Grandparents Day!

In November Vincent's school had Grandparent's Day for the preschool and kindergarten classes.  Vincent was lucky enough to have 5 grandparents there: Craig and Diane, my mom and Dave, and my dad.  He thought he was pretty cool and was excited to see them.  Kasi was home on Thanksgiving break and came to spend time with Cecilia, Joel and I.  Afterwards we met up with everyone at Culver's for lunch.  It was a lot of fun and really does it get much cooler for the kids than to be spoiled by 5 grandparents at once?!

Vincent and Nanno

Nanno, Grandma Dawn and Vincent

Vincent and Grandma Dawn

Nanno and Vincent

Grandma Dawn, Vincent, Papa Razzi

Grandpa Craig, Grandma Diane and Vincent

School Pictures 2013-2014

Here are the boys’ school pictures! 

Vincent's Kindergarten Picture.

Joel's 3yr old Preschool Picture.

 

The Negotiator and Dawdler

Vincent is a morning person, but he doesn’t move fast in the morning.  He is a dawdler and is unaware of time or time constraints.  I spend a lot of my time in the morning keeping all the kids on task so they can get on the bus or to school on time.  It is not my favorite part of the day.  I do my best not to yell at them but I still end up yelling some mornings.  The other morning Vincent literally took 12 minutes to put his clothes on.  I already picked them out he just had to put them on.  He was distracted many times!

I told him in a stern voice that he was moving slowly.  He replied “What, like a snail?!”  I said “Yes”.  He retorted “well I think you are moving like a snail mommy!”  I told him that I was running around looking for his homework that was missing.  He said again that I was moving like a snail, so I told him he was losing a coin for back talking.  He didn’t seem to care and instead started to negotiate ways to get more coins “How about every day I am at school I get a coin?”  I told him I was not discussing new ways to earn coins because we needed to get ready to school.  I kept on his case about getting ready because we were becoming dangerously close to being late for school.  So for the next 5 minutes I was on his case about getting his coat and shoes on and getting his backpack.  We seemed to go even slower.  Monday thru Friday it is the same routine, with his coat and shoes and backpack all kept in the same areas, we do things in the same order, this should not be difficult.

As I was telling him that he had to put his shoes on quickly he turned to me and said “You are ruining my day.”  I was taken back and told him that I was not ruining his day or his morning but I was probably driving him a little crazy.  He agreed.  On the way to school I explained that if he needed more time in the morning to get ready he would have to wake up earlier.  He said ok but that he would need a Spiderman alarm clock and Spiderman underwear to make that happen.  I pointed out that underwear wouldn’t help wake him up and we have perfectly good alarm clocks he could use.  He wasn’t impressed.  Then we discussed where his homework could possibly be.  He was convinced that a secret agent snuck in the house and took his homework out of his backpack.  He wasn’t even trying to be funny or cute or just give a funny excuse he really thought that was a legitimate reason his homework was missing.  We got to school just as the door was getting closed and locked, which is later than usual.  Usually we are there 2 minutes before the door gets locked.

Part of me wants to let him be late for school and see if that would make a difference in his morning dawdling, but he loves walking through the school and seeing the older kids on the way to his classroom so I doubt it would help.  Our new plan is that if he is dressed and ready to go by the time Joel’s bus gets to our house he can play on my phone.  So far it is helping and we have a lot less dawdling in the morning.  I hope it lasts!

Sword Fights, Farming, and School

Brad stopped by the house one night to grab something on his way back out to the field.  He asked the kids one by one if anyone wanted to go farm with daddy for a little bit.  Vincent and Joel wanted nothing to do with it they were very concerned about eating dinner before heading to Vincent’s school for an open house.  Cecilia was the only one that said “yes”!  Brad grabbed the spare car seat and Cecilia and headed to the field.  I was a little surprised he was going to take her, but they were in a field close to the house and if it didn’t work out I was available to go get her.  Brad strapped her car seat in the grain cart and she did a great job.   He tells me that she got to get out of her seat and to “drive” a little bit too.  By the time I got there she was sound asleep in her car seat.  Brad took some videos of her driving the tractor.

Cecilia hard at work!

While Cecilia was off learning how to farm her brothers were at home playing pirates.  Joel was Captain Hook and Vincent was Peter Pan and they were using their plastic swords to have a sword fight while I cooked.  They were loud and banging into things in the kitchen and living room.  While to some people this doesn’t sound like fun or even anything that is worth reading about it represents progress for Joel.   I was so excited because Joel asked Vincent to play with him, Vincent agreed, Joel was pretending and playing for an extended period of time with someone.  We were told that he may never pretend!  School and therapy are paying off! 

Joel and Vincent playing.

Sword fights in the kitchen.

After we picked Brad and Cecilia up from the field we headed to Vincent's school for an open house.  He was excited to show us his room but nervous about Joel not listening and getting in trouble.  He even told his teacher that sometimes Joel doesn't follow directions and asked me about leaving Joel at home with a babysitter.  It all turned out fine.  Vincent was excited to show all of us his classroom and school.  Joel did a very good job following directions and so did Cecilia.

Walk-a-Thon

Vincent’s school does a fundraiser each year that is called the Walk-a-thon. The kids get pledges and they walk for 2 hours.  They get a half day that day and they get to listen to a DJ as they walk around the parking lot.  The whole school walks including teachers, the principal, students grades Preschool-8^th grade, and several parent volunteers.  This year Cecilia and I joined Vincent to walk for an hour.  He was hard to keep up with.  He was running and walking around the parking lot.  Spending time with kids his age and hanging out with some of the older kids as well.  Then he would come hold my hand and walk with me and Cecilia.  It was fun to watch him interact with his friends!  

Vincent and Lily.

Tyler and Vincent.

All the money that was raised goes towards the teacher’s wish list for different supplies and bigger technology type things.  There are different rewards for achieving different fundraising goals.  There are prizes for most laps ran the day of the walk-a-thon, most money raised, etc.  There are also group prizes such as the class that raises the most money.  As the school as a whole reached different goals they earned different prizes.  The top prize was that the principal would kiss a pig if they raised $15,000.  They surpassed their goal and Ms. Lopez kissed a pig a few weeks after the Walk-a-thon.  The kids really enjoyed it!

Tyler, Vincent and Lily.

Curriculum Night for Joel

In the middle of September Joel’s school had a curriculum night.  Going into it I wasn’t exactly sure what it was.  Was it an open house, were the kids invited, etc.  It turns out it is pretty much an open house.  Brad, all three kids and I went to it and were able to see Joel in action in his classroom. Last time we were there with him was before he started school.  He liked it at that time, but from the reaction we saw at curriculum night I can tell you Joel loves school!  He showed us books they read, sang a few songs for us, showed us games they work on, where his locker was and all sorts of fun toys.

Joel showing us one of his school activities.

Then one of his teachers asked him to point to his name and then asked him how to spell his name.  He quickly and clearly said “J-O-E-L”.  Brad, Vincent and I were stunned!  We had no idea he knew how to spell his name and he doesn’t volunteer information like that at home.  We are very proud of how well Joel is doing in school and we are grateful for his wonderful teachers, aides and therapists!

A crazy day

At the beginning of September I was over at the arena walking Joel and Cecilia around on Alasan.  I was proud of myself for thinking to put the buddy seat on so Joel and Cecilia could ride at the same time and not have to take turns.  Well, they still had to take turns riding in front, but they got over it!

Cecilia holding Finn

Joel demonstrating the wrong way to hold cats, but they didn't even protest!

As we were walking around the arena I got a little bored and decided to check my email.  There was an urgent message from Vincent’s school from that was sent an hour earlier.  It said that there was a threat at the school and the children were safe but needed to be picked up immediately.  Nothing like a pit in the bottom of your stomach.  Diane was in the barn and I handed Joel and Alasan off to her, grabbed Cecilia and headed to the school.  There were police and fireman all around the school and they were only letting parents in and out of the parking lot. 

Joel, Finn and Cupcake

Cecilia

When Vincent got in the car he was very worried because he didn’t have his backpack, he had not had lunch yet and he didn’t like the snack they were passing out while he was waiting for me, he still had his special gym shoes on and they had to leave the small gym without cleaning up.  He was convinced there was a fire that no one could see and was so worried about his backpack.  I felt so bad for him!  Then I had to explain to him that there was no fire, his backpack was fine, I would feed him lunch as soon as we got home, we would take his gym shoes off right away so they would stay clean and everything would be fine.  Saying there was no fire lead to the question about why they had to leave the school.  So I had to explain to my little innocent kindergartner that there a bad people in the world and one of them called the school and said mean things and the teachers thought all the students would be safer at home for the afternoon.  He had just stopped having nightmares about falling into the pool at the hotel when we were there for Jill’s wedding and I was worried he would have nightmares again, but he hasn’t!

Cecilia and Hank

Joel and Cecilia riding Alasan double.

A Mixup!

When I realized that we would have two kids going to two different schools via two different modes of transportation on two different school schedules I figured we would have a mixup somewhere along the line.  I never thought it would be during the first week of school, but that is what happened.  Joel ended up on the bus with Vincent’s backpack instead of his own.  Brad just happened to grab the wrong back when he walked Joel out to the bus.  They are different colors, different designs and have nothing in common other than being backpacks.  

So Brad spent some time that morning switching backpacks at one school and delivering a backpack to another school.  After all his running around I am pretty sure he will be closely checking the backpacks before he walks Joel out to the bus again!

Vincent's 1st Day of School

Vincent’s first day of school fell on the day after the partnership party and he got to bed later than I would have liked, but he seemed to have a good day anyway.  Today was our first day of having to get 2 kids to school on time.  We started by getting Joel on the bus.  Right before the bus pulled in Joel said “I just stay home.”  Brad and I chose to ignore his comment and pretend we didn’t hear it.  He walked right on the bus all smiles, so I am guessing he knew staying home wasn’t really an option.

So excited!

Then it was on to getting pictures of Vincent before we headed to school and waking up Cecilia so she could make the drive to Vincent’s school with us.  I have a feeling she will be making a lot of trips to school this year in her pjs!  Vincent wanted Brad and I to bring him to school today.  On the way Brad asked him if he was going to cry all day because he missed his daddy.  Vincent said “No daddy, I won’t miss you!”  Drop off went really well and he didn’t seem to care he was going to be at school all day.

He wanted a picture with his backpack and lunch box

Vincent's desk!

With Vincent and Joel gone for a few hours in the morning, Cecilia gets the house, toys and me to herself!  She kept asking for the boys at first and then she discovered that both of the swords from Medieval times were sitting out and she could play with them alone and then she no longer cared her brothers were missing!

Cecilia sitting on Croc

Cecilia enjoying the bouncy house alone!

Cecilia and Mommy waiting for Joel's bus

When I picked him up I asked him if he missed me and he said “No, I was having too much fun to miss you.”  I am glad he enjoyed his day!  Although, he did proceed to use the rest of the drive to reprimand me for not putting a nut free tag on his lunch box.  One of his friends has a nut allergy and Vincent wanted to sit with him at lunch but he couldn’t.  The party that made Vincent mad was that he didn’t have any nuts in his lunch and he thought I just forgot the tag.  The problem was that the pretzels I sent said they could contain trace amounts of nuts.  First of all I have been blessed not to have to worry about food allergies with my kids so I had no idea until I was packing lunches that night that food that doesn’t have nuts in it can contain small amounts of nuts.  Vincent did not like my explanation!  He thought I just messed up.  I will have to pay more attention next time I go to the store to buy snacks so Vincent has a better chance of sitting at the peanut free table.

Brad and Cecilia at the bouncy house!

Cecilia riding her horse from Papa Ron

Vincent and Brad ended Vincent’s long day with a trip to visit my cousin to pick up some hay.  It involved a ride in a semi truck to see another farm and special time with daddy which was hard for him to turn down.  Brad said that Vincent was very good and very helpful!  He even got to steer the semi through the field.  By the time they got home he was exhausted.  Maybe by next week we will be more used to this school routine and school bedtime.  Ok, lets be honest it will probably take until after labor day!

Cecilia and her saucepan on her head!

Waiting for the bus with their backpacks on!