Wednesday, August 15, 2012

First - First Day of Kindergarten!!!!

Wednesday, August 1st was Noah's first full day of Kindergarten!!!!  What a huge day for all of us. Noah was so excited and proud.  It was just his evaluation day so there were less kids and he was not with the same teacher he has now but it was a full day and he took his backpack and his lunch and everything!  We dropped him off that morning but he did ride the bus home.  What a big boy!!!



Kylie was excited, too!

Waylon took Kylie to school before we took Noah in and she was a little sad that Noah wasn't going to daycare with her but we heard she was okay the rest of the day so that's good.

Isn't it amazing how much they look alike!?


Walking in!
Alston Ridge Elementary!

He was a little reserved but happy enough to see us go! :-)
Waylon worked from home that day and I went in to my (now old) job but I got home in time to see him get off the bus.  He came running off the bus with a huge smile!  I was bummed that my picture turned out blurry but you get the picture here, I think....


Happy Boy after getting off the bus!


Day 1 was a success!!!

Behind... yet again!

Well, after my last few posts, I think I got 'blogged out' so now it's time to get caught up!  A lot has happened in the past month!  Noah started Kindergarten, I started a new job, and of course lots of fun events mixed in there, too!!!  I'll do this in a few parts again.....

Going back to Thursday July 26th... we had 'Meet the Teacher' day at school.  For Noah, it was really 'Meet the TeacherS' day since the kindergarteners don't know who their teacher is on their first day of school.  So we went and got a good look at the school and he met all the Kindergarten teachers and just got really excited in general.  

Just to explain how it works, they do a 'staggered entry' for the Kindergarteners.  So the first day of school for Grades 1 - 5 was Monday, July 30th and the kindergarteners go one day that first week for an evaluation day.  Noah's day was Wednesday.  Then on Friday, August 3rd, we found out who his teacher is and all the Kindergarteners started on August 6th.


Reading books in the Media Center

Kylie is ready to go also!
That Friday was my last day home with the kids before Noah started school and I started a new job so we decided to have a morning at the movies.  We went to see Brave which was so cute!  Here they are after the movie having a snack and "playing" the games at the theater.  :-)



That evening, we had a nice dinner with the Hombergers and I got this adorable shot of Abby, Noah and Kylie.  :-) 

Fast Friends

Noah wanted me to take this picture as we were leaving the parking lot  :-)
That weekend, we actually had no plans which is almost unheard of for us - so I sent an email to a few people in the neighborhood to see if they would be at the pool that weekend.  That somehow turned into a pretty big potluck and really, a big party down at the pool!  We decided to grill some lunch but that turned into ordering pizza for dinner also!  So much fun.

Bathing beauty

I couldn't choose between this picture and the last so I put both here!  :-)

Noah and Addy  :-)
So much fun!

Noah and Charlie - good buddies!

Baby Will (Abby's little brother)

Stephanie, Kathy and Cari-Anne

Cutie Patooties! Lauren, Cole, Noah and Addy

Conrad and Waylon

Stephanie and Chris

Silliness!

Stephanie has great form.  :-)
On Sunday, the kids were asking for Nana and Grandad so we called them and they hopped in the car and came to visit!  That ended up with a trip to the mall to get the kids new shoes and we had to have an ice cream treat to thank Nana and Grandad!


That evening, the kids and I went to watch Waylon play basketball.  He's been playing in a league with some of the other guys in the neighborhood but usually the games are pretty late.  That Sunday, the game was at 7 so we decided to go watch him play.  They had so much fun and kept screaming 'GO DADDIES!'  :-)

Warming up

The cheerleaders

Half time
 And one last cute picture from that weekend also... they love to color!!  :-)


Up next - first day of Kindergarten!!!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Lake Weekend and Swim Lessons

We had a 3 day workweek that following week and then took off on Thursday to head back to the lake!  This time with Waylon's family.  We usually do a long weekend at the beach each year but this year, we couldn't seem to find a suitable place, so my parents were nice enough to let us use their place for a long weekend!

We left Thursday morning and arrived just before lunchtime.  Nana and Grandad weren't too far behind us and after a quick lunch, we went almost straight into water mode!  :-)  Water play on the porch with the water table, water guns and what else? - buckets!  :-)




Andrea and Savannah left town around 3:00 and arrived just before dinner. I texted this following picture to her when she was on her way and told her to hurry up!  :-)
 

Savannah was excited to get into water play also and just decided to not even worry with her bathing suit!  :-)


On Friday morning, we were down on the beach by about 9:30.  The kids were so happy!


Look at the resemblance!  :-)


Waylon went fishing with Noah's little net.  :-)
Grandaddy caught one also!
Around 11, we jumped in the boat and took off for lunch at the marina


Waylon and his parents
Before lunch, we of course have to feed the fish!

Such a sweetie


They fed this cute goose who had a hurt leg.  Poor thing.
And everyone had to have a turn driving the boat, too!




 After a little bit of rest time, we went back out and did some tubing...

Aunt Andrea and Noah

Andrea and Savannah
Mommy and Kylie

Walking back to the house

Silly Kylie-girl and Grandaddy

Snuggles before bedtime that night

Saturday morning, Uncle Sean arrived and we went back to the beach again.  This time, we took fishing rods and Noah almost immediately caught the biggest fish of the day.  Of course, that got everyone's attention and they kept trying.  They were catching them but nothing too big....

Noah's big catch!  :-)
Sean and Savannah fishing

... lots of fishing

This was Waylon's version of fishing - with the next patiently waiting for one to swim in  :-)

Cuties!

They had fun jumping off the pier
While we were out there, Kay and I decided to go back to the house to get one of the kayaks.  On the way back to the beach, as we were coming down the hill, we hit a slippery patch of some kind of plant or algae or something and I went down first.  I tried to catch myself with my arm and overextended it or did something strange.  Then Kay came running after me and her feet slipped out from under her and she went down on her back and hit her head!  Waylon and Sean came running up the hill and were slipping also.  Andrea was on the beach with Savannah and Kylie who were crying calling for Mommy and Nana - it must have been quite the site to see!!  :-)  Luckily, we were ok.... a little sore but okay.  I had some trouble moving my arm and ended up going to the doctor on Monday after we got back but I think it's going to be okay.

Anyway, after coming back in from the beach, we put the girls down for a quick nap and Andrea, Sean, Noah and I went back out to tube and wakeboard.  We were so excited that Andrea got up almost immediately!!!  Go girl!!

All set

There she goes!
Noah had so much fun watching.  He looked a little tired or bored and I asked him if he was tired and he said, 'No, I'm having so much fun watching Aunt Andrea!'  :-)  Then he told her that he'd give her $100 if she got up and since she did, he drew her a $100 bill after we got back in to the house!  :-)  So sweet.


Sean gave it a good try too - we'll work on it again next time!


Saying goodnight to Nana and Grandaddy on Saturday night
After we put the kids to bed on Saturday night, Waylon, Andrea, Sean and I went out to the bar close by.  It's always entertaining to go there and we had a blast!


Sunday morning, the plan was to spend the morning outside and leave after lunch but it was overcast and pretty nasty out so we just spent the morning cleaning up and doing laundry and took off a little after lunch.  What a nice trip!  Always fun to spend time with family.  And thanks to Grammy and Papa for letting us use the lake house!

When we got back on Sunday afternoon, I tried braiding Kylie's hair!  It worked out pretty well and I'm going to attempt it again.  She doesn't want me to mess with it too much so it's hard to get it to look nice...

She was proud when it was done though!


Kylie is into picking her own outfits for school and she usually does a pretty good job.  This day though, she really went above and beyond!  :-)  At least we were able to talk her out of the long fleece pants (on a 100 degree day!).

The kids are both doing swim lessons on Tuesday nights down at our pool and they are both doing such a great job and having a blast!

Happy, silly girl

Jumping in

That's Noah's arm up in the air - doing freestyle!
So, this post finally brings me up to date!  It took a while but I finally got there.  This weekend, we have a pretty low key one so we are excited about that! 

We had Meet the Teacher day at Noah's new school today (although the Kindergarteners won't know their teacher until next Friday).  We met all the Kindergarten teachers and got all sorts of information about the upcoming school year!  Crazy!  School starts Monday for Grades 1-5, but they do a staggered entry for Kindergarteners.  Depending on the last name, they go one day the first week and the teachers evaluate them and determine which class they should be in.  So Noah goes to school on Wednesday, Aug 1st for his evaluation day and then we'll get a call on Friday, Aug 3rd to let us know who his teacher is.  Then, Monday, August 6th, he'll officially start!  He's SOOO excited!

Then.... some more big news.  Next Friday is also my last day at GSK!  I'm going back to Scynexis on August 7th!  I get a new job for my birthday!  :-)  It all happened pretty quick but we are pretty excited.  I'll still be a contractor so I'll be working 5 days/week but shorter hours so I can get Noah on and off the bus each day which is really nice.  Eventually though, the goal is to make it a permanent position - which we would be happy about at this point (especially since we live closer now than when I was there before).

So lots of new and fun things coming in the next few weeks!!