Under The Sea Birthday Bash

We put a twist on the joint birthday party this year...same day, same water slide rental, same decorations, same cupcakes...different times of day!

These two played on the waterslide for about an hour before any guests arrived!

After hearing about the seaweed plans I had for the hallway and kitchen,
Lorelei worked tirelessly to create fish. This included drawing many freehand, and some from a how-to-draw book we found at the library. This went on for at least a month. She had quite a few two-sided fish we hung from the ceiling,
as well as a manta ray we hung from the light fixture.
She definitely has the party bug and loves planning and creating as much as possible.

Aunt Heather created this adorable crab watermelon!

Popcorn bar!

Cupcakes
(Shells compliments of Amanda Armstrong)

Lou The Lobster was our party mascot, of course she was a hit!

Sea Urchin Take-Homes...there were more pink at the first party!

The morning party was celebrating our 9 year old!

A friend captured a few great shots for me, loved the girls singing in this one...

So much fun! She was only missing two of her classmates, and we had a few extra friends invited as well! Such a great turn out and they all had a fun time!

Then we had a lunch break where we quickly tidied up and then ate lunch. (That was the part I didn't really consider in this plan...what a mess! Thankful I had lots of helpers with the clean up!)

Then we celebrated our soon-to-be 7 year old in the afternoon!

Makin had a little over half of his classmates who could make the party, then we had other friends mixed in as well. This kid used up soooo much energy playing on the slide all day!

We had a great time celebrating these two kiddos of ours!

Kicking Off The School Year - 1st and 3rd Grade

It has been a blur of nerves and excitement as the school year got started.

Meet The Teacher

Lorelei's teacher this year is Mrs. Rhine who has been working with the school for 7 years and I believe this is her 3rd year teaching 3rd! I'm excited to see the end-of-the-year picture and see who is taller. ;)

I have heard from many other teachers and parents that "she is so organized" which sounds perfect for me! Mrs. Rhine told us this is also the year she pushes them to be more responsible for their own work and making sure they get items turned in on time etc. I do not see this being a problem for us, but I guess we will see! Lorelei's feedback after the first day was, "She is funny!"

Friends excited to be together again!
Jaedynn, Reagan, Nayeli, Lorelei and Savannah

Makin has our beloved Mrs. White this year for 1st grade! We cannot express how happy we are to be working together again and for Makin to have this sweet and wonderful teacher. This is her 3rd year teaching 1st at GCA.


Makin was chatting the evening of the first day of school and just said. "I love Mrs. White." :)

These best buddies were thrilled to be sitting next to each other.
I'm interested to see how long they get to stay this way. :)

First Day Photos

Both kiddos were quite nervous about their first day. This surprised me, although I'm not sure why. They come from a long line of nervous-for-school people on my side of the family. ;) When they got in the car after the big day, they were all smiles and had nothing but happy things to report. Including that they barely had time to miss me. :)

So excited to have a rolling backpack this year.
Much needed!

And just in case you thought these little photo shoots looked easy...

We did have a little fly-on-the-wall who gave us a sneak peak into 1st grade at lunch. :)

(Makin is on the far left of the pic...)

Our Traditional 1st Day Ice Cream

Home Days

Playing around with the coins in his math manipulatives and loved grouping them to make $1s.

Celebrating the first week of school on Friday...Puppy and Kitty Nutella Pancakes!

Smelling the spices for our Science lesson. Just loved the facial expressions!
The next week he tasted a pickle for sour and had a similar reaction. :)

Our 3rd grade history book spans a lot of grade levels so this year it will be a lot of me reading and Lorelei listening.
The first lesson was about Mozart and Handel, so we kept it a little more interesting by looking up some of their famous pieces. This was a fireworks display choreographed to Music for the Royal Fireworks.
I have been told by several moms that they love this history book so excited to read it with Lor!

Taking The Temperature of Room/Cold/Hot Water for Science

We enjoyed getting back into our Wednesday library routine, but realized there will be some kinks to work out with the new grade levels. Trying to give ourselves grace and remember the weeks will get better! Makin (the child who was not crying most of the morning) had a blast with two of his classmates having fun between lessons.

Week 2 At The Library

Extras

The kids still had some coupons for free smoothies at Smoothie King from their library reading program. We enjoyed the time together having that special stop after school. They loved the smoothie treats and I loved having them excitedly tell me about their days. It made me really thankful we were not rushing to tumbling and soccer like most Tuesdays of last year and has me brainstorming the best ways to fit in our extra curriculars so we can have more down time like this. It was so nice not to be in a rush.


School Quote...When talking to Makin just before his second GCA day I asked if he was at all nervous.
Makin: I'm 100% excited.
Me: So not even a little bit nervous?
M: Well I'm 1% nervous.
Me: Well then that means you are 99% excited.
Makin: My scale goes to 101.

We have been working on building the community for GCA and I'm one of the two room moms for 3rd grade. We decided we needed a bit of encouragement our first week so eight out of the twelve moms made it for a Starbucks drink after drop off.

End of Summer Break

I cannot believe this post is already going up.

We spent about a week recovering from our trip and prepping for school. I felt really behind in every way so will need to figure out how to fix that in upcoming summers. I was frantically ordering school books while also starting birthday party plans and I couldn't keep up with my to do lists even after quite a few "list" days. Then we settled in and fit in a bit more fun between tasks to finish our summer break.


We enjoyed a morning at Main Event. Late August of last year I found out about the Summer Fun Pass available and it seemed like it would be a great summer bucket list item. The kids loved it. They played a couple of rounds of putt-putt golf, did the ropes course (Lorelei technically did it twice, still cannot believe it! I was so proud of her!) and pool, but their favorite by far was Laser Tag. They played several games and had so much fun.

We headed to Addie's new house for a back-to-school pool bash, complete with a mid-morning ice cream snack!

We have fit in lots of swimming at our community pool all summer. (Thank goodness the pool will be open past Labor Day I believe...)

Watermelon Day

We managed to have our Watermelon Day festivities on National Watermelon Day this year!

After seeing some watermelon-y decorated treats at the stores, we decided to make watermelon cupcakes this year (with dye-free dye, yes its a thing). The kids had a fun time, even though the colors didn't quite turn out as we hoped.

And of course our afternoon meant eating huge slices of watermelon in the grass.

Eating Like A Puppy (Of course)

He decided a wiggly tooth meant he needed a spoon this year!