Christmas Parties Galore!

It was a big, busy day for us!  Jonathan is out of town (of course), and we happened to have both kid's Christmas celebrations at school today!  Luckily timing worked out for me and Ryan and I just hopped, skipped, and jumped from one school to another! 


I am room mom for Katelynn's class so it was defintely a lot of work today between keeping up with all the parties and making sure to actually host all of Katelynn's!  I am EXHAUSTED, but the kids all had a blast and are super excited that Christmas is almost here!


Justin's preschool class sang us some Christmas songs and played musical instruments.  They did an excellent job! 

 Justin and Ryan with Justin's teachers (we are missing one.. Ms. Maria)

We left Justin's school performance and potluck lunch to head over to Katelynn's play and party.  Justin was able to come and participate some in the kindergarten activities!

Katelynn's class performed a play on "Traditions Around the World".  Katelynn had a few lines to recite by memory, and I was so proud of her.  She didn't forget them even in front of the audience and she even spoke pretty loud and clear!

 I am realizing how few pictures I got of Katelynn's super big party!  We did so much:  the play, followed by four activity centers where the kids were able to decorate gingerbread cookies, have a snack, play the driedel game, and make a Christmas tree ornament.  Then they all got to participate in a gift game and break a pinata open to load up on candy!  It was a great time!

I could almost cry.  Okay, maybe I am crying a little bit.  While I was successful at juggling to keep Ryan with me and videotaping and snapping pictures, in the end I am sad to say that the videos of both Justin's singing performance and Katelynn's play are gone.  They accidentally got deleted off my camera and more pictures were snapped before I could recover them off the card.  It really sucks to lose something you can never have repeated to get more video.  :(

Our 6-year old Princess

While I'm giving updates, here's one on our one and only princess of the family!

Katelynn is an amazing little girl.  She is very bright and fun, loving and thoughtful.  She makes sure to challenge me as a parent on a very regular basis.  I am sure the older she gets, this will continue to be the case. 

School is going great for her.  She seems to enjoy her teacher and her classmates and looks forward to going each day.  She has been making further strides in learning to read and enjoys anything related to crafts.  Most days she will come home from school and immediately want to get working on her writing or reading homework.  She will sit for hours just writing letters and drawing pictures.  I see a lot of myself as a child in her.  Dance is still her favorite after-school activity, and we are planning on trying soccer once again this spring. 

We are trying to work with self-esteem and social skills some with Katelynn.  I see it as an issue a lot more than her teacher is seeing in school.  Katelynn strives for perfection and I am finding at home, she becomes upset and fustrated when something is not exactly as she wants it.  I do feel like we are making progress on this.  Just this week, we had some "imperfections" with homework, and she did not get nearly as upset as she has been over the past month.  We aren't really sure how much of this may be related to her previous experience with her preschool teacher and just her personality, but we feel so blessed to have a wonderful kindergarten teacher for Katelynn that I really feel is making all the difference this year.

Her urology issues have escalated on us lately, but we are working hard at trying to get a balance with them so that it doesn't affect her schooling.  She has been having some accidents at school some, and our fear is that this could be part of her struggle with self-esteem.  Hopefully we can get it all worked out soon and make some improvements. 

All that being said, we are so proud to have this little girl as our daughter!  It is going to be an exciting, emotional, and hopefully fun decade ahead as we watch her grow even more.. but I wouldn't complain if time went really, really slowly!

On The Go: 17-Month Olds

I thought it was about time to give you an update on the littlest man of our family.  At Ryan's age, he makes drastic improvements just weeks at a time.  His vocabulary has increased rapidly this month.  He went from saying one word here and there to short sentences overnight it seemed.  We now hear a lot of "I want" sentences.  Mainly these include:  "I want eat."  "I want milk."  "I want sucker."   He also asks a lot, "Where Daa-dee?"  And of course how can we forget the favorite words of a child with older siblings, "MINE!" and "No!!!" are very popular when he is speaking to Katelynn and Justin.

 

I have spent weeks trying to get some cute shots of Ryan.  He doesn't want to stop moving to pose for any pictures for me.  This first shot says it all.  It's a very regular thing to be outside playing and have Ryan try to escape down the greenway trail.  If you try to go after him, he just turns around laughing at you and runs a little faster.  (Which by the way is something else he has mastered this past month.. forget walking when you can run!)

 Here's another shot that totally shows off my little guy's personality.  He loves to belly laugh!  He thinks he is pretty funny stuff and his big sister and brother are pretty funny too!

Ryan is literally a ball full of energy.  It's so hard to describe him in just one word.  It amazes me how three children can all come from the same family and be so different.  While I see similarities in his brother and sister, Ryan already has a personality of his own.  He is a total boy- loves gross toliets and garbage cans, playing in the water, balls, and being wild and crazy, dangerous.  Some days I think he just might be the one to give me the most gray hairs in my old age, but at the same time he is super sweet and cuddly.  He loves to give kisses and hugs and run around with his brother and sister.  He just knows what he wants and he's determined to get it!  It is so fun getting to be his mommy and watch him grow! 

Our Little "Big" Man!

I have gotten some really cute pictures of my growing little man lately that I had to share while I'm updating on the kids!


Justin has made so much progress this year!  Here I thought my "baby" boy was going to cling to his mommy and cry for a week the day I dropped him off at preschool in September, and not only did he surprise me then but he continues to surprise me each and every day!  He is growing up, becoming much more outgoing, social, and independent.  His teachers say he is such a sweet and helpful boy at school and are always giving Justin praise. 

Justin continues to love the outdoors and four wheelers/go-carts/dirt bikes/motorcycles/trucks, etc.  Do you see a pattern here or what?  It doesn't matter what the temperature is outside, that child would sleep outside if we let him! 

Dance Class Christmas Style!

This week is a whirlwind around here.  We have Christmas activities left and right as we finish out the last week of school before break!  I love that Katelynn's dance teacher also decided to make it a little special.  She suggested all the kids come to dance class with some Christmas style!  Here was Katelynn's contribution:  Christmas colors with her Santa socks and a Santa hat!  (I think she wore the hat for all of two seconds but hey, we had it with us at least!)

 

We spent the weekend (and are still working on some) finishing gifts for all our teachers.  I love how the gift Katelynn picked to make her dance teacher turned out!

Hi Santa! Hi Rudolph!

Boy do they come up with everything these days!  We just learned about the Reindeer Cam and the kids have really been enjoying checking out Santa's reindeer during the day.  Tonight we made sure to be present for the 6 pm feeding when Santa comes and feeds the reindeer!  The kids were getting a kick out of waving and saying hi to santa!

Christmas PJ Cookie Party!

Friends of ours hosted a Christmas Cookie Exchange party.  What I loved the most about this party was that it wasn't your typical cookie exchange party.. it was one for the kids!  They all dressed in Christmas pajamas and rotated around the dining room table getting a few of each person's cookie.  It was the perfect kick off to our Christmas festivities coming very soon!