So I Don't Forget....

One crazy birthday party....

Oh my. Josh's bday party was today after school. We decided to have it right after school so that it didn't take up anyone's Saturday, or have a poor turnout because people had soccer games, etc. on Saturdays. We reserved the park that has a Splash Pad and playground- where I took the boys the last week of summer. It was PERFECT. It is SO hot this time of year, but a pool party for 4-5 year olds is not something I wanted to do. With this, the kids all wore their bathing suits and could play in the water, or go over to the playground. Josh this year is in PK4. However, the PK4 class was HUGE so the school decided that certain kids, based on age, maturity, how they played with others, etc. could go into a split PK4/Kindergarten class. Josh was one of those kids. So, some of his friends are in his actual class, but many of his friends from last year are in the other PK4 class. Since he will also be in Kindergarten next year with ALL the PK4-ers, we decided we should invite both classes. There are 15 in each. Josh wanted a shark party, of course. And of course, I wanted to make the invitations. After I designed one and got his OK (he loved them and I knew it when he kept asking me to look at them again) I made 30. They were the most time-consuming of any that I have made previously and I've never had to make that many. But, I took my time and started them in July. After they were all sent out, RSVPs came in. Out of 30, 26 were coming.

My parents picked up the boys from school and Joe and CJ and I got to the park and started setting up. I was so excited: Publix, our grocery store, decorated the cake based on my invitation. How stinkin' cool is that??? The arrow says "Happy 5th Birthday Joshua". I found a shark pinata at a local store and decorated the rest of the pavilion in shades of blue. I made the goody bags with cello bags and ribbon from Stampin' Up (of course!). I filled it with shark bubbles, shark fruit snacks, shark and other sea life tattoos, shark candies, and a shark water squirter toy. When I have theme, I run with it.

Kids started arriving right away. After everyone had arrived, we had about 40-45 kids. There were lots of siblings- many of them Jake's friends. It's funny how many kids in Josh's class have older brothers in Jake's class. With all the parents, there was probably 65 people there. It was INSANE. But it went so smoothly.

After they played for a while, we started the pinata-wacking. It was so funny watching those little bitty kids hit it. Some of the smallest ones packed the biggest hit! Jake and his friends were allowed to go only after the little kids each had a turn. One of his friends finally broke it and the kids went wild.

We then had cake. I was SO glad I decided to go with 1/2 sheet instead of 1/4. It took FOREVER to cut and hand out all those pieces!

I told Joe to get some pictures while everyone was under the pavilion eating cake. Look how many people there are! And look at all those presents!! I still have to design and make thank you cards!!

We opened presents when we got home and it took forever. There were so many! Amazingly, he only got two things he already has. He LOVED everything he got. There were tears shed because we wouldn't let him take every toy out of its package that night. :)

I think he had a very, very good day.

Josh is FIVE!

The first thing we got to do on his birthday is take him to his first speech therapy evaluation through Volusia County schools. I'll explain more of that later. My aunt Vicki came over to keep Christian and after Joe took Jake to school, we went to the appointment. After it was over, I took Josh to school at 10 am.

At noon, Joe and I went back to the school to take cupcakes for his class. I wanted to get cupcakes with shark fins on them, but they didn't have those. Instead, they had actual sharks and the kids LOVED them. When Josh saw them for the first time, he started naming off all the different kinds of sharks. He really is shark-obsessed. Everyone sang to him and then we passed out cupcakes. They were in the lunchroom at the time, so Jake was able to come over and have one (and CJ, too). Josh sometimes seems to be uncomfortable being the center of attention in large groups, but he was smiling the whole time. I love the picture of him holding up 5 fingers and eating the cupcake. :)

At 3, I picked the boys up and we came home to wait for Joe to open presents. The first thing he opened was shark jibbitz for his Crocs and he was very excited. The next thing he opened was the Toy Story 3 Dump Truck Legos and he said "I like this present! I'm so glad you were able to find it!". So funny. He got some other Lego sets, a Star Wars T-shirt, a shark book, a shark puzzle, and a Play-Doh set from Jacob. He LOVED everything. He had me put the jibbitz on his shoes right away, changed into his Star Wars shirt, and immediately began putting the Legos together.

About an hour later, my parents came over with their present: a Nintendo DSi! "Just what I wanted!" is what he said when he opened it. It wasn't quite as exciting as when Jacob got his, but Josh really was thrilled to get it. 

We went to dinner at Houligans- a local restaurant/sports bar. That was his request- he loves wings. After we got home, we had three very tired little guys. And now I have to get used to saying "8,5, and almost 3" for the next couple of weeks until CJ's bday.

Happy birthday, my sweet little man! I love you!!

Last day of Four...

How cute are those freckles??? The scratch on the side of his nose is from origins unknown and it bothers him. He's very afraid of bleeding. He doesn't seem too excited about it being his birthday tomorrow, but that's Josh!

A Night-Night Tragedy.....

Well, not really, but if you asked Christian, he would have definitely said yes.

When he woke up from his nap, he was soaking wet. That rarely happens, in fact, he wakes up in the morning with a dry pull-up 60% of the time. But, he had a long day and was very tired.

I immediately stripped his bed, including his night-night, and threw everything in the washer. He was crying, wanting his night-night. I told him it was wet and that I had to clean it. I put Dora on for him and gave him some milk to help him settle down. When Dora was over, he walked into the laundry room to catch the cycle on the last spin. And he started to SOB. And WAIL. "Is.... going.... really.....fast" over and over again, just wailing it and pointing to the washer. It was so hilarious, but also so pitiful. He was genuinely upset but it was so funny! The fast spin cycle was so UPSETTING! I wish I had videotaped it just to catch that despair in his voice.

When it was done, he tried to convince me that it did not need to go in the dryer, it was already dry! He loves that thing so much he was willing to hold onto it while it was completely wet. :)

First Day of 3rd Grade & PK4!

The boys were really excited for their first day of school. It was only 1/2 day, so they didn't need to bring lunch, but we took pictures of their lunch boxes anyway.

Jacob's theme this year was Mario. Josh is so obsessed with sharks, so I searched high and low until I found him a shark backpack and lunch box. Aren't they cool? He loves them. When I knew they were coming (out on the UPS truck), we were driving home from somewhere and Josh says, "Maybe we'll see the UPS truck and we can get my backpack and lunch box now!!"

We were running a little late in the morning so I had to hurry with photos. I wanted to get a shot of the two of them together, but forgot. The lens kept fogging up, too, even though I had put the camera outside 20 minutes before we were ready to take pictures. So frustrating.

We took Jake to his class first and I hugged him and kissed him goodbye. I said to him "I just kissed you in front of your friends!" and he smiled. He didn't care. :) His teacher this year is Mrs. Larson. We have heard that she is tough- not mean, but tough. When Jake was in Kindergarten, she was helping him get in the car one day and she said "He is so cute! When will he be in 3rd grade?" I remembered that all these years later. When we went to meet & greet last Friday, she hugged him when we walked in the door and said "YAY! You're finally here!". It was really sweet and made me feel so good. She told me later that he was so cute and you could tell just by looking at him how sweet he is. :) He was very excited- his seat is next to Jack Gurtis' and across from Julia's- someone he has had a crush on in the past.

Next, we took Josh to his class. Now, in June, I received a phone call from Alisa Ascik, who is the head of elementary and was Jake's Kindergarten teacher. Since the PK4 class had gotten so big (over 25 students) and the kindergarten class was so small (only 6 at that time), they wanted to take some of the more mature, older, and ready kids to do a split PK4/K class. Since Josh would be in kindergarten if he was born one week earlier, we were OK with that. So, she is his teacher this year and is so sweet. He had a crush on her when Jake was in kindergarten.

When I picked them up, Jake told me they had to write about the person across from them (Julia), and Mrs. Larson asked everyone to share a thought about 3rd grade. Jake said that there were 5 new students and his teacher thought that was very observant and a good one. He was bummed because with the short day, he wasn't able to go out on the new playground. This morning he was jumping around saying "A full day of school!" How I wish they could always be like that!

Josh said he got to color, play on the playground (he got to chase two girls- Carly and Shea :)), and that "I had to keep talking to Mrs. Ascik." When I asked him what he meant he said she was asking him about his summer, things like that. It was funny, though, he seemed a little "over" it.  :)

Next year Christian will be in PK3 and I will be home all alone.... Speaking of Christian, he really misses his brothers. About 2 hours after we had been home he asked me, "Where are Jacob and Josh?" when I told him at school, he said, "Awww.... Can I go school?" Today it's been worse- he keeps asking me if he can climb up in the car to go get Jake and Josh. He's lonely!

Enjoy the pictures!

The last week of summer...

This week always makes me feel sad. I will be glad to be free from constant fighting and loud noises throughout the day, but I'll miss my guys. CJ will really miss them. I feel very sorry for him.

 We decided to have Josh's next bday party at a local splash park, so I thought I would take the kids to play there one afternoon. They've been many times before- Josh's soccer games were played at this place and they played on the playground and at the splash park many times.

They had a blast. Christian wasn't a big fan of getting too wet. He stayed mostly on the outside where he was safe. Josh and Jacob loved to stand under the dumping bucket. Evidently they had just shocked the water or something because that dark brown swim shirt Josh is wearing? It was a light TAN color by the time we got home. And Jake and Josh were really complaining about how badly their eyes hurt. I was furious. If it practically bleached out his shirt- imagine what that does to your hair, skin and eyes?

We took a break for lunch and a squirrel joined us. It was quite obvious he was used to visitors and was waiting for a snack. We fed him some crackers and sandwich crusts. The kids LOVED it. He was so close. Josh has a real phobia about bugs and the ants on the picnic table were about to give him an anxiety attack.

They played on the playground for a little while before going back to the splash park. When we got home, Josh and CJ were sound asleep within 5 minutes and took LONG naps.

Fun-filled Sunday

Last week at Jake's swim meet, Amy Dvorak and I talked about how we had to get Josh and Matthew together for a playdate. Matthew is her youngest and is in Josh's class. He has two older sisters, so he really needed some "man" time.  :) We planned for the next day, but it didn't work out because Josh had a bday party to attend around the same time Matthew could play. So, we planned for the next weekend.

Sunday morning, Joe woke Jake up really early to go fishing on the beach. They got back, we went to church, and then to lunch with my parents.  My dad suggested they go to Tomoka State Park late afternoon to fish. Also, I talk to Amy who says they're having a slow day at the parasail place and we should come up to swim and jet ski. I stayed home with sleeping CJ and Joe took the bigs. They had a blast. Josh and Matthew had a great time as did Jake and Madison (their oldest daughter that has been in his class since PK3). They jumped off the dock, rode the jet ski, and swam. They saw dolphins and manatees- they were swimming and could have reached out and touched them. How amazing is that?

When they finished there, they picked up my dad and they went to Tomoka State Park and fished. They didn't get home until 8pm. That was a long day of some seriously fun things!

Swim Meets

Swimming has been a big part of our summer. We started with swim lessons for Jake and Josh. They started the last week of school and continued into the first week of summer. Jake's instructor said he should sign up for Swim League. He had practice Monday through Thursday from 5-5:45 and swim meets on some Saturdays during the summer. He missed the first one because we were gone, and the last one because he was in Tampa with my parents.

Everyone gets a ribbon in each race. It's a total crap-shoot what place you get because one week you might be racing against swimmers who are REALLY good, and other weeks swimmers who are your equal. Jacob loved doing it and he really has good form. He looks like a swimmer. The thing we have to work on with him is staying strong the whole time, to quit looking at his competitors WHILE he's swimming (one of the pictures shows him doing that), and to learn to take quicker, more efficient breaths.

Going to the races was like a time warp for me. My sister was a very good and very competitive swimmer. She swam starting in elementary school all the way through high school. I went to a LOT of swim meets. And they were sooooo boring. These weren't quite as boring, but you did sit around a lot (in the Florida summer heat) waiting for your heat. Thankfully several of our friends had kids that also swam, so we could at least kill some time with them.

This was all facilitated by the YMCA. Each meet was held at a Y in our county. The last meet I don't have any pictures of Jake swimming (we video taped all of them), but I have Josh and CJ in the splash park. That was the Deland Y- nice.

July 10th: Freestyle & Breaststroke- 3rd place in both:

 

July 24th: Freestyle and Breaststroke, 4th place in both (picture is pre-race, talking with his buddies)

July 31st: Freestyle (2nd place) and backstroke (3rd place)

Fishing with Pop

Since Jake started fishing, Pop has been a very important part of it. He has helped Joe a lot, since Joe had never fished before, he has bought lots of equipment for Jake, and he joins them when they go fishing a lot. I even got an email my dad forwarded me, confirming his Amazon.com order- all fishing books he bought for Joe and Jacob. I was stunned- I wasn't sure my dad even knew how to get through the whole check-out process. I kid, my dad's a very smart guy.

Down in Tomoka State Park, there was a fishing "seminar" for kids that my dad told us about. It was held on Fridays in July. I knew Jacob would really like to go with his pop, so Dad took off work and came and got him the last Friday in July. It lasted all morning and these photos are ones my dad took with his iphone. The one with both of them was taken by somebody involved with the park. I love that it captures my dad giving instruction and reason (I'm sure) to Jacob. That is SO my dad. :)

Dad said Jacob was the only kid who didn't catch anything, but Jake didn't seem too disappointed. I could tell he had a really good time - he talked a lot about it (not something he does very often) and even wrote about it for one of his journal entries (I have him write in a journal once a week to keep his writing skills up).  This is what he wrote:

I went to go fishing with Pop. I saw 5 dolphins and two manatees. I learned to tie the right knot. Also the right bait. The right bait is crab, little bait fish, sand fleas & shrimp.

I'm so glad Jacob will have these memories!

Happy 4th of July!

It was nice having Jeannie's family here for the 4th. But, we were total boneheads and forgot to get a picture of all the kids together. Argh! We went down to watch the fireworks at the park on the river where they hold the festivities. My parents stayed at home with Christian- who would be terrified.  Our friends, the Anderson's, sat with us. Their son Dylan is one of Jacob's good friends. The fireworks were good and everyone had a good time. So glad to be an American. (you have to look at Christian's faces in these pictures. So funny.)