Valentine's Day and 100 Days of School

Valentine's Day celebration at school just happened to land on the 100th day of school celebration. It was a special day at Patrick Henry.

Sra. Medina is such a special teacher. She really knows how to celebrate her students and make things special. The kids made fruit loop necklaces with 100 fruit loops on it. They made glasses and hats to celebrate this fun day. It surprises me that Kinder is full of fun, parties and good times but once first grade hits, it is more serious and the celebrations slow down. As if the difference between kinder and first grade is really that great. Even if they don't celebrate in the classroom, I will continue to always celebrate my kiddos and their accomplishments.

Valentine Prep

As we prepared the kid's Valentine cards their personalities were so obvious by how they prepared their Valentines, it was very interesting... their instructions from me were to count out 15 gummy bears, put it in the bag and tie off the bag and make 30 bags each...

Allison counted out her gummy bears and placed them into piles. As she built each pile, she made a tally mark on her paper to keep track of how many bags she had prepared. She was done in about 10 minutes.

Andrew used his slightly dirty hands to grab a handful of gummy bears to throw into a bag and barely closed the bag with the twist tie. He managed to eat a huge amount of gummy bears in the process. He never finished his 30 bags, so Allison finished it for him.

 Ashley managed to drop a bunch of supplies on the ground, eat the gummy bears and then proceeded to make funny faces.

Overall the process produced these super cute Valentines. 

Goodnight

I love the mountains, I love the rolling hills, I love the flowers, I love the daffodils, I love the fireflies when the lights go out, boomiadah boomiadah boomiadah boomiadah.

This is our latest and favorite lullaby that I sing each night to my tired babies. They love when I sing it to them and they pretend to fall asleep when the song ends, even though I know they are still awake.  I wish I didn't have to make such an effort to force myself to relax and take my time putting the kids to bed each night. I am usually craving my pajamas, the sofa and the remote. But I push that aside and take in the moment. 

 As you can see from Ashley she still falls asleep with her "BaBa Nilk" (Baba of milk) and of course that means she must hold her nipple as she drinks her Baba and falls asleep. I am still not sure where this fascination comes from but it is still so sweet and innocent.

Allison never goes to bed without her Cold Baby and tonight she has chosen to put matching headbands on before falling asleep.

Andrew falls asleep every night with Fred and Leonardo, both of which were Paul's when he was a boy. Andrew sleeps a little to heavy at night and has discovered the convenience of a "pee alarm" he wears that will alarm if he starts to have an accident. It is a dream come true and works like a charm. He is happier at night and so is his mama when he wakes up to clean sheets.

Gymboree

A little Gymboree time is what I needed with this little girl. Ashley has been such a good little sister these past few months as we have dragged her to countless soccer practices, soccer games and school functions that it is time for her to have some fun activities of her own. She has started going to Gymboree and she has certainly enjoyed all of the climbing, bouncing and twirling. She is learning to listen to the teacher and wait her turn. She loves the freedom she has there and I love giving her this time. After all it won't be long until she has to share her time with another sibling. 

To say that Ashley is a happy child would be an understatement. She brings joy everywhere she goes. Her personality is limitless and she makes friends with every kid and adult that she meets. She is going to go far in life, but until then we will have a blast at "Jimmy-Ree"!! 

Board games

Anyone who knows Paul, knows he loves to play board games. He is doing his best to instill this passion in his children. Some games he introduces to them are still a bit advanced. Like this one. Andrew and Allison were understanding the concept, but Ashley brings the game to a whole new level of frustrating. She wants to be one of the big kids so badly, but it makes things pretty complicated. Paul would never exclude anyone from playing a game (one of the millions of reasons why I love this guy so much), so Ashley joins in and happily creates a little chaos. I think Paul was sweating by the end of the game and I just laid on the couch and texted this picture to Aunt Katie. I knew she would get a kick out of it.

Church

I wish we were better about going to church. This is us walking to Parkcrest. It is so close and so wonderful, yet we have such a hard time making this a routine and it bums me out. When  I was younger church was something we did on a regular basis. We listened to Breakfast with the Beatles, went to church, we went to Price Club, we went to the Wonder Bread Store...and that was our Sunday. I was shy at church growing up and envied the kids at my church that had these amazing bonds. I always thought that I would ensure my kids would have a strong group of friends at church,, hopefully went to school with those friends and played sports with those friends. I finally experienced this when I got to high school. My swim and water polo friends were the friends that hung out with at school, played sports with and worshiped with at church. This is my hope for my kids. I will continue to do the best that I can to give them this gift. I think it will help shape who they are and if they are surrounded my like-minded individuals, they will have the best chance at staying grounded as they get older and face more challenges. The foundation start here and it starts at a young age. 

I got picked!

I got picked to go on Andrew's field trip as a chaperon. This is my first field trip since he started at 

Patrick Henry last year. There is usually a lottery for the parents and they usually chose just two parents. Andrew was thrilled to have me be there. We rode on the bus together and enjoyed watching the play of "Harold and the Purple Crayon". It was a very modern simple play, but all of the kids seemed to enjoy the performance. I enjoyed this special day with my little boy. I treasured each selfie we took, every wet sloppy kiss he gave me (Andrew is known for his wet smooches) and each time he translated for me it reminded me of this awesome gift we have given him to be bilingual. 

 Thank you Andrew for a beautiful afternoon spent with you!