Kindergarten Recap

I can't believe that Sims will be starting 1st grade in a week!  I just hope that he loves 1st grade as much as he loved kindergarten.  He had such a wonderful experience with such a sweet teacher.  It was just the experience that we wanted him to have.  And, boy, did he learn a lot!

He had been learning some sight words in preschool, but we are constantly amazed by how many words Sims can read.  When he doesn't know the word, he is so great at sounding it out to get the word right.  At the end of kindergarten, he was reading at a high 1st grade level.

One of the new things that he learned was math.  I don't think he had learned too much math before kindergarten.  He really enjoys it (his favorite homework is always math), and he is really good at it.  I wonder if all of our talk about how much Jason and I love math has caused Sims to love it as well.

Dressed as the Letterland character Mr. A

His writing improved dramatically.  It's not been his strong suit, but I can see that changing.  It is getting very nice now when he puts a little effort in it, and he is starting to like to write more and more.  The better he gets at it, the more he seems to like doing it.

His class went on a few field trips, and I was happy to be able to go on all of them.  They went to the pumpkin patch, to see a high school play, and to Marbles kids museum.

On Wacky Hair Day

He worked very hard on his science fair project.  It was optional, but he really wanted to do it.  His title was When Did My Favorite Dinosaurs Live?  It was a great project for his age because he could do so much of it himself with a minimal amount help.  We were so very proud of him!  Then we found out that he won first place for the kindergarten projects, and we were even more proud!  It was a fantastic project.  The leader for the science fair told us that Sims had one of the highest scores for the entire science fair, which was for Pre-K to 3rd grade.  We were very impressed!

At the awards ceremony at the end of the year, he was given a few awards: the Kindergarten Science Award, Excellent Engineer, and Marvelous Mathematician.  He was also given an award for completing 9 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) challenges, some of which were held during school hours and some were on Saturdays. 

My mom volunteered in his class every Wednesday, and she and Sims both loved that.  She would stay and eat lunch with him.  We loved it because Mom could give us details about what was happening in the class.  Wednesdays were always special for him!

The weekly homework load took us all a while to get used to, and I hope that the summer off hasn't softened us too much!  I will say that I think he got way too much homework for a kindergartner, but he handled it fine.  I just hope that he doesn't get significantly more in 1st grade.  There are only so many hours in a day!

Photo taken the first week of summer vacation by Rich Taylor - www.richtaylor.photography

This year has flown by!  We have loved Sims' school, and we are looking forward to the beginning of a new school year.

Photo by Rich Taylor - www.richtaylor.photography

Sims' 6th Birthday

This year, Sims had a low-key birthday party.  Nothing like last year.  This was kind of our reset button, I guess.  The party was at our house, and we invited only family and close friends.  It was low stress and easy going.  I thought it was great, and Sims loved it as much as any other birthday party he's had.  Win - win!

Sims' only request was for there to be Oreos, and he wanted them where he could reach them.  In other words, he wanted to be able to eat them without getting permission.  We were fine with that.  We even made Oreo butter cream frosting for the chocolate cupcakes.  Sims loves the Cars movie, so we used Cars themed plates and napkins.  He was thrilled.

The bubble machine was a hit, as usual. 

The weather was nice, so we enjoyed watching the kids play outside.  It was a wonderful day!  I can't believe Sims is 6 years old now.  Wow!

Easter

It's been so long since Easter, I can barely remember all the little details from the day.  Let that be a lesson for me!  I shouldn't wait so long to update the ole blog!

I know we started off the morning, bright and early, with Easter baskets.  The kids loved them, of course.  Sims especially loved his basketball and (one of the many versions of) Blade Ranger from the movie Planes: Fire and Rescue.  Merritt was immediately drawn to her owl sippy cup, and she loves the puzzle a lot, too.

We went to church, then headed up to Mom and Smith's house for dinner and egg hunting.

The mad dash

Last year, Merritt was watching all the action from the sidelines.  This year, she was happy to be out there with the big kids.  Next year, Maxwell will be out there egg hunting, too! 

Valentine's Day

I can't believe that Valentine's Day was last weekend.  It seems like it was ages ago already!  I guess that's what happens when you have a week filled with sleet, snow and record cold temperatures.  Sims has only been to school for half a day this week.

This year, Sims decided that he wanted to get pre-made Valentine's cards for his classmates.  It kind of made me a bit sad, but I got over it quickly, since I still had Merritt's to do.  Merritt is in the one year old class, so I had to think of something that wouldn't be a choking hazard.  After a quick search of some stores, I decided that she would give her classmates crayons.  I found some fat ones that are easy for little ones to hold, and then I found a printable valentine to go with it.  Super easy!

We had one Valentine's family activity that I was pretty excited about it.  I have always struggled to find a fun way to celebrate Valentine's as a family without it just being about sweets.  (Of course, we started off Valentine's morning with a run to Duck Donuts for "special breakfast" as Sims calls it.)

At Christmas time, I bought a gingerbread house kit, but we never got around to building it.  Sims had built and decorated one at his school, so it didn't seem as crucial for us to do it at home.  Christmas came and went, and we still had the kit.  Then we had the brilliant idea of making it into a Valentine's gingerbread house!  We bought some Valentine's candy to supplement the candy that came with the kit.  Sims decorated it with only a little help from my mom.  They had lots of fun doing it, and it is the perfect seasonal centerpiece for our dining room table.

Now I will have a hard time deciding whether we want to do a gingerbread house at Christmas or Valentine's.  Perhaps both?

The Homestead 2015

After our first trip to The Homestead 2 years ago, we have talked about going back.  We loved it there.  We finally got to go back for MLK weekend.  We stayed for 3 nights this time because it's a long drive up there for only 2 nights!

There were quite a few moments when we weren't sure we were even going to make it.  The night before we left, Merritt woke up in the middle of the night coughing so much that she threw up a couple of times.  We didn't know what was going to happen in the morning, but she seemed fine.  Her coughing was not as bad.  So off we went.  Then about 20 minutes into Virginia, she threw up again.  We were in the middle of nowhere, and we really weren't prepared for the huge mess.  We found a Dollar General and bought everything from towels to bibs to an extra set of clothes for her.  There was one point that Jason thought that we should go back home, but we didn't.  And we were glad that we didn't because she was totally fine after that.  It's really quite funny now that we know that everything was okay.

So we made it to The Homestead!  We had a suite this time, and it was perfect.  We had plenty of room for the kids' stuff without it taking over the whole room.

That night we played family bingo and had dinner at Jeffersons, which they were building/renovating the last time we were there.  It was delicious!

The next morning was a big day for Sims.  He tried skiing for the first time, while Jason skiied for the first time in 20 years.  Sims went to a half day bunny school, and he loved it.  He and Jason got to ski together for a little while before they were ready to call it a day.

Sims really loved skiing, so I guess we will have to do this every year! 

While the boys were getting ready to ski, Merritt and I hung out in the snow around the slopes a bit.  Merritt didn't really know what to think of the snow.  She definitely wasn't a fan of it when it was stuck to her hands.  While the boys skied, Merritt took a nap, and I enjoyed some quiet time in the room.

That night we had dinner at Sam Snead's Tavern, which was almost disastrous with an overly tired child who had skied all afternoon.  That was to be expected though.

The next morning we went swimming in the indoor pool.  Sims and I went ice skating and enjoyed afternoon tea together, while Merritt napped.  Ice skating was lots of fun because Sims and I were the only ones who were out on the rink.  The ice skating legs or trainers or whatever they are called (the contraption that you can hold on to while you skate that helps you to stay balanced) helped us out a lot.  This was Sims' and my second time out on the ice, and that contraption made us feel like pros.

Sims and I, also, played checkers in one of the little lounge areas.  This was his first time playing checkers, and the 2 of us now love to play together!

Once Merritt woke up, we all enjoyed a round of mini golf.  Of course, mini golf with a 15 month old is a bit difficult.  In the end, we just let her pick up the balls and roll them around herself.  This video shows the chaos that ensued.

We had dinner our last night at Jeffersons again.  After dinner, we hung out at Downtime, which is a game room.  Sims and I played air hockey, and he got to play some video games.  He loved that place!

We got up the next morning and headed home.  We were rewarded with a beautiful snowfall as we left.  And it was warm enough that we didn't have to worry about the roads.  The perfect ending to a very fun trip!

Getting Merritt in the car for the drive home

We are already looking forward to going back to The Homestead.  We just love it there!

Our Christmas

We had a wonderful, busy Christmas season.

Sims was in our church's Christmas pageant again (for the 4th time).  He was a shepherd for the 2nd year in a row, and this was the first time that I was actually able to sit down and watch the entire pageant.  Every other year I have been helping behind the scenes, so that I was only able to see the parts that Sims (and Merritt last year) was in.  It is such a sweet pageant!  Unfortunately, we didn't get any good pictures of Sims in his shepherd costume this year.  This is the best one I have.  He is on the left in the green headdress.

We went to visit Santa at the art museum.  Their holiday family event is always fun, but Santa is the main reason that we go.  Merritt wasn't so excited about Santa though.

You've gotta love Santa's expression as Merritt started to cry.  After we "saved" Merritt, Sims got the chance to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, which was a guitar and some surprises.  When Santa asked what his sister wanted, Sims just shrugged.

On Christmas Eve, we had our usual cookie decorating family get together before going to church.

Sims and Isla really loved decorating the cookies this year, but I couldn't help but giggle at their technique, which consisted of dumping as many sprinkles as possible in one big pile.

We decided to start a kids table this year for Sims and Isla.  I think that we've outgrown our dining room!  They made their own gingerbread house place mats, which turned out really cute.  We did this last year, and I was amazed at how much more thought Sims put into decorating his gingerbread house this time.  He really thought about how he wanted a front door and door to his bedroom.

Table top gingerbread house was the one Sims made in his Kindergarten class.

 Here are some other photos from the day.

Maxwell's first Christmas

Christmas morning was exciting and crazy - just the way it should be with small children.  The kiddos woke up fairly late, then we spent the rest of the morning playing with all of their loot.  I didn't take many photos because we were just hanging out and having fun together.

I think that all of their gifts were pretty big hits.  Actually, they both seem to enjoy playing with the toys that the other one received as well.

We went over to Mom and Smith's during the afternoon, and the kids had a big time hanging out.  (Have I ever mentioned how much Sims and Isla LOVE each other?!)

Sims and Isla playing in their new sleeping bags

The day after Christmas we took off to Charlotte to spend some time with Jason's family.  We had lots of fun, and it was very relaxing.  I, of course, have no pictures from it.  It was hard to go back to work and the real world after a little over 2 weeks off.  It was a fantastic Christmas!

Halloween 2014

So, I guess it's time to catch you up with our activities from the past few months!  I will start with Halloween, even though it seems like that was ages ago.

Sims decided a couple of months before Halloween that he wanted to be a bat, which we all thought was a great idea.  Jason and I had so many fantastic ideas for Merritt's costume.  Many that involved quirky pop culture references, which we would have loved.  In the end, we nixed those (for the sake of time) and decided that she would be an owl.  So both of the kids were flying creatures of the night!

Sorry for the terrible photo quality, but it's all we have.  Both costumes were super easy (my favorite kind).  We lucked up with the fabric for Merritt's costume, which saved us a ton of time.  Sims loved the bat wings and wore them around for quite a while afterwards.  They were a bit snug in the arms, and I really should make him another set that is more comfortable.

Merritt had a party at her daycare, and it's always fun to see all of the little bitty kids in their costumes.  She was still in the infant class at the time, so she was one of the big kids.

This was Merritt's first costume, since last year she was just a month old.  I put a Halloween onesie on her then and called it a day.  I think we should have one more year of choosing her costume before she starts to have her own opinions.  We already have so many ideas!  (But let's be honest, we won't start on the costumes until the week beforehand.)

Stay tuned for more updates...