Makin At Four

Little Flying Super Hero :)

Makin, its hard to believe our baby is four, but at the same time you act so much older most of the time its not hard at all! You continue to amaze us!

You are still obsessed with all things that go. You always want things to go fast. Most of the time you want to play cars or monster trucks and the like.

You are still athletic and always on the move.

You love being funny and making us laugh.

You are a quick learner but we are taking it easy with school and mostly in review. You really need practice more with your name and you are improving and work hard on it twice a week!

You are charismatic and everyone cannot resist you and your smile. :)

You can both lead and follow. You usually hold your own with your sister, but tend to be a little more laid back so do let her win more easily than she does you.

You are great at pretending! I love watching you in your fireman and superhero outfits and hearing the ideas you come up with.

You still love to make things rhyme and are turning the rest of us into Dr. Suess' as well. :)

Makin Quotes
"Here you go. Puppies like to chew." (Running to pet the neighbor's puppy, handed me ball and glove...as in didn't want to take them to the puppy because she would chew them...)

"Somebody was glittering." (littering)

"I think she misunderstood."

"Do you want me to hit that for you?" (Playing mini golf)

"You're my best friend!" (To me, and gave me a big hug)

(When I asked what he wanted to do on his birthday...)"I want to do one thing you never let us do at our house. You never let us do this. But its gonna be fun k? ...Drink coffee."

(Starting a conversation at the dinner table.) "Lets talk about Spiderman."

(Screeched like an eagle.)
Me: Why are you doing that?
Makin: I'm trying to break the windows.

Drue: You want to play the fishing game?!?
Makin: Yeah! Is that fantastic!?

Me: Lorelei, did you forget what you were supposed to be doing?
Makin: She's turnin' out like Mama!

One night he was extra tired after missing nap and having an eventful day. He asked me to come over and give him another kiss and hug goodnight. He wrapped his little arms around my neck and said, "I'm never gonna let you go." Sigh. Just something about little boys and how much they love their mommies melts my heart!!!



Makin's Four Year Interview
Favorites -
Food: Macaroni and Cheese and Mashed Potatoes
Place: Gobs of Fun
Movie: Planes Fire and Rescue
Color: Green and Black
Thing To Do: Play Cars and Remote Control Stuff
Animal: Elephants and Giraffes
Books: Cars and Planes
Song: Pearly White Gates Open Wide (its one from family night)
Treat: Candy
Holiday: Christmas and Birthday And Halloween

What do you like to do with Daddy? Wrestling and Magna Tiles and Legos

What do you like to do with Mommy? Play Cars

What do you like to do with Lorelei? Flying Planes

What makes you happy? Playing Cars with Mommy

What do you think about before you fall asleep? Playing with Planes

What do you want to be when you grow up? A construction worker because I can drive a driller or excavator

Lorelei At Six

Lorelei you are just sounding older and older every day through your talking and actions. You have really silly moments and great big sister moments. Really sweet moments and of course some sour. ;) You are still full of energy and excitement about everything in life.

You still love animals and pretend to be one most of the time you play. You usually check out factual animal books from the school library and love learning about them.

You love being crafty and coloring and think the more colors used the prettier it looks. You are really good about coloring after quiet time if I'm still busy.

You love school. You love the social aspect the most and recess is usually one of your best parts of the day. You also love that you are learning to read, but get easily frustrated that you somehow don't already read perfectly. ;)

You like to start sentences..."When I'm a mom..." and explain how you will do things. Pretty fun to hear your plans. :)

Quotable Moments

Me: Can you stop asking 100 questions?
L: That's what I do. That's my job!

"I'm not big on licorices." (Continues eating entire piece.)

(During pillow time, punishment where they have to hold a pillow out with arms up...) "What if Jesus didn't make our arms to do this?"

"Daddy, you need a pedicure!"

"I distinctly remember."

Lor: Makin, will you go outside with me?
Makin: No
Lor (casually guilt tripping...): Fine. Then there will be a bad guy. He will take me. And you won't be able to save me.


Common ways to start sentences...
"I saw on Pinterest..." (and no, she does not check pinterest)
"Would it be the end of the world if..."

"I know two of your favorite things in the world. Reading books and hugs."

She is using fun words like "impression" and "potentially" and its so fun to hear.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get there."

(Trying to convince me that she should have a second cookie...) "But its not fair to those cookies that I had one of the other kind and not them."

"A'course" (accent/slang for "of course") is used almost daily as well as "Oooo la la!" when she thinks something is pretty.

"Mom, why is it called Russia? Do they always rush?"

Makin: Why do you have to take pictures?
Me: So when you look back it will help you remember.
Lorelei: AND because we're so cute.

"Note to self. Do NOT do that again."

Me: Don't you know its Husker game day so you have to wear your Husker outfit?
L: (raises eyebrows and looks at me skeptically) But they don't really see us...

Lorelei's Six Year Interview

Favorites -
Food: Basketti
Place: Gobs of Fun
Movie: Tinkerbell
Color: Pink
Thing To Do:  Play Doggies 
Animal: Giraffe
Books: Berenstein Bears
Song: Amazing Grace
Treat: Cookies
Holiday: Christmas

What do you like to do with Daddy?  Play Legos

What do you like to do with Mommy? Read Books

What do you like to do with Makin? Play Doggies

What makes you happy? Mommy Loving Me (yes, insert sigh)

What do you think about before you fall asleep? My Little Ponies dancing on a rainbow

What do you want to be when you grow up? A Lion Tamer (then giggling uncontrollably at her answer)

Apple Picking and Husker Stadium

Yep, you read that correctly! We had a big Saturday! When we went peach picking a couple weeks ago, Brad pointed out that we were only 20 miles from Lincoln. Then we came up with the idea to bring the kids to see Memorial Stadium (where the Huskers play) the same day we went apple picking. So, here is a peek at our day...

Apple picking was a little disappointing this year. Last year we went in October because we love Gala and they were ripe mid Oct. This year we are going to be pretty busy in Oct. so we opted for a Sept visit. Our beloved Martin's Hillside Orchard's Facebook page warned that the recent rains brought out the mosquitoes, and to wear repellent, which we did, but it was not strong enough! Despite our best efforts, we picked minimal apples because we were swatting mosquitoes so much while picking. We did have a good time, but not as much as usual. I didn't get nearly as many cute pictures in the orchard this year because we had to swat away mosquitoes between every shot! Thankfully the tire swing didn't seem quite as bad so that was definitely our best part of the morning.

He loves it, but so much harder to hold on with littler legs!

No problem having Dad get her as high as he can.

Tire Swing Smiles

We headed to Lincoln and loved getting our treat of Raising Cane's chicken for lunch. Oh how we miss that place!

And yes, this did require an outfit change. Are you really that surprised?

We did a little consignment shopping (found snow boots, score!) and then headed to the stadium. The game wasn't until 7 pm, but we did not realize how many fans would be there at 3 pm....the masses were there in full force so it took us 40+ minutes to find parking. When we got to the stadium we checked out the lobby filled with Husker trophies, which the kids thought were pretty neat. Then we headed to the practice field outside the stadium that had free games, face painting and balloon animals for the kids to enjoy. They had a blast. Their favorite part of the day was playing the games. They really loved the obstacle course, went twice and would have loved to have kept going. We headed out and happened to time it with the buses of players arriving, so got to see the tops of their heads walking in and hear the band play. They also had a bubble machine going and they loved chasing those.

Arm paint and Balloon Creations

Husker Obstacle Course
Wished They Could Do All Day

Throwing Football Game...Loved This!

Go Huskers!!!

So thankful for moments like these...even if they do not go as planned! :)

Makin's New Schedule

Our little man is adjusting to the big change of his sister going to school five days a week. So far, he is not a fan of this new plan. He often mentions that he misses Lorelei. "Lorelei is really good at building restaurants for the airplanes...Lorelei would help me feel brave..." Even Drue has noticed...."We don't have anybody to be Krypto!" (Superman's dog, of course) Even through I get into Lego building etc with Makin I'm just not the same! :) Of course, Lorelei beams when I tell her that she was missed that morning. SO I'm hoping Makin will learn to appreciate his one-on-one with Mom soon! :) The other big problem with our new schedule is both kids being jealous of what the other sibling got to do while they were separated! Definitely a work in progress!


We decided not to put Makin in preschool this year. Reasons: 1) He didn't really have a desire to go 2) I don't feel he needs to go...he has socialization from Drue days/storytime/playdates/kindergym/family night, he has no trouble academically so no worries there, PLUS I'm doing home-school preschool with he and Drue twice a week, and finally, he will learn about listening to teachers through kindergym, storytime and family night.

His schedule this school year is:

We waited to start preschool after Labor Day.
 Lots of fire fighting/super heros/car/train play with these two!

Mondays and Wednesdays are Drue days where we will do home-school preschool in the mornings.

What will we cover during at-home preschool?
Calendar time - days of the week, month and date, zoo phonics and any other fun learning songs (they both LOVE music)
Name practice - neither of them are huge on the writing thing, but Lorelei practiced her name a ton at preschool and it helped her so much that she knew how to write it
Letter/number learning pages and activities - whatever awesome printables and games pinterest has to reinforce the letter we are learning that day...the challenge for teaching them is that they are on different levels so still working to challenge M further since he had a lot of this last year.
The rest of the day will be just fun time learning through play! And you know I will have to throw crafts in there...but probably in the afternoon so Lorelei can join us. :)

Explorers!

Letter Bingo

Name Practice..."Mom, can you be quiet? I'm concentrating."

Special Treats Before Storytime

Tuesdays and Thursdays are Y Move Junior (previously Kindergym) at the YMCA for an hour, Thursdays storytime with Mr. H follows right after at 10:30.

Y Move Jr has actually been a bigger deal for him than I thought and he has asked not to go! Both times he has gone so far, he says he enjoys it but, "Can I not come back next time?" He has no real reasons why, other than "I just want to be with you all the time." So I guess its a very good thing we have a few of these to get him warmed up for school when we get to that point.

He was also nervous for our MOPS meeting, where he goes to Moppetts for 2 hours while I'm in a meeting. This is only once a month. He even asked me to sew him a felt heart like Lorelei's! So yes, I sewed him a dark and light green felt heart (even had green thread!) the night before MOPS! :) I kept cheering him on saying it was like going to school like Lorelei. He wasn't upset when I left, just quiet and when I picked him up he seemed happy about his time there. His favorite part was playing with the hula hoops in gym and the fun sound they made when they hit the wall. :) Baby steps for our little man! And it felt great to get 2 hours with adult kid-free conversation! :)

Fridays will hopefully be fun days! (Plus once a month a MOPS mtg) And in all of that I'm going to try and balance fun one-on-one and errands! :) All of us have some adjusting to do! :)

Makin Turns Four!

We had to wake up a sleepy Makin (Drue's mom called it the after-party hangover!) by going into his room and singing "Happy Birthday." Then he was super-excited to head out and open up his presents! He quickly ate one pancake so he could play with his new toys. :)

Can you tell the face where he is excited to try out his new toys? :)

We still had our hour of preschool and then he got a bit more new toy time in. He and Drue also jumped on the trampoline, played in the sandbox, played squirt guns and went to the park. He loved trying out his Blade helicopter (from Planes Fire And Rescue) at the park with lots of space for it to fly.

(Loved how hard he was trying to get it to go high!)

After nap we headed to the bowling alley. I think he was a bit bummed he couldn't get a strike like he does playing the Wii. :)

Brad got to try out Makin's new Hotwheels track goodies out after work. :)

After supper we sang again and he loved blowing out his candles.

His quote of the day, however, was before this during supper.

"Lets just skip cake so we can be healthy."

Yep, not too many 4 year old boys would say that! We had to talk him into having cake on his birthday! :)

Loved celebrating our amazing four year old!!!

Race Car Party

This year Lorelei and Makin had a joint birthday party. When I was asking the kids about a theme many months ago, Makin was adamant that he wanted a race car party.  Lorelei had nothing in particular she wanted. I told her we could do half boy/girl and gave her lots of girly options (inwardly dreading the idea of trying to mesh them together!) but she finally just said, "I'll just have a race car party." 

SO, race car party it was. ;)

Party Prep

The tire place let us pick any tires out of this truck for free...now we just have to figure out how to dispose of them. :) Makin thought this was the coolest errand EVER. :)

The kids helping with the cake...after that middle circle I was done with the help. :) Brad was an amazing help with many things for the party. In this pic he is putting together the apple cars. (Probably his least favorite thing to help with...) His other major jobs were making the poster in Photoshop and then printing it on normal printer paper, then taping those nine papers together to make a poster, along with building the entire ramp for the kids to race cars down. What a dad! I would also like to give a shout out to my mom, who sewed bean bags with race flag material (even though she is allergic to sewing!) as well as crushed up Oreos for the cakes for me and mailed them.  Oh and lets not forget bringing two tires this summer in case I didn't find any! What amazing helpers I had to pull this off!!!

The Set Up

I worked hard to minimize the food for this party, as I tend to go overboard usually. :) We had apple race cars and a popcorn pit stop. This is where you could add in a few fixins to your popcorn, which you put into the cone to hold your snack. :) Make sense?! It was a big hit. And yes, we just used printer paper to make the cones! We used checkered duct tape for the drinks. The kids chose their cakes when I showed them several options of ideas on Pinterest. I think they just liked the idea of M&Ms and Oreos on cake!? :) Oh and there were supposed to be balloons next to the poster...but it was windy so they were blowing down into the cakes, naturally, messing up my color scheme! :)

Activities and entrance. Car ramp, bean bag toss and painting wooden cars. The kids just did these "at will" and it worked out really well that way! They also enjoyed the sandbox and trampoline.

Party Time!!!

Our Cuties Celebrating Six and Four!!!

Fun And Games

Cake

As usual, we took a turn singing to Lorelei and Makin separately. Because of the wind, Brad had to light their candle with his hand blocking the wind for them to blow it out. :)

And that wraps it up! Had a blast celebrating these two fun kiddos!

1C Carnival

I had myself a teensy bit maxed out the last week. I offered to help with some things for Family Night, and they wisely asked me to help with special events we have a few times throughout the year. Right up my alley right!? Yes...but the kick off carnival also happened to land right in the middle of the kids birthdays! :) So I got to test out my planning multiple parties skills. Gave me a taste of what it would be like if I did turn this into a business! :)

I had lots of fun planning this along with Dawn (leader of family night) and getting some supplies to help make the carnival look cute. I was running the table taking tickets etc so Brad went around with the kids. He doesn't take quite as many pictures as I would, but we still got a few. :) The games we had were - Duck Pond, Ring Toss, Ping Pong Toss, Cupcake Walk, Dart Ball, Ball Throw, The Fishing Game, Photo Booth with Props and a Dunk Tank. All the families seemed to really enjoy it and I enjoyed getting involved and helping! :)

The kids are very excited to enjoy family night Wednesday nights again this school year! :)

Pool Time

The kids have enjoyed every minute of having a pool in the backyard this summer. :) Most days, they wake up from nap, have a snack, and then get changed to swim. I have been taking pictures throughout the summer.

Need A Tow?

Nana found the last tire floatie in the store...

so we get extra practice with patience and sharing because it is VERY popular. :)

Making her own waves. :)

Lovin his goggles. :)

We just took the pool down so I wanted to get this posted. The summer weather seems to have officially left us! Thankful for such a gorgeous summer!