Gwyn's Preschool Conference

This past Tuesday, I went to Gwyn's conference. It is not the first one I have had for her. She started them in the baby room at UCDC. But this is a new school, with a more streamlined assessment. UCDC focused on whole-child development. The new school focuses on Kindergarten skills, like shapes, letters, numbers, counting, etc.

Her report was amazing. She gets along with other students and is respectful to the teacher. She always raises her hand, and follows directions with minimal instruction. She plays with other students. She already has a friend, Ian, whom she talks about all the time.

Here is what I was told about Gwyn:

Counting: she can count to 100. Well, they stopped her at 100. She has counted up to 40 for me, but not that high.
Number recognition: she is the only one in her class who recognizes numbers higher than 10. Her teacher said that she reads the numbers on the calendar.
Letter recognition: she knows all uppercase letters, and 24 lowercase letters. (Not q and r.)
Patterns: she knows ababab patterns, as well as aabaab, abcabc, and aabbaabb.
Colors: she knows all that they asked about.
Shapes: for some reason, she only knew 2. But she does this at home as well. She used to know them.

Funny story about colors: a boy was telling the teacher the colors, and when he got to grey, he said "dirty white." Gwyn leaned into the conversation and told him "It is grey." He replied "I know." She told him very seriously "Then you should have said that." Her turn to name colors was later, and when she got to grey, she said "Dirty white. Just kidding. I know it is grey." With some attitude! I asked the teacher about her attitude, and she said it was not a concern, she just has some personality and is so nice and respectful. So we laughed about it.

Gwyn has also asked to learn to read, both in school and at home. So, without knowing what the other was doing, both her teacher and I started giving Gwyn sight word books to read. She LOVES reading at night, and has her books next to her bed. She is starting to recognize the difference between words and letters on the page, and can name a few sight words. I even hear her say the starting sound of the word if she forgets what it is. For example, she forgot the word carrot, but I heard her say "That's a c. Kh, kh, kh.... carrot!" So much fun to see that.

Her teacher said that Gwyn is showing the same interest in reading. The teacher told Gwyn, if she wanted to that she could read to the class. Gwyn said she would read if she got fruit snacks. The teacher agreed, but couldn't figure out why Gwyn requested fruit snacks. A few days later she remembered a high school student who had visited a few weeks before. He had fruit snacks after he read to the class.

I was told that Gwyn always raises her hand, plays well with others, knows what to do with routines, and is usually the first one to do things. She is currently in a class with 3, 4 and 5 year-olds, but in the afternoons Gwyn is now going to go to the class next door since those are the 4 and 5 year-olds heading off to Kindergarten next year. This will help supplement her curriculum. She needs to be around kids closer to her age. I am happy Gwyn is happy and that she is doing well!


Fun memory I don't want to forget:

At UCDC, in the toddler room (1 year-olds) Gwyn was knocking kids over her first few weeks in the new room. She would walk up to kids and push them over. Her teacher had to talk to me about it, and I had to tell Gwyn to stop. Then a few days later I watched Gwyn play with her brothers. She would walk up to them, push them, and they would all laugh and wrestle. Gwyn was just trying to wrestle at school. We had to explain it was something for home. How cute is that?

Our Show

Tonight the kids all put on a show for us. They have been working on it for about a week. I have even seen the set list somewhere, but I was told I couldn't read it. The show was awesome!

It started with Kevin doing tricks with an innertube. (The pink on from Gulf Shores.) The threw it in the air and caught it, he went through it, he kicked it. So many things. Afterward, Colin did tricks with a soccer ball. He did several tricks where he caught the ball with a flat hand, which he has been working on. He even did a trick with the ball rolling down the hill of the driveway. Then Kevin did the Baby Show. He was doing tricks with Gwyn's baby, and while he did that, Colin snuck up behind us and sang "The baby show, the baby show, the baby show...."

After that, Gwyn also did some tricks with the innertube. Then the big finale was them dancing and enacting the song Fireflies by Owl City. Daddy and the kids love that song.

I can. not. believe. that I didn't get it on video. It was a great memory, and the kids had fun and earned all the applause they received. (Which was a lot.)

Set list - catch is spelled "ceach."

Colin's Pumpkin (Update)

Here is the original post. 

To recap, Colin started growing pumpkins in a small cup in his first grade class. He brought it home, and we transferred the small plant to a small planter. Then the pumpkins kept growing. So we moved them to the back corner of our yard. Over the summer, a fungus grew on the leaves, and the vines started to die. Husband did some research and worked for a few weeks to stop the fungus as much as possible, but it reached the pumpkin before it was orange. We told Colin not to expect much.

After our trip to Chicago last weekend (blog post coming soon) we checked, and it is orange! And a pretty good size!

Here are some picture starting in September.

I hope more grow in next spring!

Update: the kids already cracked it. One of them dropped it. So into the trash it goes. I am glad I got a picture within 3 hours. The poor pumpkin only lasted about 21 hours. But better to toss it because it is cracked than because it was rotting on the front porch.

Happy Halloween!

We put up the decorations last weekend. I love decorating for Halloween. It is one of my favorite holidays, and also it is the start of three months of decorating the house!

I have been getting more decorations over the years. Thankfully, since our house looked pretty pathetic for a while there. I usually go to Target on November 1st and get decorations for the next year. As I was unpacking this year, I kept thanking my past-self as I discovered all my new things to put out! One of the new things (that I had forgotten about and was happy to find) was this sticker set. I can tell Kevin loves me since he didn't object to me putting it up. That, and I was literally giddy when I was putting them up.

I keep holiday books with the decorations. So when we decorated, I got out all the books having to do with Halloween. Some are picture books, some are chapter books, a couple are eye-spy books. Anyway, the kids have been reading the books pretty much non-stop. I love it.

Kevin turned 9!

Kevin turned 9. I can not believe that my first-born is 9 years old! He is loving 3rd grade, and doing wonderful.

Current stats:
Favorite foods: taco, pizza, stew, chili
Farvorite things to do: build Legos, go to the movies, spend time with family
Best friends: Dylan, Gavin, Dylan, Mason, Alex (and Colin and Gwyn)
Favorite memories: spending time with my family, like snuggling and going to Gulf Shores
Tell me two things about Gwyn: she is nice and caring, and loves snuggles, and is huggable,
Tell me two things about Colin: he loves Legos, loves snuggling and hugs
Tell me two things about mommy: she's nice, caring and huggable
Tell me two things about daddy: daddy has great farts, and he loves to wrestle with us

We had a typical party with family over. He was happy because he got so many Legos.

For his birthday, he got the birthday glass. (Yes, we use Smurf glasses from decades ago.)

This poster is from one of the boys' party's years ago. The large posters with Bumble Bee and Optimus Prime are still hanging on their closet doors.

He was given the Minion Kevin. This toy also makes fart noises, like the Minion fart gun Colin got at Christmas.

The tradition continues of the birthday kid choosing what words go on the cake.

Our Chicago Trip - March 2015

This trip is back when I was on strike from blogging. But I want to remember it.

For Spring Break we went to Chicago. We all love that city, and stay at my mom's place when we go. I took the kids up a day before Kevin joined us, so that he could take one less day off from work. It was chilly but not cold. And the best part is that we ate at Xoco. Xoco is our favorite place to eat in Chicago. (Luckily when we fly out of O'Hare there is one in the airport.) But most of the trip was spent exploring the city, new and old places, and having fun as a family.

The kids impressed others with their ability to wait quietly in the Amtrak line. Such great kids.

We had never been to the Lincoln Park Zoo before this trip, which is strange since we love zoos. So I took a lot of pictures. I liked the zoo, even though it was small. I loved that the bus took us right to it.

It seemed like there were not many animals out, (It was cold out) but the animals that were there were active! We spent 10 minutes watching the gorillas jumping and climbing. I have never seen them so active.

This hall is beautiful. Many of the exhibits were empty, but the cheetahs was there. I want to have a big party in there.

Scruffy Kevin.

I know it is not that big of a deal, but I love that the zoo is in a city. You look around and see tall buildings in the surrounding area. I love Chicago.

Some nice person took our picture.

On our way out, we walked past the Children's Zoo, and decided to explore. Inside a large building was this structure (similar to the one at our Magic House). It was a nice change for the kids who were started to get really cold.

On the bus ride home from the zoo. The kids have ridden Chicago transit so many times. I am just glad Kevin finally stopped licking the blue seats.

The next day we returned to the Children's Museum. The boys worked with daddy to build a structure. I love this exhibit. There is a time limit on how long you have to build, and the goal is to reach the clouds. As you build, every few minutes a camera takes you picture.

Gwyn helped with the computer part. You record your story of building the structure. Colin wanted to do some of the talking.

 The end result. Gwyn wanted to bring her baby everywhere, but this is how the doll was carried most of the time. I almost felt bad.

The proud builder standing by the one of the tallest structures in the aisle. (They are set on uneven tables.)

2015

2010

Gwyn adorable napping in the condo.

Everyone else watching HGTV.

The Nordgaarden's (Shaun, Gail, Chase and Parker) were also in Chicago. So we met up with them to go to The Museum of Science and Industry. I love this place, but don't have any pictures of us there. I must have forgot my camera. When we went to dinner, Shaun and Gail told us that they were going to move to Chicago for Shaun's work. They moved in July, and we get to see them next weekend!

Another wonderful trip, and shockingly the last time we went to Chicago. I can not believe that summer went by without a visit. But as soon as the marathon is over, I think I will take Gwyn for a girls' weekend.

Summer Vacation - Gulf Shores 2015 Bonus Pictures

Here are a few more pictures. I know I have two posts already, but these are worth it.

The boys running down the beach, chasing/scaring the birds.

Different angle from dinner at Lulu's.

A picture of the castle Rachel and the boys built for Gwyn, complete with her chair and umbrella!

Me on the plank. I don't know why my hands are on my hips. I bet I was showing off for my mom.

Gwyn insisted on this arrangement in the car.

Rachel climbing.

Good picture of Rachel.

Kevin's castle.

Summer Vacation - Gulf Shores 2015 Part 2

The boys know how to swim, but loved floating. Sometimes, they would share a buggy boggy board. Again, our house is in the background.

After two days in the sun, everyone was given a hat. Gwyn wore one of Pappy's. The water was bluer at the start of the week. Throughout the week, it got greener, and each day the sea weed was different. One day would have none, then the next would have a row of it, then it would be everywhere. And I had to act all cool about it so the kids would be cool. One day we went down, and there were small clear jelly fish EVERYWHERE. They were on the beach, and all in the water. You could feel them bump off your legs as you walked around. That was a hard day for me to be out, but I did it.

Gwyn, yet again, loved her innertube. She got a pink one this year.

Pappy and Grandma's last night.

By Wednesday, I wanted the kids out of the sun a bit more. (We would go down after breakfast, and stay there until dinner. Sometime Gwyn was down all day as well.) So we made the ocean pool. We filled it with ocean water each morning. I must say it was well-received by the kids. They liked having a new place to play, and it allowed Gwyn to play in water without an adult!

Wednesday was also my birthday. Gwyn and husband went grocery shopping in late afternoon, and Gwyn saw this and made husband buy it. I wasn't really expecting anything, as we celebrated before the trip. But Gwyn said that cookie cake is my favorite (she is right) and that I would like the beach picture. I just asked her about it now and she said "I love you mama. I got you this cake. It's a beach cake and you love the beach."

Since the boys can now swim, and are taller, they could go in the ocean by themselves. (But only to mid-thigh.) Colin mostly enjoyed looking for creatures. They both would jump over waves. They are getting so tall!

Just two ladies enjoying the ocean pool.

You can see the family that shared the house with us. Anyway, Kevin stayed out an extra 40 minutes to finish his sand castle. It was pretty adorable.

We returned to Lulu's, mostly for the climbing structure. Here is Kevin (orange shirt) climbing. He had no trouble this year being brave, and went up to the top level all by himself!

Rachel easily walked the plank. I also did it again, but I was a total baby about it. I was scared and slow. She clearly thinks it is no big deal. I saved going to Lulu's until Rachel was with us, since I really wanted her to have a chance to do this climbing. She stayed up for about an hour with me and the boys. (Gwyn, husband, and DTG were on the ground watching, taking pictures, and waiting for the table.) Rachel even helped the boys out a few times when they asked.

Here is how high up the plank is. I am walking out to it from the right with Kevin behind me.

Colin being amazing and walking. He loved it, and, naturally, talked the entire time. Seriously.

Since he was taller this year, he had an easier time moving his tether on his own.

Colin walked the plank!!! Twice!

Dinner time. We asked why they had bags of water hanging around the rafters. Apparently, the bags keep flies away. Cool fact.

We returned to The Track for one more hour of go-carts.

The last evening, everyone but DTG rode the big go-cart. I wanted to get a picture since we all were having so much fun. Colin did not want to be in the picture. (You can see the ramp of the go-carts behind us.)

We also returned to the kid area. The boys drove their own go-carts, and Gwyn went on the little rides. She is so happy on the swings. The picture of her on this ride was on our Christmas card last year!

I wish I had a better picture of the end result of 4 days of sand castling. (Is that a verb?) On the left, Rachel built a castle for Gwyn. She had an umbrella to keep her in the shade, tunnels from Colin, and entrance, and a spot for her chair. She LOVED it. On the right is the final castle from husband. We left them for the next family to destroy or add on to.

We made it back home! We did the entire drive on Saturday and got home that evening. Again, the drive was nice since we had two cars and the kids could choose to ride with daddy or DTG. 

It was a wonderful family vacation, one that I hope the kids will remember. It is funny, once you have kids you realize that trips are not for you, they are for your children to make memories. I hope they like this one.