Kindergarten

I know, I know I just posted about his first day of school, but the day after I posted was his first day of getting in trouble at school. Oh boy... his teacher walked over to me after school (she NEVER does that) and said "Jack had a rough day today." I guess he was rather loud, perhaps getting everyone else wound up and he was shouting out. In a way, I'm surprised it hadn't happened before, but I also hoped he'd be good at school. Oh well. We did our best to come down on him pretty hard and it hasn't happened since. We'll see.

On a lighter note, he finally got his class picture. It's so cute. I can't believe my baby has school pictures. What a big boy.

Oh and there are love notes too. Except his high frequency word is like, so I guess their 'like notes'. :) But there's nothing like coming home from a run to a beautiful picture and a 'like' note. He wrote it all by himself, no help at all.

OC Great Park

The second week of school, the girls, Papa and I went on a little field trip to the OC great park. It was our first real outing without Jack and boy did it feel weird. I can't even tell you the number of times that I looked for him that day. I still feel guilty because Grace and Maggie have been on the balloon and he hasn't. I know there are tons of things that he got to do before they came a long, but it's not like they could have participated anyway. Either way, I'm starting to get used to him being gone, but I'm not sure it will ever totally feel normal. None the less, we did our best to have a good time.

Obviously the balloon was the part that gets you there, but Grace was super excited about the carousel.

Then we quickly ate lunch and raced back to pick up Jack... What a circus... At least we're trying to do it all. :) And we have Papa to join us!

20 Weeks

At 20 weeks...

I look like my sister:

That's me on the left..

I suck my thumb and love my bouncy seat:

I'm a pretty good leaner:

I love books:

And mom says I'm officially mobile. I can't quite crawl, but I roll both ways and on purpose. I rotate on my belly and some how get across the room when nobody's looking. ;) I'll catch them soon!



At my four month check up, I weighed 14.5 lbs (65th percentile) and I was 26 inches (90th percentile). Dr. Engle says I'm tall and skinny.

First Day of School - WHAT?

So I was looking back and noticed that I didn't post anything about his first day of school. I guess I really am in denial! How sad! His first day of school went really well. We went really early because they had a PTO meeting and I wanted to attend. Jack played outside with Papa and after the meeting, we had more time to go to the park...

Then it was finally time for school. Err, at least it was time for pictures.

We had gone the day before to meet his teacher and learn about all of the rules. So he knew were to put his back pack and lunch and where his seat was.

By the time it was time to go in, he was dying to get in there. He was so tired of waiting he'd been at school for two and a half hours because of the meeting.

He had a great time, but he was happy to see his baby Maggie after school. He totally missed her.

There were no tears, from me or from him. But he's never been one to cry over things like that and I had my daddy to hold my hand. :) It's been really strange going places without him. I had just started getting used to counting three kids and there I was back to counting two. When he's gone it totally changes our dynamic. With Jack, Grace is outgoing and fun. She plays on her own and enjoys activities with other kids, especially with Jack. When his is gone, she is attached to my leg. At home she follows me around like she no longer knows how to play and when we're out it takes her an hour or two (if I make it that long) to let go of my leg. She is SO clingy. I think she may be having the hardest time adjusting to Jack starting school. I never would have predicted this change.

The first week of school he loved it. The second week of school he wanted to go back to Joy School. And now he just complains about going every morning. It's an awkward time, 10:17, just enough time to leisurely get ready and start a really fun Star Wars battle and then it's time to go. But he's always hated transitions. He loves to be somewhere, anywhere, but hates to go. He's made lots of friends. It's so cute to take him in the morning and all of his friends call out to him. I love watching them play and interact. Then when we pick him up, they're all yelling good bye. Dillon, by far, is his favorite so far, but he also enjoys the other boys. Jeremey got a nice taste of his popularity at their 10 year anniversary festival. All kinds of kids we're stopping to say hi to him. We'd ask him "who's that?" and 9 times out of 10 he'd say he didn't know. "He's an early bird" or "she's in Mrs. Sink's class," but they all knew his name. Too funny, it took him a while just to learn the kids he shares a table with, odd what he finds important.

His ability and interest in drawing has dramatically changed in his first 50 days. He was never one to just sit and draw. Getting him to do it for Joy School was nearly impossible, but he loves it now. I had to have Jeremey bring scrap paper home from work because he was going through so much. He is also totally obsessed with sounding out words. He says them s  l  o  w  l  y and tries to guess which letters he hears. He's also doing a lot of "reading."  When we worked on reading a year ago, it was like pulling teeth. I'm not sure what the difference is, time or school, but now he's totally into it. Just the other day he came home drew me a picture and wrote "I like mom" all by him self - no help at all and all spelled correctly. Amazing.

Well that's it for now.

Trick-or treating

This Halloween, Jack woke up and stretched and grogily said "It's Halloween" and then he said "that means it's almost CHRISTMAS!" 

After Jack and I had a fun day at school and the girls had a great time with Grama and Papa we attempted naps and went to Grama and Papa's house to dinner and trick-or-treating. 

I won't name any names, but somebody decided that she didn't need Cinderella hair to go with her Cinderella dress. Finally after dinner, I talked her into having her hair done. This is my cutie patootie after she finally put on her crown.

Jack has been so excited about being Captian Rex that he has been wearing his costume almost every day. He loves to play Star wars and the costume just added an extra element of excitement.

Of course our first stop was Auntie Elaine's, this year we got to see Damien aka the Hulk...

While we were walking we passed some big girls that were talking about how beautiful Grace looked. She told me "they said bootiful mama... about me." It totally made her night. Even though she had been told at least a hundred times that night, the girls walking by and talking about her without saying it directly some how made it that much better.
And after all that fun, Grace needed a pick-me-up:

They tuckered out pretty quickly, so we had plenty of time to pass out candy, hang out with Grandma Pat and have cupcakes from grama.

Happy Halloween!

Jack's First Halloween at School

This year, Jack got to experience Halloween at school and  thanks to my wonderful parents, so did I! We had so much fun, I'm really glad that I got to be there with him.
They started out parading around the school. The kindergarteners got to walk with their "big buddies," the fourth graders. I love that the fourth graders were totally overwhelmed with keeping track of their wiggly kinders, that don't move when the line does. It was cute.

Here's Jack and Dillon, ready for the parade.

Doesn't he look so insecure?

This is Jack's 4th grade buddy... Jack is almost as tall as him.

 

Here is Jack and the Jack-o-Lantern that he entered into the competition ~ it was a tough competition!

Here's his whole class... His teacher and the other kinder teacher were thing 1 and thing 2, so cute!

After the pictures, the kids got to tour the haunted stage. The fourth graders went a second time and they made it more scarey for them. Then they made Mr. Macaroni Skeltoni ... those 4th graders learned a lot of patience that morning...

After that Jack and his class headed back to their classroom. They got to make picture frames, decorate cupcakes, race cars and have a pizza party. What a treat! I'm so glad I got to be there!

Pumpkin Time

 

This year (as usual) the kids had a blast carving pumpkins. Jeremey was in charge (I hate the way the inside of the pumpkins feel) and I just took pictures. Yay! 

Grace may be following in my foot steps, I had to beg her for this picture.

But Jack loves it just as much as daddy does and he even did a bit of carving himself this year...

Of course Maggie had to have a pumpkin of her own...

They were mighty proud of the finished products.

Irvine Pumpkin Patch

 This year we hit up the Irvine Park Pumpkin Patch with quite a group! It was so much fun having both sets of Grandparents, Great Grandpa, Cousin Bryce and his grandparents too!

 I thought 3 was hard, but 4 kids in a picture is a challenge!

It's so fun to have BOTH of our grandmas at the same time!

 Great grandpa got to hang with his favorite ;) great grandkids.

This pony is right outside of the haunted house. Jack loves the haunted house. It's perfect for Jack, just the right amount of scarey. The rest of us waited outside and then we took all of out regular pictures. Lots and lots of pictures...

Maggie is a major hand sucker... it's usually her thumb, but sometimes it's these fingers.

 As a reward for the pictures, they got to ride the hay ride and the train!

 We just waited... It was crazy crowded this year, but still just as much fun.

Happy Fall!