Pumpkin Patch

Life has seemed a bit to boring to blog about lately, but I'm trying to come up with some interesting topics I could write about. I don't mean boring in a bad way, but it's why I'm not on Twitter, I figure no one really cares what I'm doing every minute of the day. So while I could blog about my daily schedule, I choose not to. I do have some new pictures though, so I will share those.

We went to a local pumpkin patch yesterday and the kids had a great time. We didn't get any pumpkins as we don't want them to get rotten in this beautiful weather, but the kids had fun on the other attractions. There was an area for little kids with a corn box, a mini zip line and lots of wooden structures to climb on/in/around. There was also a whole area that had things built out of straw bales. There was a maze, a castle with tunnels inside, an obstacle course, and towers with slides. The kids loved that part too, but unfortunately, the camera died before we got there.

Kenzie getting a push from Daddy on the zip line. She has quite strong arms and loves to hang/swing on stuff; she loved this thing!

All these structures were so cute, the kids loved them!

Rylan climbed in this sleigh and immediately said, "Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Christmas!" it was great!

I love these things! I have the cutest little family ever!

Playing in the corn! As kids, my siblings and I spent hours and hours playing in the corn bins each year. I remember somedays just lying there to relax, the corn was always nice and cool. When I was burying Rylan and Mackenzie, the sweet smell of the corn brought all those memories back.

Block Party

Our church had it's annual outdoor block party to kick off the Sunday school year. We had a great time as always with the games, food, music and activities.

They got to help the firemen use the fire hose!

Balloon hats!!!

And they got their face/arm painted!

Love the ears!

You can never go wrong with a bounce house...

...or cupcakes!

Our Sweet Little Niece!

The newest member in our extended family is sweet little Ella, our niece and Rylan and Mackenzie's first cousin! She was born to Nick's sister, Katie, and her husband Brian about 6 weeks ago. We just love her to bits! She is such a peanut and such a good baby. She was baptized recently and I co-hosted a baby shower for her this week as well. We are so excited she is here and we can't wait to watch her grow up! Okay, we can wait, she's not allowed to grow as fast as our kids!
And not only do Nick and I get to be her aunt and uncle, but we're also her godparents!

Mackenzie LOVES to hold Ella and she talks about "baby Lella" daily!

I love to hold her too!

This and That

I felt like I hadn't taken many pictures lately, so I took some of lunch time. My little helpers and I made blueberry pancakes and bacon. It was delicious! Mackenzie was my mixer.

Rylan's job was adding blueberries to the pancakes.

Okay, I burnt the bacon a little, but they still ate it. The blueberry-less pancakes were Mackenzie's. She doesn't like blueberries or anything on her pancakes. She eats them totally plain, just like waffles and toast. Strange little taste buds I tell ya!
Rylan and I like orange butter on our pancakes. I had never heard of orange butter until I met Nick's family, now it's my favorite pancake topping. All you do is melt about 2T butter in a bowl, pour in a couple tablespoons orange juice, then add powdered sugar until desired consistency. Yummo!! Nick prefers peanut butter and syrup on his hot cakes.

We've also been eating a ton of sweet corn as it was ready out at the office. It was so good this year, I decided to freeze a whole bunch. I picked about 10 grocery bags full of corn and this is what we have in the freezer now.

Actually, we have all that plus 7 more ziplocs full, because I had done some the week before too. Awesome! It will be so nice to have tasty corn in the freezer all winter.

Here is the current art display at our house. The kids have been proudly bringing home their work and I love to hang it up. Everything on the bottom row is Mackenzie's, everything else is Rylan's except the big purple painting on the top left is Kenzie's as well.

Pass the Tissues

I'm a crier. I cry when I'm upset, I cry when I'm frustrated, I cry when I'm mad, I'm a crier. I cry at weddings, baptisms, hallmark commercials, when hearing a birth story, watching Extreme Home Makeover, chick flicks, you name it. I even fought back tears at a dance recital some of my students were in because I started thinking how proud their moms must be.

However, I've never really gotten emotional about my kids growing up, until recently. I didn't cry on their first birthday, or any other birthday because I'm truly excited for them to experience the next stage in life. And every age seems to get better and better, so I love watching them grow and develop into little people. I did cry when i brought my kids to daycare the very first time, but I didn't cry when Rylan started preschool because I knew he would love it. Kindergarten this year was different though. I totally didn't expect to cry, but I had to fight back the tears as I was saying goodbye to him. It was a realization that he's becoming more independent and he doesn't need me as much anymore, and that hit me like a ton of bricks.

As I brought him to his class that first morning, there was obviously a lot of activity going on in the Kindergarten hallway. When we got to his room, the teacher asked his name, shuffled him in, and sent him over to the red group. She really didn't even acknowledge that I was there and I had to chase Rylan down in the classroom to get a hug. As I was giving him my "morning mom reminders" (make good choices, listen to your teacher and have fun) my eyes unexpectedly started to well up. I wanted to grab him, hold him close and blubber like a baby, but I didn't. I smiled even bigger and told him I loved him and that I knew he would have a great day. It was in the comfort of my car behind my sunglasses that I let the tears flow. My sweet baby boy, (who I'm pretty sure I just gave birth to last year) is off to Kindergarten, starting his academic career. I'm so proud of the little boy he has become, but now that I'm a stay-at-home-mom, I want him home with me. (Yeah, I know, ask me when he's having a tantrum and I'll have changed my mind.) I want to keep him sweet and innocent forever, keep him from getting hurt, and keep him naive to the bad stuff that goes on in this world. I want to keep hearing from him, "Mommy, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of awards because you're mine best mommy in the whole earth!" (he told me this tonight.) I just love that munchkin so much; beyond words. But I know I can't protect him from everything, but I will do my best to prepare him for life and be there to help him through it all.

It was easier to bring Mackenzie to preschool for her first day because she only goes in the mornings, four days a week. So I still get to spend some one on one time with her. And I can't tell you how much I love that time! She is so sweet one on one and I love it because I've never really gotten time like this with her. So I didn't cry on her first day of preschool, but come Kindergarten in a couple years, all bets are off. For now, she can still be my baby, but there's no denying that Rylan is definitely NOT a baby.

It has been a little harder though lately watching them grow up. I think it has everything to do with the fact that I'm not working anymore. I'm able to slow down and enjoy the little things and now I wish it hadn't taken me so long to get to this point. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, and if I hadn't been working before, I probably wouldn't truly appreciate being home. So I have no regrets, and I'm sure glad I now get this opportunity to be the one who brings them to school and picks them up everyday. I'm able to devote 3pm-5pm just to play time with them, and I love that.

I wish I could stop my children from growing so fast (my aging could slow down too) but I can't, so I try to take each day as it comes and enjoy all the moments with my "babies". Even the frustrating ones. :) Like this afternoon when Mackenzie had a fit about not having purple cookies in the house to eat. I had to laugh at her while she was crying, because seriously, she was crying about that? Oh boy, she is drama!

Preschool!!!

Mackenzie is in preschool! I can hardly believe she is old enough, but I'm excited for her because she loves it so much. She has always been the clingy one and nervous about new situations, but she has done great. We also went to her open house the night before school started and that helped to get her acquainted with the classroom while we were there. She had so much fun that night, she didn't to leave. So we had no problems on the first day. She barely had time for a hug! She talks about her teacher "Mamy" (Amy) all the time and just glows in the morning on the way in. She is in the special needs preschool for her speech delay so right now, there are only 3 other kids in the class. There will be more coming as kids turn 3, but there will always be fewer than 10 with 1 teacher and 2 paras all the time. She will also get 1 to 1 speech therapy while at school. We have already seen major improvements with her speech this summer, so we are hoping it will continue to flourish.

Mackenzie's preschool is just mornings, 4 days a week, which is just right. I think I would have a really hard time being away from both kids all day long. I know I did it when I was working, but now that I'm home, I would miss them a lot more. I think Mackenzie really likes having me to herself a little bit every day too. She's never had that before! We've noticed they fight with each other less lately, which is REALLY nice. A little time apart is good I think. :)

Kindergarten!

I know, an update would be nice! We've been busy with school starting and a baby shower that I was planning, but now that it's done, I have been working on a couple new posts!

Rylan started Kindergarten 2 weeks ago now and he is loving it! The night before school started we went to open house and visited all the kindergarten rooms and met all the teachers. Rylan's school is unique in that they don't assign Kindergarteners to teachers until the end of the first week. They have a camping theme the first week and in small groups, the students do activities in each of the classrooms so the teachers can get to know them a little better. After this, they can divide into classes so each one is equally balanced. Those first few days, he was just so excited about all the new toys there were to play with, but his favorite thing was playing on the playground. He is tired out at the end of each day and he has been sleeping great at night.

Now that he is in his classroom, he is getting used to the school routine. He likes his teacher and the kids in his class. He's been very excited that they have started to enter their own lunch codes at lunch time this week. This summer we got a letter in the mail with his assigned lunch code and a picture of the keypad so he could practice. I was surprised that his code was 6 digits, but with some practice, he could recite his code in his sleep! He was so proud to know it and was a little disappointed when they didn't get to enter their codes that first week. I think the teacher just gave the kitchen staff a list of all the lunch codes each day - I can only imagine how long it would take to get all those Kindergarteners through the line! So they practiced in class and have now started doing it on their own.

They have been learning about colors and how to spell the names of each color. Rylan came home one day and this was our conversation.
Rylan: Mommy, I know how to spell 'red'!
Me: Really, let's hear it!
Rylan: (pause while thinking) Well, my teacher needs to tell me first.
:)
So we sounded it out and then he did remember how to spell 'red'.
He also got to be the helper last week one day. He was so excited to tell me about it! He said he got to bring papers to the office- once someone showed him where to go and the next time, he got to go all by himself. He also got to help his teacher find her water bottle lid.

I'm so proud of the sweet little boy Rylan is and what a smart little cookie he is becoming. I hope that he always loves school!