A Kindergartener and a Second Grader

Cason has been ready for school to start for weeks.  He was excited for all of it, but especially meeting some other boys.  He's within a few lessons of the end of the reading book he and Jess are working on, so he's reading really well.  I'll ask him what something says, he'll tell me "I don't know, I can't read!"  I tell him "Yes, you can.  Try it."  Usually he immediately reads it, no problem, and then kind of laughs, like "Oh yeah!"  It's like he thinks the lessons they're doing are just some kind of intro to reading, but it won't translate into real life or something.  So funny.

Here's a sample of a lesson from a few weeks ago.

He's been drawing more dragons, and Jess and I keep them all together, and Jess will take them to work to staple them into a book every so often.  Cason made a cover page the other day.

 So cute.   

A weekend or two ago, we worked on getting the school supplies from their lists.  They had a lot of fun picking stuff out, and Cason was getting really excited, as that made it feel more real.  

 

He kept asking me how many more days.  LAST Monday we got to go check the lists, and we were all excited to see they got the teachers we hoped for.  On Wednesday we got to meet them.  Cason was so cute, sitting in his seat and listening attentively.  Mrs. Arnold got out her harmonica once and busted out a little tune.  I could tell from the way Cason's posture changed that he was impressed, and sure enough after she finished he turned around and mouthed "That was cool" to me with the cutest smile-the one he does when he's excited but kind of embarrassed to show it, so he's trying to suppress his smile and it just kind of squishes over to one side.  Haha. 

 He checked out the classroom, and noticed he recognized a classmate from last year's soccer team, which made him happy. 

 He was just as excited, and a little less nervous after the Meet the Teacher.  He kept counting down the days, and I started getting a little sad, but not too bad actually.  I kept focusing on all we needed to do, and how excited he was.  Last night we got everybody bathed and into pajamas, and read books.  We started with The Night Before Kindergarten, and Paige and Cason were both kind of giddy.  When Jess finished reading to them he took Reed so I could get lunches ready.  I've been wanting to make them cute bento lunches, but of course didn't practice at all leading up to it, so I made a VERY mediocre panda lunch.  Neither of them even knew the eggs were supposed to be pandas.  Can't blame them.  I figured I could just slice the nori into whatever shapes I needed, but apparently the tools people use for cutting shapes ARE, in fact, pretty necessary.  Haha!  That's okay, they seemed to like them, whether they knew what animal they were or not.

 

I was still handling it pretty well, and then I went to check on them one last time and when I looked at Cason  sleeping, it hit me.  My days with him home with me all the time are over.  I feel sad and even pretty regretful, because I only get that time with them for a while, and I know I could've done so much better.  Jess was feeling the same way, and he even went out on the back porch after I was asleep apparently, for his own sad time.  :(  But first he made me feel a LITTLE better, reminding me that even if we haven't maximized every moment with him, he's such a happy and good boy, and really the years he will remember are just beginning.  So hopefully we will do better from here.  I'm also a little sad to lose the feeling he brings into our home, while he's gone during the day.  He just adds such a peace and sweetness when he's here.  

I managed to fall asleep though, and in the morning I got up before everyone else to start breakfast.  Like always, Cason SHOT out of bed and Paige needed a bit to wake up.  They were both happy and excited, though, and happy to see pumpkin muffins as part of their breakfast.  :)  

Neely and Reed were NOT too excited this morning.

I don't mean to leave Paige out of this post, just more of a milestone for Cason, since Paige has been there and done that.  She is as excited as ever for school though, and LOVES her teacher, Mrs. Harnisch.

Neely brightened up by the time we were ready to go, and put on her panda backpack, which had "a toy for Reed in case he cries."

When we got there, Cason clearly had butterflies in his stomach but was not a bit sad.  He found his backpack hook,

put his lunch in his cubby,

 

and said goodbye and hugged us with the cutest smile, while Reed slept through it all.

I started to tear up a bit but held it together.

During all this Paige had run off to her class, and we were going to meet her over there.  Apparently we'd lingered because they were almost ready to start when we got there.  She met us in the hall, and we walked her back in for a quick goodbye.  Same as Cason-liiiiittle nervous but mostly happy and excited.

THEN we may have peeked back in at Cason one more time before leaving.  He was playing with some other boys and clearly chatting with them.  :)

Reed slept through the whole dropoff, and finally woke up on our way out.  We had lovely heavenly sunbeams, but he wasn't that into it yet.

Jess knows me well and took the day off today.  I did pretty well until I finished buckling Reed in and went to get in and saw Jess waiting by my side of the car.  I started crying before he even hugged me, and couldn't stop for a couple of minutes.  

After that I did okay again.  The day was actually really good.  We got home and Reed finally woke up enough to enjoy the breakfast he slept through earlier.

Before long he was ready for more sleep though, which didn't bother Jess.

Neely and I had some nice playtime while they slept.  She's hilarious.  Lately our Lego people have to have powers.  One of hers today had "sparkle power", so of course the bad guys get sparkles in their mouths when she uses it.  Haha.  

She did really well today, and played with us and Reed and didn't seem upset about Cason being gone so far.  We shall see though.  He's her best pal, the one who always plays with her and rarely gets mad at her, even when anyone else would.  The other day he actually didn't give in to some demand of hers and she got upset, telling him "We used to be best buddies, but now we're NOT."  (She stole that from a song in Frozen-but I don't think that's how it was meant to be used. Ha!)  Cason didn't even look up from what he was doing, and calmly told her  "Yes we are.  We always have been and we always will be."  Haha.  Best brother ever.

Anyway, before we knew it it was time to pick them up.  Paige had asked us to get her first, so she could say hi to Mrs. Arnold and be a part of picking Cason up after his first day.  So we grabbed her, she hugged her teacher and we went to find Cason.  He looked so happy and said goodbye to his teacher and came to hug us.  We asked if their teachers were mean and they laughed and said "OF COURSE NOT!"

 

We got an after school pic, which Neely had to jump into.  :)

 Reed very obviously missed them.  I didn't notice until I took this that Cason changed his outfits like 2-3 times after school.  Haha.

 I made banana chocolate almond butter smoothies for their afterschool snack, and they got right to their homework.  I snagged a little How to Train Your Dragon coloring book today and gave it to him after school, so he devoted some time to that too.  :)

 They told us about their first days.  Both had great days of course, if you don't count the times Cason's new friend, name to be determined, but for now referred to as "the first one" cut in front of him in line for the slide.  Haha.  For this reason, the friend he calls "the second one" is his favorite friend so far.

He told me "I'm lucky it wasn't just a dream that I had school today.  I LOVE it."  Makes us so happy.

 We went out back to watch the rain, but it stopped right then, so instead we watched them play crazy games on the swingset. 

It's funny to see how the whole dynamic has changed now that they're both school kids.  Ha. 

10 Month Old Reed

Reed is 10 months old.  He is 29.5" long, and in the 75.8th %.  His weight is 21 lbs 6 oz, which is 72.6%.   He's still cruising along furniture but not really trying to stand without holding on yet.  His hair is growing, getting a little fuzzy and a lot blonde.

He's still such a good, sweet boy.  His personality is fantastic.  He has started doing things solely to make us all laugh, like ridiculous screams and then belly laughs, and repeat.  Or his scrunchy nose thing where he sucks air in and out of his nose as fast as he can.

The fake laughing has for sure started now too.  (My apologies-I still forget to turn the phone a lot of the time)

Doesn't take much to turn into a real laugh though.

He thinks he's one of the big kids.  

 His new favorite thing is getting rides on his goldfish floatie.  Any time he spots it he crawls to it as fast as he can and sits himself down in the middle and just waits to be pulled around.  Someone will nearly always do it happily.

 

He loves to play ball-more than any of our other kids did at that age.  He'll pick up a ball and hold it out in front of him, balanced on his palm, and then let it roll off of his fingertips.  Then he does his superfast crawl after it, and does it all over again.  Or if he's outside, he crawls all over the yard, kind of "dribbling" the soccer ball with his hands/arms as he crawls.  He's actually really good at it.  Ha.

He really loves to be outside.

 He'll crawl to the back sliding glass door and stand up against it, banging his hands on it and crying for me to let him out.  If his siblings go out to swing and they shut the door before he can get there, his heart IS BROKEN.

Taking care of him when we're at home is a workout for sure.  He is way more active than his siblings were, and wants me either carrying him around the house, or close to him but not holding(restricting) him unless he's tired and/or hungry.   He wants to be free to explore, inside or outside, but that's unbearable for me because EVERY two seconds he's trying to grab something to shove in his mouth, so I'm spending all day picking him up, setting him down, pulling things out of his hands, picking him back up when he gets mad at me because I won't let him eat toys, setting him back down when he's squirming to get free and explore some more, and so on.  Out in public, he's happy to ride along on my hip, smiling and flirting with people.  He loves everybody, but especially his family.

His favorite times of day are the morning, especially waking up his siblings, or having them wake HIM up.

....mealtimes...

 ...and when daddy gets home.  He always gives him really sweet hugs for a bit.

Then leans back and gives him a few loving swats to the face, and then some more hugs.

It's so sweet to see.  I'm hardly ever away from him, so I don't get to experience this kind of thing too often.  One exception is softball.  He's usually very happy to greet me when I get home from a game.  Or if they come to watch, he gets either excited or frantic, depending on his mood, when he sees me on the field.  

I can't believe this guy didn't even exist not too long ago, and now he is such an important part of our family, and basically runs the show around here.

Some Recent Projects

Cason is still set on a How to Train Your Dragon party for his birthday.  I've been gradually getting him little gifts for a few weeks, instead of doing all our shopping right before his birthday.  One thing I wanted to find was a stuffed Toothless.  The ones I could find were either cheap looking or HORRID looking.  So, since making stuffed animals is my favorite kind of sewing, I decided to make one.  At first I thought I'd make up my own pattern, which is fun, but sometimes takes a few attempts before I can get it right.  I did a search to see if anyone had done it and posted pictures, and I came across a tutorial that looked good.  Here it is in case anyone is interested.  It was pretty well done, and fairly easy to follow.

I worked on it during the weekends and a few evenings for a few weeks.  Cason wants to be Hiccup for Halloween, and for Reed to be Toothless, so I just told him I was working on Reed's costume, and made most of the stuffed animal right in front of Cason without him ever knowing.  As the time came for stuffing parts of him, I would sneak off to sew in my room when Cason was busy with something and not likely to come looking for me.  

 

I just about made it, but toward the end I started to wonder if he had suspicions, and then he walked in and caught me when I was sewing the wings on-my last step, dang it! So....he got his main present pretty dang early.  I didn't see the point in making him wait a few weeks when he already knows exactly what it is. 

I was pretty happy with how it turned out, although there are a few things I wish I could improve or change, like his prosthetic tail fin.  I somehow, even after double checking, made it on the wrong side.  Arrgh.  I'd also make the spikes look nicer and make the wings a little more even (one is slightly farther forward).  He's also slightly lazy eyed.  Ha.  Buuuuut I'd have to practically remake him to fix all of those things, and they're not a big enough deal for that.  Cason seems quite happy with him as is, anyway.

He even carried him to Veronica's house with us the other day.

He's not the only fan, either.

Speaking of crafting, Paige and I had been wanting to try polymer clay, so I finally bought us a few colors.  We've made a few things, and we all really liked it.  Paige and I both made koi for our first ones, and I was so impressed with hers.  She may have found a talent.  Hers is the chubbier one.

 Cason and Neely were both really good too!  They both made pandas.  I know I took pictures of Cason's, but I can't find them.  :(  Here is Neely's:

I had to try a Toothless too, of course.  I found a tutorial for this too, and it was fun to use, but I may have to try my own version next time.

Bird's eye:

Now I get to try and clean up the house that always ends up a horrible mess when I'm feeling crafty.

Last Days of our Trip

We ended up leaving for this trip a day late, when the alternator in our car went out.  So in the end we decided to stay an extra day, to get some good family days in.  On Sunday morning we woke up and had a slow start-eating breakfast, cuddling and playing in the comfy hotel beds,

and finding a place to wash some of our clothes, since we ended up staying that extra day.  We eventually went to the beach again.  I regretted having so much stuff to carry the first day at the beach, so this time we didn't have phones and cameras with us.  I kind of wish I had some pictures from this trip, but at the same time it was nice not worrying about taking them, and just enjoying ourselves.  Jess hung out with Reed and Cason up on the beach a lot this time, letting me do a little more searching for shells, which is my favorite thing.  I saw a starfish and couldn't quite catch it because the water was a little choppy.  :(  I found a little sand dollar, but it ended up breaking.  So I had no treasures to bring home.  Neely and Paige liked searching with me, and Cason would too, here and there, but mostly he was into his sandcastles again.  For a while Jess took the big two out into the waves, and I walked in the shallow water carrying Reed and holding hands with Neely.  It was nice and relaxing.  We saw quite a few fish, including a couple of these, right next to our feet.  I thought Neely might freak out because it was like a foot away from us, but it was pretty much the same color as the sand and she never saw it when I pointed it out.  Probably better that way.  :)

That night we tried Pieology, since our kids love pizza so much.  We all liked it, and I have good memories of our little beach kids eating their pizzas and dancing in the empty restaurant (once we got a little chilly and moved inside)

We also ran into a Target, where I tried to sneak gifts for Cason's upcoming birthday into the cart without him noticing, and then went back to our hotel for bed.  

In the morning we had another delicious breakfast, in beautiful weather...

...and headed for home. 

We were greeted home by a pretty crazy and lovely rainstorm.