Oh The Things You Will Learn!

Today while my sons did their homework, I found myself warm and fuzzy with tears welling up in my eyes. The reason why - I love homework time. I love listening to them sound out words, spell, read their beginner books and oh boy do I love watching their precious little hands use a pencil.
Both boys are bringing home books to read now. Sam started over a month ago and is ready to bring book 5 home this week. Toby brought his first book home Friday and he is proud as can be. With these books also comes extra homework of reading them and completing the comprehension and spelling sheets - even over the weekend. Bring it on!
This is an amazing time in their lives. For me to be able to stay home and have un-rushed time to encourage and focus on their education is the best gift. Getting to help in the classroom and be a part of their excitement -fills my heart with joy. Taking photos of their little hands hard at work a perk.

I am lucky and I am grateful.

Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You Hear?

I hear Sam and Toby singing to me!

After school today we ate a quick snack and then visited our Boulder City library. Just as we were headed to check out our books Sam found a board book of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and asked if he could check it out. I agreed since our copy is packed away until our new house is complete.

Both boys walked the distance of the library singing the words to the song. I have heard the song version of the book, and even have it on my ipod, but I wasn't prepared for the sweet voices of my two boys singing quietly in the library. They continued as we checked out and the librarian stood and listened before she checked out our books. She loved it and couldn't remember ever hearing kids singing in the library.
It was pretty special.
Once we got into the van they continued to sing and shared that Mrs. Zapolski sings it with them at school. I used my phone to video Sam singing, and thought I would share it. As I am typing this I am getting the live version. Sam is sitting near me with the book, singing the words out loud.
I LOVE IT!

What Do You Do on a Monday?

Our second week of school. The boys had no problem getting up early for school this morning after Mima did such a great job getting them to bed on time. {Mom and Dad have bowling on Sunday nights and since Sam and Toby have to get to bed on time Mima offered to come stay at our house and get them into bed. We loved it. Thanks Mima.}
There are 6 kids in our class and every day we have snack time. The first week Mrs. Zapolski provided the snacks, but at our open house we voted on a rotating schedule of each kid bringing snacks for an entire week for all the kids in class. The list started alphabetically and that means we get week 1 and week 2! So this weekend we shopped for yummy snacks like pudding cups, applesauce, crackers, cookies, gummies, apple juice, milk boxes and Capri Suns. This week is Sam's week so he gets to be the teacher's helper and hand out the snacks. It is such a fun treat and Toby is excited to do it next week. We decided in 6 weeks when it is our turn again we will bake pumpkin muffins, cookies and bring in some fresh fruit.
After school today the boys were pooped! Mondays are tough, so I fed them lunch and had them take a 1 hour nap. They woke up with a lot of energy! So how do you spend a Monday afternoon with no where to go and time to do whatever? We did homework {Sam wants to get it done as fast as possible, while Toby really takes his time to make it look really good}, bounced on the trampoline and got some sticky dirty feet, played games on the ipods, played a new to us dice game called LCR {Aunt Jen tripped to it - really great for teaching Left, Right and how to take turns}, and practiced piano. It really was a fun day, totally relaxed and yet full of the little things that make life fun. After dinner the boys taught Dad how to play LCR. Everyone won a game except me. Oh well, I love the giggles and squeals that go with a victory. Next game to learn, Yahtzee!
Have a great week!

Slip n Slide Summer Fun

The older kids welcomed us as friends for the after school fun Friday. Going to a small school has its advantages, many of the older kids knew our names and helped us learn how to use the Slip N Slide. Which by the way is harder than they make it look on the commercials. We are very tired and have taken a bath, Mom is making us dinner, and we will be in bed an hour early. Our first week of school was a success and we cheered when Mom said we have 3 sleeps until we go back.

The Bell Rang and We Started School.

Today.

Today we started school.

Today we started school and had a blast!

Part of being older means starting school, and since we will proudly tell you we are a big whoppin 5 year old -we started Kindergarten today.



Our parents woke us up at 6:15 am. Sam asked if it was morning yet, and when Mom answered "Yes" he replied "But it has only been a minute since we went to sleep." Of course we did get up and started our day with a yummy made to order breakfast. Toby wanted French toast and Sam wanted scrambled egg whites. Once dressed and with our backpacks on we headed out to the Comanche House (our soon to be home once it is all done) to take some pictures in front of the Mulberry Tree. We invited all our grandparents and they came to see us dressed and ready for our 1st day of school.



After several photos, tons of hugs, and a chance to show off our big guy backpacks we drove over to our school. Mrs. Zapolski was waiting for us and we finally got to play on the playground equipment! We have been waiting for 5 months to try it out! It was fun and we showed Mom exactly how much we have grown with our climbing abilities. It only took a few minutes of playing for Toby to run over and tell Mom and Dad "Goodbye! You can leave now. You are supposed to leave." With a wave and some good laughs from the adults he was back to playing.



School really was a lot of fun. There are six kids in our class. 4 boys and 2 girls. Each of us sit in a group with a girl and another boy. It is good to be apart, but we still manage to play together.



Some of the things we did today:

Sang songs about Jesus and being happy.

Put our supplies into our desks that open on top.

Listened to a story with headphones on. (may have been Hansel & Gretel based on their retelling).

Played with the many learning toys.

Counted and cheered like cheerleaders.

Hugged our teacher as we left for the day!



Mom and Dad picked us up and took us to McDonald's for lunch. A friend from our class was there too, and we played together some more. We had a doctors appointment today. We have grown in the past year. Sam is 40 inches tall and 29 pounds. Toby is 37 inches and 26 pounds. Still 3 inches and 3 pounds difference! They gave us each 1 shot for the "chickenpops". That sis not make us happy at all. After we went to Home Depot to look at sinks and then to Applebees for a special dinner. It has been a full day, and now we are in bed - asleep! Goodnight.



Here is a slide show of our day. Enjoy. We sure did.

So Long Sweet Summer, Hello School!

Today marks the last day of our summer.
The reason being that we start school tomorrow. Kindergarten awaits us in the morning, and with it a class with no more than 10 kids in it and a teacher that has known our family for 27 years. Mrs. Zapolski was our dad's kindergarten teacher and mom taught at the same school as her before we were born. We are excited to start school, but have our reservations too. We have been asking many questions the past few days - "How many minutes will I be at school every day?" "What will you do why we are in school?" "Will I learn to read?" "How many days in a row do we go to Kindergarten?". Our parents keep telling us how great it will be and we hope they are right.


Thursday we had our last swim lesson with Miss Haley. She really helped us learn to be better swimmers in the pool and we are even diving to the bottom. Now we can swim without floaties some of the time and are doing cannonballs too!


Tonight before bed we read a few stories like always and then we packed our backpacks. It was fun to put them on and walk around the house. They are much bigger than we are used to, but they need to hold our homework folder.

We also picked out our clothes for tomorrow. Our school is a uniform school so we can wear collared shirts in navy blue, hunter green or white along with khaki or navy pants/shorts.
We both picked out green shirts and khaki bottoms.


Tomorrow we are heading out early to take some photos in front of the tree at our new house (that is under remodel). It happens to be the house our dad grew up in, and he took his first day of school photos there. Pretty neat huh?
We invited our grandparents to come take some pictures with us and see us off to our first day of school.
So goodnight and sweet dreams to all! We are dreaming of fun on the playground, learning and meeting new friends!