Fall Festival and pumpkin painting

Want to know what one of the best things about having a kindergartner is? It's getting to go in and volunteer in the classroom. Absolutely one of my favorite things is seeing how my boy interacts with his teachers and his friends, and I love getting to meet all of his little classmates and get to know some of the parents.

Since I'm the homeroom mom for L this year I've had a few opportunities to volunteer at his school, and yesterday I got to go help out for their "fall Festival". I spent the morning running one of the centers (We hammered tee's into a pumpkin and used chopsticks to move candy corn to different bowls!) and then I got to have lunch with L.

(L and one of his friends! They are so cute!)

After our fun day at the fall festival we continued our yearly tradition of painting pumpkins. We will carve our big pumpkins before Halloween, but every year I like to get a few small pumpkins and let the kids paint them. 

Here's the thing…. I have a love/hate relationship with this tradition. I love it, because it cute and fun and the kids think it's fun. But if I'm totally honest, the pumpkins hold their interest for about ten minutes and I end up with a huge mess to clean up! Oh well, such is the life of a mom I suppose. It didn't help that this year it poured so we had to do the painting inside!

We also had one of L's friends and our neighbor over to paint, so there were a lot of kids in our house! This was pretty much the only picture I got, and my fingers in the shot!

Oh well… Happy Fall!

L2 turns four!

L2 is four!!!

My baby. My little sour patch kid. Man, this kid can throw a tantrum that could bring down a nation. He is stubborn and opinionated. If he doesn't want to do something, he will not do it. But, he is also the sweetest cuddled. He loves to hold hands and to give hugs and kisses. If you sit next to him on the couch he will fold himself into your body and rest his head on your shoulder. He has the biggest, sweetest brown eyes, and he knows how to use them to his advantage.

He's taught me a lot. He often tests my patience. His speech delay is hard on both of us, him when he gets frustrated that I don't know what he's saying, and me when I can't figure out what he wants. But he is smart beyond his years. He's taught me how to fight and how to advocate. He's made me a better mom, and I can't imagine my life without him.

(This picture is blurry, but his face says it all!)

By far, the best present L2 got for his birthday was Daddy being home. We weren't sure if he would make it, but he did and L2 was the happiest I've seen him in a long time. We spent the whole weekend celebrating him: dinner out on Friday, a movie (Pan) and cupcakes and presents on Saturday, and pizza with friends on Sunday. He's a lucky kid to have so many people that love him so much!

Happy birthday, L2. I love you so much. Never lose you fighting spirit, and you gentle soul. You make this world a better place.

Daddy's home!

Welcome home, Daddy!!!

Wow, I cannot believe it has been ten weeks… and I kind of can't believe we survived! S got home for good last Friday and we are so happy to have him back and to be getting back to normal!

I have to say, I'm kind of proud of myself. I think I handled this separation better then I thought I would. The boys and I got into a pretty good routine, and overall things went smoothly, even though we missed S so much. And as hard as it was for us, I know it was hard for S too. It can't be easy to be away from your home and your family for almost three months, and I'm grateful that he is always willing to work hard and do what needs to be done for our family!

Anyway…… he's home! He's home! He's home!!!

Kindergarten Pictures!

Have you ever seen a more handsome Kindergartener? Look at the hair! Those eyes! That shy little smile!!!

Man, I love this kid.

L's 6th birthday party!

Hi everyone! So, we just had L's 6th birthday party….

Oh wait… that was almost a month ago! Oops, I have been the worst at posting lately! S has been gone just about 8 weeks (Yay, only 2 weeks left!) and I'm not going to lie, it's been hard. And unfortunately, one of the first things to slip was the blog!

But… better late than never, right?

L's birthday party was great. We invited his kindergarten class and I think we ended up having about 18 kids show up. It was the perfect number, enough so it felt like a good party, but not too many that we felt overwhelmed.

It was great getting to know a lot of L's little kindergarten friends, and also nice to chat with their parents. The kids went crazy playing in the park, and the fact that it was hot didn't bother them at all! And of course, the cupcakes were a big hit!!

I can't believe my little man is 6 years old. I can't believe he's in kindergarten and has a little group of friends! He's so grownup!!

Happy birthday, L! We love you so much!

L turns 6!

Happy 6th birthday, L!!!

Ok…. it was actually on Tuesday. I'm the worst, but in my defense, this week has been crazy. S came home to celebrate L's birthday and work from here for a week (he leaves again tomorrow) and I feel like we have been going non-stop.

But anyway, I know I say it every year….. but how is my baby six!!! He is turning into such a little person! It's funny because there are so many things that I see in him that are so S (the kid is so scatterbrained. On numerous occasions we have left the house, only to arrive at our destination and for him to realize he forgot to put on shoes!) and me (hello, crazy stubborn streak!) but the older he gets the more we get to see his unique personality coming out, and it's amazing.

Lucky boy, he got a long "birthday week". My mom and dad were in town so we all went out to dinner as a family on Monday night. Then S took the day off work on Tuesday so we could take him to school together. Of course, we had to do a yummy cinnamon breakfast (No cheerios on your birthday!) and take cupcakes for all of his classmates!

After school my mom and dad came over so we could open presents. L definitely got spoiled! He had a lot of presents to open, but he was very grateful and excited for each one!

After presents we went over to a friends house for pizza and cake. This had been L's specific request for the last month or so… he wanted to celebrate his birthday at his best friends house. Not a problem for us, since his mom has become one of my closest friends!

L2 and R especially enjoyed the cupcake portion of the night…..

It was a great day and a great night, and I'm so happy to be celebrating this little guy. He's getting big way too fast, but he is becoming such a kind and funny and compassionate and smart boy. Being his mom is the best thing in this world and I can't wait to see what this next year will bring!

And, in keeping with the week long celebration, we also had a birthday party for all his new kindergarten buddies today. That will be in the next post though, since I'm obviously lagging this month!

R's big boy bed!

See this little angel here???

Don't let his adorableness fool you.

A few days after S left, this little stinker decided he was over his crib and started climbing out…

ALL THE TIME!!!

I was hoping it might just be a one off, and he'd quite doing it, but no such luck. Neither of the other boys ever even attempted to climb out of their cribs, so I was not expecting this.

After a few days it got to the point where he wasn't even fussing or calling me to get up anymore… he was just getting himself up. The other morning I actually woke up, rolled over, and he was sleeping next to me in bed!!!

So realizing he was not going to stop doing this, I finally caved today and changed his crib into a toddler bed, and put a baby gate on his room so even if he gets up he can't get out.

I'm not ready for this. At all. First of all, where did my little baby go? This is just another "baby" milestone for the books and it makes me sad, in a bittersweet way. Secondly, I hate that we are celebrating a big milestone without S here. It makes it really "real" that he is going to be gone for the next few months and is going to miss out on stuff.

Anyway, we switched to the toddler bed at nap today, and an epic battle ensued. While R seemed glad to have his "big boy" bed, he was not happy about the baby gate on his door.

We spent over an hour with him sitting at the gate and shaking it and crying. But I stayed strong and….

I eventually won the battle!!!

And here's our big boy settling in for his first night in his "real" bed.