School days

We made it through the first week of school!! Colton and Mia seem to be enjoying it and I am really liking their teachers. I still miss them like crazy when they are gone....and still find myself crying after I leave them at school each morning. Caden is adjusting to them being gone all day. He and I have become great buddies. In fact, when he woke up this morning, he came in to my room and curled up in the bed beside me. Kyle and the rest of the kids were up watching cartoons, but Caden stayed with me until I got up. Such a sweet boy!

Here are some pictures from last week.

All ready for school!

Caden wanted to be in the picture, too. Don't you just love his bed-head!!

Yep, I'm Trouble!!

But I'm cute trouble!!

First day of School!!

Well, today was a very sad day for me. I sent two of my kiddos off to their first day of school. :( I didn't realize just how much I had enjoyed my summer until I was up at 6:15am this morning, making waffles and cooking bacon (no, I don't make that every day.....pretty soon we'll be back to cereal!!) Kyle was home sick today, so I was able to leave the little boys home while I took Colton and Mia to school. Mia was very excited and did great! I was so proud of myself for keeping my emotions under control until I walked out of the school. Colton didn't have as good of a morning. He tried so hard to be brave, but he was pretty emotional when I left his classroom. It just broke my heart. I missed them all day and couldn't wait to go pick them up. After I got back home from dropping them off, I was crying to Kyle about how wrong it was that for 35 hours a week, a stranger was going to be raising our kiddos! His response was "Well, we'll get them during the summer and on weekends". Hahaha! Not exactly the response I was looking for! I know he was just trying to make me laugh! :)

Caden definitely missed his playmates today! And guess who got to fill that role? ME!!! He was my little shadow all day! We played with play-doh, colored, painted, built block castles (only to knock them down with dinosaurs), played animals, played Let's Go Fishing game, and built Legos. When I folded the laundry, he was right there beside me helping. When I cleaned the kitchen table and swept the floor, he was right there beside me helping. It was so nice to spend that time with him. He is such a sweet boy.

Well, I am so glad that I made it through today! But now we have to do it all over again tomorrow. Sigh.

Colton and Mia

Our little Kindergartner

Our big Fourth Grader

making silly faces in the car

After school, I was asking Mia what her favorite part of the day was. She didn't have to think long before saying that her favorite part was when she saw Colton in the hall. (she was coming in from recess and his class was going out) Colton agreed - that was his favorite part, too. Isn't that sweet?! Gosh, I just love these two kids!!

Back to School Party!!!

Well, I'm a little behind in my blogging! Last Wednesday, the kids and I had a back to school party! We invited some of our friends and had a great time playing, eating pizza and enjoying some cute cupcakes that I made. In between chasing around kiddos, I loved being able to visit with good friends! Mason was pretty cranky so I didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to, but I was able to get a few. I didn't realize until after everyone had gone that I didn't get a picture of most of the kids that were here! I'll have to do better about that next year! :)

Back to school goodies!!

Mia and her best friend, Keely

Colton, Caden, Duncan and Colin hanging out!

Birthday Weekend!

I had a wonderful birthday! Kyle and the kids spoiled me all weekend! My weekend started off on Friday night when I went scrapbooking with my good friend, Christina. We scrapped at a local scrapbooking store where they serve dinner and dessert. I was a little late getting there and was surprised to find a little birthday cake at our table! (Thank you so much, Christina!) She also got me an awesome scrappin' tote that I can't wait to use!! We had a blast (we always do)! Saturday I had a wonderful day with Kyle and the kids. We went to Ceramic Cellar and painted a beautiful big platter and had the kids put their handprints on it. I am picking it up on Thursday....I can hardly wait!! I have been wanting to do that for a long time!! I had a hot date Saturday night and we had a great time. :) Mason has been real clingy and fussy lately, so I left the 3 big kids with our babysitters and took Mason to Christina's house - where I knew he would be held and loved on all evening! (Thanks so much, Christina and Nathan!!) Kyle and I ate at my favorite Mexican Restaurant and had a Bananagrams tournament there. I love that I am married to a man who is willing to play Bananagrams with me at a restaurant table!! It was so funny - at one point he accidentally dropped one of the tiles under the table and it took us forever to find it! We had to practically move the booth completely out just to get it. I'm sure the restaurant workers were very entertained by the silly couple in the corner. :) And, for the record, I beat Kyle - 3 to 2!! It was a really wonderful weekend. I got some beautiful roses (Thank you, Carol and Danny), got to sleep in Saturday and Sunday....and even enjoyed a Sunday afternoon nap! So, how does it feel to be 31? Not too different from 30!! :)

Booster Seat

Mason has found a new toy......Caden's booster seat. Actually, Caden has decided that he is *too big* for it, and so it has become one of Mason's favorite things to play with. He is so funny to watch. He positions it how he wants it and then climbs in so that he is sitting. Sometimes he just sits in it and hangs out for a little while (well.... for as long as a 10 1/2 month old can sit still!!). Last night he cracked us up. Kyle and I were watching one of our favorite shows and Mason was playing with his toys on the other side of the living room (which is where the booster seat happened to be). Well, we were busy watching our show and the next thing we know, Mason is sitting in the booster seat (perfectly) right in front of the couch!

Kyle looked at me and said "Did he just drag that over here?!!" Yep, he did!! I guess he wanted to come sit and watch TV with us!! I didn't get any pictures last night, but here are some of him with the booster seat from a few days ago.

Teeth....Finally!!!!

At 10 months and 5 days old, Mason finally got his first tooth!! And a short 4 days later, his second tooth broke through. So, now he's sporting his cute, toothy grin. :)

Books and Movies

I just finished Stephenie Meyer's newest book, Breaking Dawn, and I LOVED it!!!! I loved the first 3 books, too, but I think this is one of my favorites. I think she is an amazing writer. You can't read her books and not fall in love with the characters. I also loved The Host. It took me several chapters to get in to that book, but then I couldn't put it down. I loved Wanda's character!!

Another one of my newest favorites is the movie Mama Mia! My friend, Jennifer, and I saw it together and loved it. Going in to it, neither one of us thought we would like it as much as we did. But we loved it and went together and saw it a second time!! :) I have read a lot of reviews about the movie and yes, there were some cheesy parts, but it was such a fun movie! I loved the music and dancing. Our hubbies think we're crazy, but we may even see it a third time! :) One of my favorite parts was the *Dancing Queen* scene. Jennifer and I get together to scrap book once a week and have been driving her son crazy listening to and singing songs from the movie. I ordered the movie soundtrack for us and I'm sure it's just a matter of time before Kyle and the kids are sick and tired of ABBA. Either that, or they'll be singing along! Hmmm....maybe I should drag Kyle to see it!

Oklahoma part 2

Well, I'm getting behind in my blogging! We got back last weekend. We had a great time at my dad's house, but it was good to be back home. Kyle really missed us - and of course, we missed him, too!! We ended up coming home several days earlier than we had planned, but I am glad we did because the night after we got home, Kyle ended up having to take Caden to the ER with really bad croup. Poor little guy could hardly breathe! Since then, Mia has gotten it (but not nearly as bad) and today I am taking Mason to the doctor because he has it. We have had some really long nights!!

Here are some pictures from the rest of our Oklahoma trip.

My dad and the kids at the Incredible Pizza Company.

Here they are at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

I love this picture of Mason. He was just kickin' back in the stroller!!

Mia ran ahead of us to see this animal and then shouted really loud "Mom, it has a zebra butt!!"

Mason was so tired after a long day at the zoo.

We went to the Oklahoma City Science Museum. We had a great time there. Unfortunately, my camera batteries died so I didn't get a ton of pictures.

They had a great kids area and Mason loved being able to crawl around and play. He is such a smiley little guy. I could just eat him up!!!!!!