Interview with a Kindergartener on her first day- catch up post

Alexis had her first day of kindergarten and we are slowly piecing together everything she has told us about it.
What we saw: she got ready and went in to school with us.  (After dropping off Andrew who was confused about being dropped off by himself).
We stopped in and met a few parents at the "tears and cheers" breakfast, but didn't stay long.
High Meadows called to tell us that she had arrived there and I picked up both kiddos from there.

On the way home, she was excited to tell me that she had a sticker in her folder and that she had gotten candy.  She also informed me that there were not 16 kids in her class, but rather 16 STUDENTS.  She told me that she would take her lunch for the first 62 days and after that if she had to go through the lunch line to wait for food, that would be ok.

During dinner, we were informed that she was nice to everybody and that everyone was nice to her except for one boy that kept spitting at them.  She also told us that she had a fun bus ride back to High Meadows but also that she might have had to go back inside the school to calm down after running and yelling.  She might have but she might not....hmmm.

What do you want to be when you grow up? - I would like to be a Queen and a mommy and I might turn into a mermaid.

What friends names do you remember from school? I don't know any, they didn't tell me their names.

What did you do when you first got to the classroom? Sat down and did work about letters and took a rest on my desk

What was your favorite thing to do today at school? Get my candy and going out for recess which means play outside.

What did you eat for snack? Fruit snacks...at my old school I ate the granola bar but I accidentally threw some of it in the trash.

What friend did you play with the most or have the most fun with? I liked girls better than boys, one of the girls whose name I don't know but she had blond hair

What's your favorite color? Pink

What's your favorite number? 25
Is there a reason your favorite number is 25? No, no there isn't I just like to count to 25.

Is there anything else you would like to tell me about kindergartne? Yes, you know how I was telling you I played a game? After I played that game, I played a differeint game called house climb, clock time.

Did you sing any songs? Yes, yes I did but only one. 

Then she started singing "Baba baba ooooohhhh'' (Justin Bieber) but said that she learned that from her old preschool before High Meadows from Riley and Beckham.

Trick or Treat 2012 catch up

Well, after a few weeks of trying to get Andrew into his costume without screaming and crying...the first time I made the mistake of trying it on over his new pajamas and he was very upset about me covering up his bats, he happily put it on when he was rewarded with M&;M's.  2 M's for the pants, 2 for the jacket and 1 for the hood.

He still didn't wear it for the 1st Halloween activity but mostly because it was too hot.  So the Saturday before Halloween, we went to Haunts & Hounds at the Shops of HV.  Alexis got to meet Marcella there and we trick or treated at the shops. 

That evening was a little crazy.  Grant and his engineering students were doing a frozen pumpkin drop at the High School to try to see the sparks they make when they first hit the ground as they shatter and it was a friend's 30th B-day party.  Due to some scheduling conflicts Andrew came with me to the party (did I mention this was not a party for kids?) before we headed to the pumpkin drop, Alexis went with Grant to help set up.  Andrew learned that he could jump off a chair and roar like a lion, repeatedly, for the whole time we were at the party, except while he was eating...though he did try to jump, roar and eat all at the same time until mommy put a stop to that.

So we headed to the pumpkin drop and found Alexis shivering in one of Grant's student's sweatshirts over her costume as they were walking to his car to get her sweatpants and jacket.

We watched the "fire music", basically the vibration of the music changed the height of the flame as it came out of a pipe connected to a speaker.  And we waited, and waited, and waited for the custodial staff to unlock the gate to get into the football stadium and head up to the press box.  The kids and I finally gave up and went home (after running around for a while).

Then on Halloween, Alexis had pumpkin lab at school.  We discovered she likes to eat pumpkin seeds.  Andrew had a party that consisted of eating sweets.  Then we went to the Fall Festival at LBC.  The kids had a lot of fun, but it was a bit much for Andrew to actually pay attention...he kept running around and grabbing all of the balls etc that you play the games with, so once Grant was done with his shift at the football toss, we left to trick or treat in the neighborhood.  Andrew was great walking around and collecting candy.  Both kiddos were excited, but well-behaved and Alexis went from house to house singing Hark the Herald Angels sing and "na na na Christ is born, the Savior of the world."  If you saw the LBC kids Christmas program this year, then you heard the rest of the song. Here are a few pics.

You learn something new every day

So I grew up hearing the above phrase fairly often and wasn't sure if it would always be true, but let me tell you, even when you are an adult and have kids of your own to teach, you can learn new things every day.

For example, today, January 26, 2013, I learned/was reminded of the following:
1. Pomegranate juice can spray you from your temples down your neck with just one seed
2. No matter how wonderful a kid is about going to bed and not getting up at night does not mean the bed will be as appealing during nap time.
3. The only boys allowed at girl birthday parties are little brothers, daddies, the baby boys and the baby daddies.
4. You can make up a song about being a rockstar to the tune of "Happy Birthday"
5. Even 2-1/2 year olds know it's time to "get this party started"
6. Your children can get along famously and infamously in the span of 5 minutes
7. A child can be fearless until someone else in the family yells "ROAR'

So I hope that you enjoy thinking about how these revelations must have come up in our house all in one day and that you too can learn something new every day no matter how big or small.

my blogging failure

To those that were following the blog to keep up with the kids, I sincerely apologize.  I'm pretty sure that after I took my break from blogging while I was in school at night that I allowed Pinterest to take my blogging time in the evening...and the fact that I was taking all pics with my phone instead of a regular camera and not bothering to load my pics to the computer until recently contributed fairly significantly too.

After a recent review of how many pins I have on Pinterest and the serious need to reorganize and delete some, I think I'll take a break from browsing Pinterest (though I'll still spend time organizing, deleting, and selecting projects and recipes from what I already have) so hopefully, I'll get back to blogging a bit more regularly.

So I have 11 posts in draft, while I can't guarantee that those will get done because I'm not so sure that I remember what I was going to change or add to them, I can tell you a little about the beginning of our year so far and a little from the end of last year.

We went to the Luna's annual New Year's Eve party on 12/31/2012.  We have done this every year since Alexis was born (and maybe the year before too).  Luckily, everyone else that goes has children older than ours, so there is built in childcare for this party.  I must say though, now that everyone's kids are getting older, hanging out with our little ones seems to be less fun for them.  I guess it was better for them when our littles were bound to fall asleep and the older ones still didn't mind watching cartoons.  We all had fun though and Andrew still gave in and went to sleep in a sleeping bag and got up bleary eyed but content during the countdown.

Right around new years we were coming to an end of the what I have referred to as "the 6 weeks of sickness" in the Garner household.  It was a barrell of fun on Christmas with both children sick, running on no sleep and few if any pictures were taken. For those that want to know the sicknesses were as follows Me - flu and stomach virus, Grant - stomach virus, Alexis - sinus infection, flu, unknown fever, Andrew - bronchitis, ear infection x 2, strep, stomach virus.  We are thrilled that we have all been healthy for over a week now.

I have changed jobs and gone back to working for the dermatology office.  The Denton location is open more days/week and I am able to work in Coppell the day that Denton is not open, so the schedule is more consistent and I am home evenings and weekends, so it's working out well.  Alexis is thrilled that I go to "short work" instead of "long work" every day.  She always knew where I was going based on the color I was wearing during the time period that I was working at both Rapid Med and the Derm office.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were both spent at our house.  We enjoyed a laid back time together and didn't over do it much on the food.

Alexis has finished out a good first semester in kindergarten.  She loves her teacher, Mrs. Larkin, and telling me about who plays with whom and the things they do (good and bad) and who has more stickers on their behavior charts etc.

Andrew has begun potty training and has done pretty well.  He is less consistent at home than the reports that I get from preschool, but we don't run on a schedule at home either.  He's also better with one of his teachers than the other at preschool and he certainly doesn't always want to stop playing just to go sit on the potty, but overall he is on the right track.

And that's our summary...hopefully to be followed up by more posts sooner rather than later.