb.”

Yes, I judged that box by it’s cover.  And, like so many things in life that we judge–I was wrong.

We love it.

It’s right up there with Mancala for me (which I also love).  Chloe caught on pretty quickly, but she has a hard time looking far enough ahead to see other potential sequences in case she’s blocked.  Josiah mostly just played along with me and “helped” me but I think he would be able to hold his own if we were to play again (not win, but at least play along).

It’s fun to be getting to the age where we can play more thrilling games than Candyland or Chutes and Ladders fun games together!

I have known that Josiah enjoys reading and has a good aptitude for it, but at conferences last night we saw again just how well he is doing.  His teacher tested what sight words he is familiar with:  He knows all 50 Kindergarten sight words… basically all of First grade sight words…  and 2/3 of the Second grade sight words!  He came home the other day with a list of words that he can read/spell without help, and among those words were: February, scissors, reading, happy, world, recess and toilet!

He has been so pleased to finally be able to read this year.  It has been amazing to watch him go.  The other day I saw him open one of his library books and I looked over his shoulder to see what it was, and it looked a bit hard.  I said, “Oh, buddy, I think that book is going to be a little hard for you.  Why don’t you pick a different one.”  He simply said, “No, Mom, it’s not too hard–watch!”  And he proceeded to read the whole page easily.  Not only did he read the correct words, but he also read it with the right inflection.  That kid amazes me sometimes!

This girl.

She can bring out so many emotions in me in a very short amount of time.  So much cuteness and mischievousness crammed into one little body.

Luckily I normally only capture the cute side of her on camera… mostly because I’m too busy scolding her or too angry to grab my camera.  I feel like she knows exactly how to push my buttons.

But then she can walk right over to me and hug me and say, “I sorry, Mama” and my anger melts away.

Ah, the magic of being 2 years old.

We’ve finally hit the age (with Chloe) where sleepovers are actually easier than harder!  It’s delightful.

At the surprise Birthday party last week the girls begged for a sleepover and I said “we’ll see” (parents everywhere know this answer.. haha!). Well fast forward to Thursday and Allison’s Mom asked if it was really happening or if Allison was just making it up–so we said, sure!  why not!?  It’s a good non-busy weekend to do it.

So we coordinated drop off and pick ups and away we went!  Everyone was thrilled.  And it was fun to have the cousins over.  They are all developing such strong individual personalities is so fun to see who they are becoming.  For example Kailynn has such a strong desire to be around the babies and Allison has a really funny sense of humor and Chloe just wants to boss everyone around.  Ha!

The girls have also entered the “electronics phase” as well, which includes a lot of me saying, “time to get off your tablets and just PLAY!”  But you’ll notice I have captured a moment with the girls above where they are all happily playing games on their tablets.

It makes me wonder what our parents told us to be done doing when we were kids?  We didn’t have tablets to play on back then…

Well, regardless, I just love that picture.  And I love how they are growing up together.  🙂

Chloe and Josiah enjoyed (a very late Birthday present of) rock climbing today!  They have been eagerly waiting to go for months now… but we’ve been busy and needed to find a time when Tim could take them (since we all agreed that I would be too nervous and freaked out to let them really climb to their hearts content.  Tim is much better at letting them do dangerous stuff be kids.  🙂 ) So, fun was had by all. Well, fun there, but Tim did have a splitting headache from looking up for so long at them climbing… oopsie! 

We hosted a surprise birthday party for Tim’s sister, Kristen, this Sunday.  It was delightfully fun.  And since I wasn’t assigned anything specific to do (except host) I occupied myself with my own project–come up with a Theme and decorate!  And what better theme than something that would make Kristen giggle since she is one… an English Teacher theme!  We had such a good time thinking up ways to create the theme–because, wouldn’t you know, when I went to search for ideas on Pinterest no one had any ideas!  Say whaaa!?  No one has ever thrown a English Teacher Themed Surprise Birthday Party before?  There were many Teacher gift ideas and book club ideas, so it gave me a place to start.

Of course, every good party needs a banner… And in this case, a banner in need of a little correcting…

Then we could stick with the classic “teacher apple” for some decorations…

The mini books were fun to make.  Although it was hard to come up with enough book titles!

This next was was totally tongue in cheek… haha!  Assemble your own colon.  This was more on a whim because I sent Tim to the store and told him the wrong type of cookies.  So, we just went with it (all while having a good chuckle!)

And Of course, every teacher needs extra red lines!

And last but not least, we had Pin the Comma on the Sentence. (Although, you’ll notice this sentence actually requires 2 commas, the general humor is still there)  The kids found this especially entertaining…  And to be fair this idea was totally Jen’s.  I just executed it.  We love adding “Pin the _________ on the_________ ” to all of our parties!

Of course, there was real food as well (tacos, fajitas, cake, oreo dessert and lemon bars) but apparently I didn’t get any pictures of that.  It was sure delicious though!  And the best part was just getting to hang out with family and chill for a little while.  The cousins had a great time playing and the adults had a great time talking and eating.  I feel like that’s what I say about almost all of our gatherings, but that’s how we like it!

Today was the 100th day of school for Josiah so they dressed up as 100 year olds!   It was just just too cute!

He was super excited to have white hair (dry shampoo, folks!) although it didn’t really show up very well on his light blonde hair… but he was still excited to try.

Also, as an aside, his cousin Mae who is also in Kindergarten, had her 100th day of school last week, so I just couldn’t resist a side-by-side of the two of them.  They are just the cutest old people!

This week Tim has had lunch with each kid again (minus Levi, since he doesn’t really care yet) individually.  It’s amusing to see what friends Chloe and Josiah choose to invite to their special lunch table.  And more amusing to see how everyone acts… Tim and I both laughed that this is a fleeting time when they will still think it’s cool to have Dad come and eat lunch with them!

But the most interesting lunch date to me was Madison.  He sent this picture to me…

… and it hit me how grown up she looks here.  The other day we went out shopping together (just Maddie and me) and she talked NON-STOP.  She quoted movie lines, sang songs, asked me questions… the whole nine yards. It was funny (and I’ll admit a little annoying at times).  It’s just so fascinating to watch her become a little person!

When they got home from their lunch today, she was so excited to tell me all about how she now had a crown and ate chicken nuggets.  And she really wanted me to take a picture.