Back to School for ALL of us

For the first time, all 3 of us had the same first day of school! Things have been a little crazy since Monday, but we are all having a great start to the year!

Last week, Cade said goodbye to the Sunshine room at his school and goodbye to some of the best teachers he has ever had. They were so welcoming, encouraging, and creative, and he grew so much in that room!





To get ready for the new school year, we made one more visit to Daddy's new classroom to add a few posters and check out what all he has done. Cade was very interested in the smart board!



Cade also helped give Daddy a back to school haircut. Lovely, isn't it?



Cade's new teacher in the Friendship class gave all of the kids some "magic confetti" to sprinkle under their pillows to help them have a good sleep the night before school started. What a cute idea! Here we are sprinkling it on his bed...



And here he is testing it out.



What happened after this was not so cute. The confetti ended up getting EVERYWHERE and the little points on the stars jabbed Cade in the face and hands. After much thrashing around and fussing, we finally cleaned up every single little piece of that blasted stuff and he went to bed much later than planned. Oh well!! In hindsight, it was pretty funny.

The next morning we still had a great start, which was helped by Cade getting a new Star Wars toy as his back to school treat. He is somewhat obsessed with Star Wars these days, which I totally don't understand and honestly prefer dinosaurs. But he loves it and can play with the figurines for long periods of time. So, Darth Vader was the "Welcome to the Friendship class" gift on Monday morning! Here is the traditional standing by the front door on the first day of school picture!



He found his cubby in his new room right away!



And his nice new teacher took a picture of both of us!



We are so excited about the promise of a new school year and new excitement for all of us. Cade has already gotten a prize from the treasure box at school for good behavior, so everything is off on the right foot!

Long Live Summer!

Last week was one last hoorah before summer officially ended. I'm behind on blogging because this whole going back to work thing seriously cuts into my free time :)

The weekend of Chris's graduation we started our fun with an extended visit from Oma and Opa. We had a great time going to the park and the pool. My wonderful Mom is always behind the camera so she is never in any pictures, but I promise her and Dad were both there and we all had a great time together!

It was handy having a photographer for us at the pool! We actually thought Chance would have to work much longer than he did, so he made a surprise jump into the pool :)



So happy in the water!



Like father, like son



Standing tall on Daddy's shoulders



For our last week of summer, Cade got to pick one extra-fun thing each day for us to do. I decided to really participate in the activities with him, so I don't have any pictures, but we had a great time together. Our adventures included a water and shaving cream fight in the backyard, several lunches at Chick fil A, games at Chuck E Cheese, Research Park, Brother's Pond, and the Children's Museum. We really filled our week! We did have a picture made in the photo booth at Chuck E Cheese for Chance to put on his new desk at work. Pretty cute and silly!



On our last visit to the pool, we finally bought Cade a sno-cone. There is a genius-ly placed sno-cone stand right in the pool parking lot, but everytime we leave it is time for dinner or lunch and we don't want to mess it up. The last week of summer is a good time for rules to go out the window!



I had such a wonderful time with our sweet boy last week! The next post will be about back to school!

Chris is a FORMER Student!

Last Friday, a long-awaited event took place... my brother graduated from Texas A&M! After a 5 year Army contract, he returned to A&M last fall to complete his degree. We are all so proud of him!

Thanks to Jessi's great photography and zoom, we have a picture of him shaking President Loftin's hand!



Very proud sister!



Proud parents!



Gig em!



At Chris's graduation party later that night, Chris showed off one of his many other talents - rope climbing! I was impressed that he built this rope thing and that he can climb it so fast!



Welcome to the Association of Former Students, little brother! Now he's on to another great endeavor... he started the Police Academy last week to get ready for a job with the City of Bryan.

Silly Boys

A few weeks ago, some friends from work met at the pool with our kiddos. We had 4 moms, 4 little boys, 4 middle schoolers, and one baby girl on the way (Johanna is finally bringing another little girl into the group!). It was great to have the older kids around... they were happy to splash with the little ones and give the mamas a break! After the pool, most of us went to our house for pizza. For some reason, the bed in our study is quite appealing to kids when they come over. After we ate, they all piled on the bed!

Cade and Seth



Looks like some serious plotting by Cade, Seth, and Luke!



Yes, the boys all have guns. They were shooting at Chance's mounted turkey (aka Jennie-O)

Summer "Studies"

Cade has participated in two fun activities this summer - Kindermusik and Kids Fit Club. I'm glad we have a well-rounded boy! This was his 3rd session of Kindermusik and his first time in the class where the parents are only involved during the last 10 minutes. I was nervous about this "big kid" class, but he thrived in it!

Drum sticks were always a highlight to show off for the parents



One week, we were all challenged to make a homemade drum. Chance got involved in the project, which is why the drum is covered in duct tape. Cade of course picked the color!



Shirley has been a wonderful teacher for Cade since last fall! She will not be the teacher for his class next year, and we will miss her so much!



Cade's other activity was Kids Fit Club at BCS Fitness. This is his favorite activity in the world! He asks almost every day if it is exercise class day. The trainers are creative and energetic, and offer the kids challenging and fun exercises that can pretty easily be replicated at home. We love it! The pictures are kind of blurry because they are always in motion, but hopefully you'll get the general idea.

Plank



Lots of jumping!



They played a fun game where they raced around putting exercise balls on stands



Tire crawl



Hanging on the rings



Waiting his turn



Squats (good form!)



Mid-burpee (these were his favorite exercise... crazy boy!)



Tug-o-war



Each class included a nutrition lesson. Here they were saying foods that they eat that have protein in them.



Jumping through the agility ladder



This is usually what happened after exercise class!



But he always woke up to go eat lunch at Chick Fil A



This was such a fun activity that we have already signed up for the August session. We are so glad that he sees fitness as fun!

Pinterest Projects

I resisted the Pinterest craze for so long, but finally succummed to the temptation this summer. And I LOVE IT! There are so many creative people in the world that are willing to share their ideas with those of us who are better at copying than actually creating ideas ourselves.

Our first pinterest project was ice cube painting. One night after Cade went to bed I had fun mixing colors and making the ice cubes. First lesson learned - the water runs from one cube into the next, so I ended up with some unintended combos.



The next morning I was very excited for a water play day in our backyard that included painting with the ice cubes. Cade painted for about 5 seconds with the orange ice cube, and then started jumping on the trampoline. Second lesson learned - 4 year old boys do not like painting as much as jumping.



He actually enjoyed clean up more than the activity. Next time, I'll just give him a sponge and let him clean the porch and not spend so much time making ice cubes!



Project number two - dinosaur footprints - was much more successful. The recipe for the dough was really easy:

1 cup coffee grounds
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup cold coffee

So, we mixed...



Since we usually bake cookies, Cade assumed that we would eat a little bite of the dough. As you can see from the recipe above, the dough does not promise to be as good as cookie dough. But he could not be convinced, and insisted on trying it anyway...



He is saying "Water!"



Back to business... flattening out the dough



Cutting out circles



Footprints!



These turned out great!! The pictures do not do the finished project justice; I had a hard time figuring out what setting on my camera to use to show off the distinct patterns. I am currently looking for a way to display these in his room. Success!





Despite the fun of these projects, Cade is still happiest playing with his dinosaurs in the living room.