Catie is a Kindergartener & Andrew is a Third Grader

We kicked off the first day of school with a book breakfast. The kiddos ate pancakes and raspberries and then we took photos and raced off to school. Catie got the most adorable back to school outfit from Boden for a project (giveaway) I was working on with them. Andrew's outfit didn't arrive in time, so he wore his another day. 

Andrew ran off to find friends once we arrived at school and I went with Catie to the kinder yard.

She LOVES her new teacher and her new classroom. She also was so excited to see several friends from TK and church at school.

I went into the classroom with Catie for the first little bit and we followed a little checklist. Then I said goodbye, went home for an hour, and then went back and got her. It was a short day!

After school we played and then picked Andrew up at 12pm and headed off for lunch and a trip to Mrs. Fields and a park. After some park time the kids got some down time and then we ended the night with a family dinner to CPK. We had several grumpy kids at dinner, which was to be expected since we were all a bit overtired, so it was nice once every one went to bed!

Catie is sure that she got the best teacher ever and Andrew is excited about his teacher too!

We made it through the week without too many meltdowns so I would call that a success!

Maui Trip Journal by Andrew

Andrew had a big packet of homework to do over our week trip to Maui. One of his assignments was to write a journal. Here's his Maui Trip Journal. He has two more pages to finish tomorrow, which I will add in when he is finished. It is funny to see what things were important to him on this trip and I just LOVE his invented spelling for some of the words too! I helped remind him to add periods to the sentences otherwise this would've been one big run on sentence. See if you can decipher some of the more creatively spelled words.

Love this kid!

Rocking the Fun Run

Andrew's school PTA does a Fall Fun Run to raise money for the school. I am a big fan. I signed up to help out, but when no one else volunteered to lead it for our class, I ended up stepping in to be the class Fun Run lead instead of just a helper. I thought it would be a lot of work, but really it just ended up being a great way to get to know the teacher and all the other parents in the class. 

Each class had to pick an accessory to wear. I kept it simple and just bought yellow leis (the kinder class color was yellow). My committee was awesome and everyone did their jobs perfectly, so on the actual day I just got to show up, help the kids get dressed/accessorized, and then I got to help take them over for the run! It was totally low stress and a lot of fun. I even got to run with Andrew.

Andrew loved getting to see his other kindergarten and first grade buddies from other classes (like our little neighbor pictured below).

He ran about a mile and a half and was so proud of all of the money he earned for the school thanks to super star supporters in our families!

Afterwards I got to help tally up all of the laps for all of the kids and figure out how much each kid owed, etc... that was the only taxing part and it wasn't too bad. Thank goodness for calculators since my brain was zapped from no sleep the night before!

Such a great way to start off a morning!

Fun Friday and De-Junking

Last week was exhausting. I don't really like having a set schedule every day. I did not sufficiently enjoy our lazy days when we could all stay in pjs till 12pm. Last year Andrew didn't have school till 12:30pm which was totally more my style. Fortunately we found out he is a "late bird" so he doesn't go to school till 9:20 starting next week- hooray!

Once Friday hit we needed to celebrate surviving the week!  

In addition to making cookies we did lots of playing and lounging around in the afternoon. We had a fun pool playdate with a friend and then Andrew ended that with a giant tantrum because it was so hard to leave! I would much rather have him throw a tantrum after a playdate (with me around) than throw one at the beginning of the school day AT school... so I tried not to be overly annoyed with him. Kindergarten is tiring! I volunteered in there on Friday... so I know! 

I also spent Friday afternoon sorting through Andrew's worksheets and stuff from the week. I was pretty impressed with his coloring considering he's done a coloring page maybe two times ever. Usually he'd rather draw his own design (like make this calendar into a Star Wars ship or something) so I was impressed he actually colored it. Kindergarten sure does have a lot of coloring!

This is the lovely cutting/coloring project he had to bring home last week because he was too busy chatting to finish it. I sent it back in and his teacher was proud :) I was proud too... I don't think I would have the patience to color an entire paper with blue crayon like he did... and he did it quickly and without complaining.

They are making loads of mini books in kindergarten that they bring home and share with us and read to us. My favorite is the Mr. Book. It tells all about how not to read a book- crumple the pages, spill on it, etc. I think I am going to make my own version for Catie :)

Once I snapped photos of some of Andrew's work, I threw some of it away. Not these things... but several of his math worksheets and other coloring projects.

Am I a terrible mom? I don't want the clutter and don't want to save worksheet pages. Do you keep everything? What do you save? What do you toss? He brings stuff home every day.

In addition to de-cluttering, the kids had quiet time, I did blog work, and Ryan napped. When they were done playing separately, they went into Catie's room and played Legos nicely together for 30 minutes. I actually fell asleep on the couch and took a nap. It was insane and felt great. Ryan is up at night tons lately with teething and just bad sleep habits and I'd gotten up at 5:45am to go running... so apparently I was exhausted by the afternoon!

After naps/quiet time we ate cookies. This sneaky little devil found a chocolate chip somewhere on the floor and scarfed it right down.

  
The rest of the afternoon was spent lazily playing around the house and then cleaning up the mess. I love this gif of Andrew and Ryan having a tinker toy light saber battle. It cracked me up.

I think Friday is going to be my new favorite day of the week! 

Surviving Kindergarten

Last Thursday night I posted that "we've almost survived our first week of kindergarten."

I should've said "knock on wood" before I posted that.

Friday turned out to be a crazy day. By 8am Andrew had fallen up the stairs when goofing off with Catie and whacked his mouth leaving himself with two fat lips. Poor kid was really upset and even when the hurting stopped he did not want to go to school.

Eventually I got everyone dressed and out the door. When we got to school he was late, so we had to go get a late slip at the office (which meant lugging all three little people across the school to the office and then back to class). On the way to the office I noticed my foot and leg covered with water. I quickly discovered that an entire water bottle had leaked in the bottom of Andrew's kindergarten bag... and then onto me. Sweet.

Once we got to Andrew's classroom, he refused to go in. At first he just cried and was sad. I tried to hold his hand and walk him in, but he wouldn't budge. In the end, his teacher carried him crying into class while he practically pulled the buttons off my back jean pockets trying to hang on to me.

I was sad. I burst into tears on the playground when talking to a mom I didn't know (Andrew had punched her child the day before). Then once we almost got to the car I realized I had forgotten to add Andrew's snack to his bag... since it had been full of water.

I raced back across the schoolyard to add his snack to his bag and managed to run into a basketball hoop and smack my head. The bump immediately swelled up and left a goose egg on my head.

I walked back to the car with my two little kiddos and sobbed and called Elise.

Then I went home and ate chocolate with Catie and watched shows while Ryan slept. Two hours later I emailed the office secretary at school (because I was stressed that Andrew might still be having a tantrum). She emailed me back and checked on him and told me he was fine 2 minutes after I left school.

Hooray! After wasting two hours being stressed and sad, I finally got off the couch and did the dishes and was productive. Catie was inventive while I was distracted and made a cupcake craft and did some climbing.

When I picked Andrew up from school he was beaming. He was so proud of the great work he had done at school. He didn't mention a thing about being sad or having any problems earlier in the day.

We hurried home to have our twin buddies from kinderprep over for an afternoon playdate. My head was aching from all the stress from the morning so we played and had popsicles and ended the day with loads of fun!

Thank goodness!

We've got a Kindergartener!

We've almost survived the first week of kindergarten.

I am still in a little shock that this is our new normal. I am also praying that Andrew gets to be a "late bird" and go to school from 9:20am-12:50pm instead of 8:30am-12pm (we find out next week). Most people are probably thinking I'm crazy... but my kids sleep in till 8am sometimes and I don't want to mess with a good thing... especially since I'm up half the night with a teething Ryan these days.

Other than me having to wake up at 7am so that we are ready to leave by 8am, things have gone well... or at least have been entertaining.

Tuesday morning started off with us heading out the door and discovering my neighbor Kara & family had decorated our front door with streamers and a little sign for Andrew. It was adorable and totally made me tear up.

Andrew lucked out and got a good friend in his class from last year. They are such cuties and it made him automatically relieved to know he had a bud in class with him.

Back to School Night was so surreal. It was so weird to be sitting and listening instead of being up there doing the talking as the teacher. I am also completely overwhelmed with all of the fliers and handouts getting shoved my way with information. I need it all to be digitized and sent to my inbox.

Andrew's love of rules has come out in full force this week. He was made for kindergarten and structure. He spent time after school yesterday explaining to me the rules for using the kinder bikes on the bike path. He even walked the whole path acting like he was riding a bike so that I could see where the bikes can and cannot go. This morning he told me all about the rules with the swings in the kinder yard. He thinks it is totally unfair that he can only pump 10 times before he has to get off and give someone else a turn to swing... but I'll bet he'll force himself to do it anyway.

On the first day of school the kids read Owen by Kevin Henkes. Yesterday they drew portraits and today they got to make "Sharkey" hats... since our school mascot is a Shark. They also got to visit the library. Andrew can't wait to go and "buy" books there. I laughed when he said that because he rarely gets to go to the library... and if we do go, we are usually paying a fine. It is much cheaper for us to order books on Amazon than it is to use a public library. My goal for Andrew is to not get banned from the school library for never bringing back his books.

Today when I arrived to pick Andrew up, he didn't come outside. The teacher motioned for me to come inside and I got to hang out while we discussed an altercation between Andrew and another boy. It become clear pretty quickly that Andrew was at fault and he wasn't sharing why he punched the kid. It seems to be a rite of passage for him at a new school... since he punched a kid on the first or second day at preschool too.

Fortunately, after lots of conversation at home, he finally remembered what had happened and it turned out to just be a silly accident. The kids had been goofing off and he'd been punching a paper and didn't realize there was a face on the other side of that paper. I think Andrew's teacher is awesome and he was pretty excited that she called me at home so that we could clear up the issue and she could let me know that it had been an accident too. Phew. I was worried he was going to be labeled as the problem child from day one. At least now she definitely knows his name and mine... for better or for worse. Let's hope he keeps his hands to himself from here on out.

The other highlight of the day today happened when I opened Andrew's bag and saw a crumpled page that said, "Please finish this :)" on it. It was partially colored and Andrew mentioned that he'd made a new friend in class and they spent quite a lot of time talking about light sabers. When I said something about how he was so lucky to get to do some coloring at home he mentioned that most others did theirs at school and colored faster than he did. I'm guessing it may have had something to do with all the chatting he'd been doing. Like mother like son. :)

He was totally happy to color in every single detail of his picture when we got home. I don't think I have ever seen that much blue sky colored on a paper ever. He had also cut out the scissor lines before coloring, which made the whole experience super complicated since his paper was all cut up and he needed to color it while keeping it still. He came up with the idea to tape it to the table with painters tape, so we did.

I am scouring the volunteer sign up sheets to try and figure out how I can get in to help in his class sometime soon. He loves his teacher, is excited every day when he wakes up to get to school right away, and he especially loves going early so he can play on the playground a bit before school starts.

I'm really interested to see how things go this year. I'm hoping he has a blast and he stays positive and enthusiastic about learning!

Other than kindergarten, we've kept the schedule pretty low key this week. We've chilled and watched TV in the early evening and I've let Andrew play legos for hours and hours since he acts like he doesn't get enough time to play now that he is at school. He would prefer if we lived like hermits and never left the house.

I have to force him to go to the park because I can't stand staying home all afternoon. Afterwards he'll tell me that our adventure was way more fun that he thought it was going to be. Today we road bikes up the hill to get popsicles and then road to the park, played, and then road home. I pushed the other two littles in the jogger while I ran after him (my second jog of the day).

I expected tantrums and meltdowns since I was exhausted and wanted to walk (and I figured he would be even more tired)... but little dude road the whole way and kept telling me I was too slow.

Let's hope our last day of K for the week goes well and we can enjoy a lovely and long weekend... and hopefully get to sleep in once or twice.

Getting Ready to Go Back to School

This weekend we said goodbye to summer with a little celebrating. We had a "Kindergarten will be a blast!" rocket party for Andrew and some church/neighborhood buds and we headed down to Santa Cruz for some fun at the beach.

You can read all of the party details over on my blog Toddler Approved.

Our favorite spot in Santa Cruz is Natural Bridges. The weather was exquisite and baby Ryan was in heaven climbing mounds of sand.

The beach trip was awesome other than when Catie almost cracked her head open at our favorite ice cream place- Mariannes. If you haven't been there... you must go... just make sure your kids don't act like crazy like ours did.

I have about a gazillion more photos from the beach that I need to share on here... but the ones above are my favorites. We also hit up Upper Crust for some yummy pizza in between the beach and ice cream.

On Sunday I attempted to orchestrate a cute Back to School family dinner celebration that was a bust. The kids acted crazy and couldn't sit still or eat... so we made no family goals for the school year or did anything special. Instead we scrapped my plan and just made chocolate rockets to blast Andrew off to Kindergarten. At least we kept with the family motto-- "Enjoy the journey, stop for treats."

On Monday night we celebrate the last day of summer with a trip to Shark Day at school (to find out Andrew's new teacher and get a tour of the school). Then we dropped off some treats to friends and got slurpees... and then we headed to the park for a family pizza picnic.

We ended the night at home with stories and Andrew got his first Back to School Father's blessing before he hit the sack.

It was a great weekend and I think we managed to have an incredible summer.

I have been telling everyone that this is OUR year. It is going to be a fabulous one. I'm so lucky to have Kevin and my cute kiddos so that we can make it an excellent year together!

If you want to see pictures of Andrew's first day of kindergarten, check Instagram. I'll be overgramming over there all week long :)