this girl

Ten Years Old.

Ten Years Old.

Ten Years Old.
Ten Years Old.
Ten Years Old.
Ten Years Old.

Ten Years Old.
That's all I have to say about that.

just so you know...

first day of first grade

Savannah is thrilled to be back at school. She loves her teacher, loves her class, loves the full day, loves that first graders get two recesses(!), loves being an old pro at the whole bus thing, loves taking her lunch to school... just all around loves being a first grader!





And I love that she loves it. I love that she's so confident and sure of herself. I love that she's up and dressed and anxious to go first thing in the morning. I love that she happily tells us about her day, even though she has exasperated once or twice, "I can't remember everything we did Mom!" at our further proddings. And I love that she's ready to get past this first week of "learning the first grade" and on to "learning first grade (or more like second grade in her case) stuff". She's anxious to get to the reading and writing and learning.
















I wanted to get more pictures of her after school that first day, but she balked at me.
I also offered to bring the camera out as she left on her second day (she's just looking entirely too grown up for me to believe on her way out the door each morning), but I detected a slight eye roll at that one. She's right though...
there's nothing like the first day of first grade!






















*****
Sawyer's loving that school's back on too... he's missed the morning ritual of Foursquare.
I have to admit one of my favorite things about the school year is our bus stop in the morning. Right on our front corner...














So many kids, so many parents, all hanging out before school. Our bus comes at almost 8:30, yet most of the kids are out by 8 o'clock just to play together.
Here's our first morning this year, but it's altogether typical of any morning of the school year...
moms and dads chatting














boys playing foursquare















and the girls who'd rather just gab while watching for the bus and examining each others' outfits and accessories!













































(minus the paparazzi of the first day of course!)























Have a great year, my favorite First Grader!!

soccer

Leave it to me to not get around to posting any of Savannah's soccer pictures until the weekend of her very last game! She actually played well Saturday... I think she got in there and touched the ball more than she has in any other game. Like she's finally getting the hang of it :)
Monday evening is the big final awards celebration for the whole league and then that'll be that. I think she's ready to move on; she's had a lot of fun these past eight weeks, but not sure she's cut out for soccer. We'll see how she feels next spring.

Both kids are in swimming for the next three weeks... just enough time to get us through until our own pool opens for the summer! Woo hoo!! Well actually it'll open before that, but I'm not counting on warm enough weather to really be in there until we get into June.

Anyway.
Here's our soccer girl.
Eight weeks ago in her first game:



























































And this weekend, the girls' last game:







































































































And of course little brother had to get his mug in some shots.
He reminds me so much of Ryan in these pictures.
And it's obvious he has the squinty-eye syndrome like his daddy and his sister...
















I was reviewing these pics he snuck in on from this weekend and kept thinking how on earth did he turn into such a Little Boy?!? Gah!

another weekend

... that felt like I would have missed if I blinked too long! Is it really Monday already?!?

Friday night I participated in a vendor fair at our elementary school with a booth I put together for BeadforLife. It was a good turnout and a lovely night of chatting with lots of ladies. (Which reminds me, I wanted to post on here that I do have a box of goodies here that I'm not planning on sending back until next week, so if anyone local here wants to do a little shopping, let me know and you can come by or we can arrange to meet somewhere so you can pick out some jewelry. Mother's Day is coming.... and what better way to celebrate than to support and uplift other mothers a world away.)

Saturday we skipped out on Savannah's soccer game because we had signed her up for a Cheer clinic at the high school that she has been so looking forward to for a couple of months! It was a fundraiser clinic put on by our high school cheerleaders with a day of instruction and fun (and lunch!) for any of the elementary kids that wanted to participate. Savannah had a blast. It seems cheer is definitely more her thing than soccer. I suspected that would be the case due to her comfortability -is that a word??- in her tumbling and creative dance classes last year, but we still want her to try out other sports she might be interested in. But after Saturday, I'm convinced this might be where she belongs.
The last hour of the clinic was a show for the parents. There were a lot of parents. I'm talking full bleachers in the high school's main gym. Each group of girls had a turn to come out and did a couple of routines, chants and things that they learned that morning. Savannah came on out there and was sure and confident. She didn't always remember the words or the moves right on, but she was smiling and loud... she ended up carrying a chant on past when it was supposed to be done and I could hear her lone voice strong and sure and loud and clear from way up in the middle of the bleachers. And she didn't even seem embarrassed... when she realized what happened, she just started in on her jumping and claps and high kicks and Yay!'s they all do in between cheers. I was impressed!
Anyway, she had a blast. And of course I dropped the ball and forgot my camera!

After the cheer clinic on Saturday she had a birthday party to go to for a girlfriend in her class. They were supposed to wear "western" clothes. This was the best we had: a cute little "western" skirt and braids with bows. I thought that was acceptable. (and for some reason she asked me to take a few pictures of her this afternoon!!)
















But when I dropped her off at the party, every single kid had like full decked out cowboy gear. Cow print skirts, suede/hide vests, cowboy boots, hats, Woody or Jessie costumes, etc. I heard two kids rudely tell her, "You're not wearing cowboy stuff."
I kind of felt bad for her, but really I was surprised. Do kids really have that much cowboy stuff laying around their house? We have nothing. I admit I know many kids acquire some fun cowboy/girl boots along the way, but for some reason, we haven't. We don't have any kids dress up stuff like that. And I wasn't about to run out and buy some cowboy outfit just for a kindergartner's birthday party! I was just shocked at how accesorized all the kids were.
Oh well, she still had fun. It's always fun to see your friends outside of school, right?

Then when we got her back from the party we went directly over to a neighbors backyard where a few friends were gathering for dinner. The kids ran around for a few hours, we finally dragged them home to bed at about 9pm and then us grown ups actually went back over to play cards for a bit. The weather was surprisingly nice all weekend... we were expecting about four straight days of rain, but it was dry and warm and perfect to spend so much time outside.

Sunday after church we all napped (well, everyone else did- I went through pictures. I managed to get through five years worth of birthday and Christmas pictures to print! Go me!!) before Savannah had another soccer game. Where she fell and ended up with a gusher of a bloddy nose. That was fun!
After soccer we headed over to the Swinigan's for dinner, and again enjoyed a great meal outside in the great spring weather!

It was another late night to bed... I had to wake Savannah for school this morning at 8 o'clock! That NEVER happens. I know it was a busy weekend when it wears her out!

two teeth

Savannah lost her second tooth this past weekend.
Well, "lost" is putting it nicely. This was one that had to be more pulled than lost.

This was the tooth that was loose first... weeks before the next one was wiggling, and now a week after that one went ahead and fell out, this one was still hanging on. The permanent tooth was growing in far enough behind it that it wasn't fully pushing it out. It would wiggle all over the place, but still had two good roots holding on in the front. It was bugging Savannah and she could push it out front so that it was actually sticking out perpendicular to the rest of her teeth. It was gross. But still holding on for dear life.

After much whining and complaining about it on Saturday, I decided it needed to finally come out.
So in the midst of Savannah waffling back and forth; "It's ready to come out! Wait, no! Just get it out! No, don't! I want you to pull it out! I don't want it to hurt! I want Daddy to pull it out! No, don't!", and much crying and struggling, and then a pull, a twist and a pop (eww!), out it came. And Savannah about fainted.

That night her trauma bravery was rewarded by the tooth fairy leaving a little something extra for her.

She doesn't really have a toothless grin, as the two new teeth are already pretty far in. I never took a picture after she lost the first one last week, so after the ordeal Saturday, I tried to snap one. The thing is, when she smiles for real you can't really see her bottom teeth very well and her trying to smile with her mouth open... well the results aren't all that pretty. :)

Regardless, here's my favorite five-year-old minus her two first baby teeth...

more

I feel like I've been a major MommyBlogger lately with all the pictures of my kids and documenting their amusing quips. Not to mention the going into labor talk. :)
I definitely have more non-mom 'me' stuff to write about, but it's kind of heavy and while I know it'll be therapeutic to write it out, it's kind of draining putting it all out there... especially in a way that makes sense to anyone but me. I'll get to it one of these days.

In the meantime, more MommyBlogging:

• Savannah now has two loose teeth! I wish these kids would stop growing up so fast!!

• Sawyer is on a huge five kick... it's five everything around here. Things happen in five minute increments, we'll do things again in five days, he always takes things in servings/piles of fives, and the best one... "I love you so much Mommy!" "How much do you love me?" "I love you Five Days!!"

• I think we're going to take a little family mini-vacation this spring. It's looking like our blog trip is off, so I'm thinking spring break-ish might be a good time to spend a long weekend up in Chicago together or maybe hit up one of these water park resorts. Just some fun getaway time with the four of us.

• We have a couple of projects to attack this weekend; a mini-makover of part of the kids' playroom and also the laundry room. It'll be nice to get some things crossed off the house list.

• We've been on a random Little House on the Prairie spree around here... our elementary school's mascott is a Pioneer, so that started it all off this year. They've had a few pioneer days at school, and Savannah was very intrigued with all of that. She's now read all of the My First Little House Books and I think we're about to dive into the real Little House Series that we all read when we were younger. The past two weeks I've borrowed library DVD's of some of the tv series episodes and Savannah is obsessed. She loves them. I have to admit I love watching them too... that's one of the only shows I remember watching as a kid and my sister and I spent countless hours playing "Little House" and driving a covered wagon (aka perching on the footboard of the top bunkbed with the "reins" of the cord to the shades on the bedroom window).

Is anyone else as happy as I am that it's Friday?!!!

my new blogging buddy

warning: LONG thoughts for thursday ahead!....

So any of you who know me, know that I love this blog. I love to babble on endlessly and have it floating around out there for any one who cares what trivial thoughts float through my head at any given time of day, as well as for me to look back on. While this did originally start out as simply a vehicle to keep long distance family up to date on our goings-ons, it snowballed into so much more than that. I've always loved journaling, getting my thoughts and feelings out of my head and onto paper. To sort things out, to have it to reflect on later, to be able to go back years from now and think, wow, now I remember that!. To have somewhere to record the seemingly unimportant details of life that in the long run are so fun to look back on.
Sure, the community of the blog world has become a big part of it all for me too... what would I do with myself if I didn't have all of your blogs to browse over each day, laughing with you, learning through you, just opening my eyes to these places and families I might never know if it weren't for this place of community. You've all encouraged me, corrected me, challenged me, and pointed out again and again that we are all in this world together. I value the friendships and connections I've gained thru keeping this little corner of the internet.

But regardless, first and foremost I write for myself. I love looking back over the past two years and reading what was going on in our life. Big changes, big accomplishments, and the little seemingly mundane things that made up each day; I love how it makes my memories so much more detailed. I find myself wishing so often that I had started blogging earlier... that I had things of Savannah's babyhood recorded the way I do Sawyer's. Even earlier: I wish that I had record of what I thought took up so much of my time before we even had kids!! Haha! How did I think I had a busy life and a messy house before them?!
I like seeing my evolution... both in writing and as a mother, a wife, a friend... how am I the same and how am I different in my thoughts, my perspective and my life, comparing back then and now. I can't imagine what it'll be like to look back at it all five or ten years from now. I love that thought.

Anyway. All that to say, I've come to the conclusion that it's never to early to start.

Okay, so combine that conclusion with the fact that my daughter is a writer. I don't know many five year olds I can say that about, but my daughter is A WRITER. It's her absolute favorite thing to do. Well, reading my be a close second, but I think writing definitely comes out ahead. She writes all. day. long. She's constantly writing letters to our neighbors, her friends, her pen pal, notes for us all day long, she writes in her journal, she writes stories in her notebooks, I could go on and on. She'll fill an entire spiral bound notebook in one day if I let her. With words and rhymes and stories. We're running out of paper here!

So that, with the fact that she witnesses me "writing" on the blog and is fascinated by the communication surrounding that (grammas seeing pictures and knowing things that are going on in our life, etc), my daughter is often begging me to let her "do a blog" on our page. She always has wanted to be in on the action and jumping at any chance to do some typing or computer stuff; hence the past guest posts... even before she could fully write her name! Now that she can write by herself and spell and read, she's been asking me at least weekly if she can write on my blog. So after some contemplation I thought; why not give her a whole blog of her own?

I pish-poshed myself at that idea at first... what in the world does a five year old need with a blog? I'm a big proponent of letting kids be kids, that this world already makes them grow up to fast, that they don't need to rush into so many "grown up things" so soon. Heck, my kids don't even know anything about computers. I have friends with other preschoolers who can completely navigate a computer on their own... playing games and even finding their favorite websites on their own! I've always shaken my head at that. Why do they need to know that? Why not be on the floor creating and playing with real live things and be a kid?? I've even found myself a little concerned once in awhile that I'm doing a disservice to my kids that they are completely computer illiterate. They don't even know what a mouse is! How are they going to function when they get into school where it's all about technology now?!

Anyway, I went back and forth with myself for awhile about it. I mean after all, isn't it better that Savannah just write with pen and paper? She's still only learning her skills; better printing, sentence structure, punctuation, etc. Shouldn't she be practicing all that by hand?
(But the amount that she writes, she'll still get plenty of practice, believe me!!)
I realized that with a blog, she would get to practice some of that; learn typing skills, learn computer skills, learn writing/storytelling skills, and we get to do something we enjoy together. She'll also have a new way to more easily keep in touch with some long distant friends and family and most importantly have all of this learning and sharing and storytelling and the start of basic memory archiving to look back on forever.

I started to do some research wondering if I was crazy thinking of starting a blog for my kindergartner... and came across a few articles and websites like this and this. Okay, so I'm not crazy.
And then, just a couple of weeks ago, a blogger I read often shared that her five year old kindergartner started blogging as well.
And that finally sold me. Apparently, I'm not so crazy, it's not such a far fetched idea, and maybe we could make this work.

So. Without further ado, I present to you:
our very own
New Kid on the Blog
Feel free to stop over and say hi to her. She's excited about this new project and has already posted a couple of times in the week or so we've had it up and running. Check in regularly for a peek into the perspective of a five year old in the blog world!!

And in regards to Thoughts for Thursday... if you want to, let me know (kindly if you disagree) what you think of kids blogging, kids on the internet and kids on the computer at increasingly young ages in general.

sick day

So Savannah was home sick today.
And we had a fabulous day. Honestly. She was feeling a million times better than yesterday, we had the dr. visit and the drugs and were home by 9 this morning, and had the whole rest of the day to hang out just she and me :)
We did a little coloring. We did a lot of reading (I got her a new book for us to read outloud together while the boys are gone). We spent two hours napping. We talked to our boys on the phone. We took a walk after dinner in the summer rain. We washed her hair in the kitchen sink (which is an odd favorite treat for her... she loves to lay on the counter, with the warm sprayer water and my hands running through her hair in the sink. Gee, I wonder who's daughter she is? She also was telling me as I sudsed her up I really can't wait to see my friends tomorrow! Why? So they can smell my yummy hair! Apparently a wash in the sink smells yummier.)

It was a great day to just be together.
We need to get back in the habit of our one on one "dates" or have more special days like this once in awhile...






















Also, I couldn't help but snap pictures of this tree we spied on our walk this evening...This thing only had a trunk that was seriously like two-and-a-half feet tall, but the poor thing was propped and tied up all around because the branches were growing out forever. And it had just hundreds and hundreds of apples on it. I could not get over how many apples this tiny trunk produced. It looked so odd. Like some sort of apple bush rather than an upstanding tree...