How to have fun: step-by-step plan

1. Order something that comes in a big box with lots of packaging.

2. Invite Uncle Jonny over.

3. Provide tape.

4. Watch & enjoy.















{2/26}

What Callie learned at school

I asked Callie after school today what she'd learned. First she said nothing. Then after a moment of thought she said:

"I learned that if you bring popcorn money on Friday you don't get popcorn. I had to share a bag." (Popcorn money's due by Thursday to get your own bag. But what a bunch of crap! We send extra money almost every single time! Apparently there's no rollover!)

Another minute later she shared another thing she'd learned today:

"I learned that our ham isn't good any more. I ate a bite of my sandwich and it tasted disgusting."

Awesome. And as a side note I've changed 5 - that's right FIVE - poopy diapers in the last hour & a half! From the same kid. I'm not complaining - I'm just saying! That's $1.25 in diapers. And it's drying out my hands. :)

Christmas is coming!

And Santa's sweatshop workshop is in full swing at our house! Christmas card addressing, neighbor gift baking, school teacher & classmate treats, etc.



Just look at the little elves wrapping up packages for Christmas day! {love it}

Callie was upset with me the other day because I wouldn't let her do something or I was getting onto her about something - I don't remember. I was being a mom. She got real quiet & thoughtful for a minute. Then she says, "Mom, would Santa ever put coal in a grown-up's stocking?" I started laughing & said, "I guess he could. Why? Do you think he should put coal in my stocking?" She said yes.

I'm still laughing.

The Nutcracker! {2010}

I love traditions. A few years ago we took our kids to the Polar Express for the first time. I wanted to also do The Nutcracker, but let's be real- the streets are not paved with gold & it costs a lot of money to do all the extra stuff there is to do at the holidays. So a tradition was formed. One year as a family we do the Polar Express, and on the alternate year I'll take Callie (and next time Ellie) to see The Nutcracker. (If Jack wants to go sometime we'll have to talk about it then.) For now we're seeing a local community production. Someday I'll take Callie to a professional production, but for $20/ticket & some narration, the community production is perfect for kids!

The Nutcracker was on Friday night in Boulder City (almost to Las Vegas). I picked Callie up early from school (she was just a little bit excited about that), and she, my friend Abby & I headed to Henderson to do some shopping! I let Callie choose where she wanted to go for dinner. I made a few suggestions, one of them being Pei Wei. She said no to that since that's where we ate last time. Two years ago! Crazy that she remembered that, since we've eaten in Henderson a billion times since then. When I suggested Red Robin she asked if that's the place with balloons. Again, how does she remember this stuff? It's been a LONG time since she's been to Red Robin. Anyway, after a great afternoon of shopping, we headed to Red Robin in the mall & met up with some other friends.

The Nutcracker wasn't as great for me this time as it was last time. For one I didn't get to sit with Callie for most of the show. I would be happy to sit through a professional production of Nutcracker, but most of the enjoyment for me seeing this community production is watching Callie. She LOVED it last time & decided she wanted to be a ballerina. It had been great seeing her excitement. So this year I missed out on that. That combined with the embarrassingly revealing tights on the nutcracker. Seriously! It was like a bad train wreck you can't take your eyes off of! I was so distracted! Plus for some reason all the little girls ended up sitting together & I was cringing in my seat for the first 2/3 of the show because of their {lack of} theater ettiquette. I finally couldn't take it any more & I crawled down the row & made the girls scoot so I could sit by Callie & control my kid!

Callie really enjoyed The Nutcracker & still wants to be a ballerina. She loved taking pictures with some of the cast afterwards & also her friends. We ended the night with a stop at McDonald's. Since none of our friends joined us this time I got Callie a milkshake to go & we headed home. Callie was asleep before we were truly out of Boulder, I think. It was great spending the day with my Callie-girl! It had been a fun day hanging out with Abby too & getting our shop on!

Here Comes Santa Claus

And she's dressed in backwards pink lounge pants, a backwards red shirt, & a sock for a beard.

bad mom

I was folding laundry this morning & didn't really feel like stopping to make Callie's lunch & since she was being a brat to Ellie & she hates hot lunch I got "creative" shall we say & told her if she didn't start acting nice (and this was after she'd already had a time out) & if I had to talk to her again about her bahavior I'd make her eat hot lunch.

She hates hot lunch because it's still a little scary for her AND she doesn't get to sit by her friends if she buys it. Because the school directs the kids where to sit & if her friends aren't in line next to her for hot lunch she sits by non-friends. Like this one little girl who she considers a "bully" b/c she is constantly messing with Callie's hair or pulling on her clothes or just being annoying & in her face. She even pulled the flower embellishment off of one of Callie's shoes one day. This girl seems to lack attention at home.

So after some more bratty behavior this morning I declared Callie was having hot lunch. You would have thought we were giving away her puppy. Not that she has one, but you know what I mean. She threw a crazy huge fit, acting like a total psycho and cried & cried and was stomping her feet & screaming that she wasn't going to school. I think Jeremiah had to carry her outside to leave. Then I felt bad because of the whole thing. My entire motivation for coming up with the punishment was not wanting to make lunch. But then again she did have a couple of warnings and punishments are supposed to be hard, right? But she already doesn't love school so maybe I should have thought of a different punishment instead of torturing her like this.

I called Jeremiah after he'd dropped her off. She had settled down because he'd talked to her about how embarrased she'd be if he had to drag her into her classroom screaming & crying. I asked if he thought I should drop off a lunch. We considered it because of the whole bully girl thing (who Callie's had to sit by a couple times when she's had hot lunch), but then again there's the thought that Callie needs to learn to cope with situations that aren't ideal. Not to mention that it would be a major parenting faux pas to renege on a punishment after such a huge fit was thrown! What's that saying? If you freak out enough over a punishment we'll change our minds? I'm not afraid to say sorry to my children if I've overreacted & there have been a couple times where we've rethought a punishment because maybe it was a little too severe for the crime, but like I said, she threw a crazy psycho fit & to go back on this one could be detrimental. I'm not dropping off a lunch. And I feel crummy. I hope she doesn't have a total meltdown at lunchtime. :(

It's hard being a parent.

Should we be saving our money to put our children through counseling as adults?

1st Grade Scrapbooks

I enjoy reading Becky Higgins' blog & last year I saw this scrapbook project that she did with her sons's class. It was too late in the year then to do it with Callie's kindergarten class, so at the beginning of this school year I approached her teacher with the idea. Her teacher loved the idea! I'm totally excited to be doing this project with Callie's first grade class!

Following Becky's lead, each month we'll focus on a certain theme. I'll go in one day & take pictures of the kids. Then another day during the month I'll go back in & help the kids do a scrapbook page with their picture/s.

Because I didn't get the ball rolling before school started, and because August was a shorter school month I'm trying to play catch up. I haven't gone in yet to put pages together, but I've gone in a few times to take pictures (once for each theme + twice for retakes of some kids that were missing on the original picture days).

We couldn't do a first day of school picture since I didn't set this up in time, so we're doing a beginning of the school year theme for August.

And for September we're doing a lunchtime/cafeteria theme.

It's fun going into Callie's classroom where I have practically celebrity status! LOL The kids are very excited about the project & they're all ready to get to the scrapbooking part. And btw, when I say scrapbooking I'm not talking your traditional tons of paper & embellies scrapbooking. It's a very simple format where most months they'll glue a couple strips of precut paper to a designated spot on their page & they get to complete the pages with writing prompts. Some months they'll even draw a picture of something in particular. Check it out! Becky Higgins is brilliant! :)

stuff I've been meaning to add:

Callie:

(2/22/10)
She wanted to know what the title of a song was & asked if it was "Once In the Middle of a Table." Actual title: "Once Within a Lowly Stable."

(5/12/10)
At Subway after lunch I offered Callie a cookie:
"I decided I don't want a cookie cause I've had enough sugar & stuff like that & I don't want to get fat."

(5/14/10)
Callie was watching Enchanted in the car & at the end the bad lady is a dragon & falls off the building. Callie all of a sudden took off her headphones & said, "Well that's lame! Can't dragons fly?! That lady shouldn't have died. The movie makers did a bad job since dragons can fly so the lady should have lived!"

(5/17/10)
"Papa seems like an old man cause he's just quiet & likes to be bored."

(5/24/10)
After stopping by Jeremiah's office (it's a recycling center so the current price of cans is always up on a sign outside the yard):
"Mom, I forgot to ask Dad if he's really selling work, because see? It says cent 5-5"
She'd also talked about it a couple days before when she'd first noticed it & said, "He's trying to sell the business. It's for sale cause there's a price outside of it."

(6/17/10)
Callie: When you get more babies, Mom, after you get all your babies & you think you have enough you can be like, "I need to sell these ones."
Me: You think I should sell babies if I get tired of the babies?
Callie: Yeah.
Me: How much money do you think I could get for selling a baby?
Callie: I think you need to pay.
Me: You think I need to pay somebody?!
Callie: No, I think they need to pay 100 bucks. That's a lot of money.

(6/29/10)
We were getting a "party-in-a-box" package ready to send to Uncle Stuart on his mission for his birthday:
"Are you sure we can send him a party without people?"

(8/19/10)
"Mom, did you know about the tricks Kaelene (her fish) can do? Well one trick she never does and the other trick she can sometimes balance the food on her nose. I'm going to teach her another trick someday - a swimming trick. I'm going to teach her how to backstroke."

Jack:

(4/7/10)
To appreciate what he says next you have to check out Jack in this Splash Mountain pic while we were at Disneyland in mid-March (he cried at the bottom).

Jack: Next time we go to Disneyland & go on Splash Mountain I'm gonna try & not be scared."

Me: Really? You want to go on that?
Jack: Yeah.
Me: Why?
Jack: Cause I wanna be brave & I'll say woohoo!

(4/7/10)
"I can't drive to Utah to visit Spencer & Preston whenever I want because I don't know how to drive because I might bonk into a human or another Jeep or maybe a bicycle with a child on it."

(4/9/10)
It was a warm day & Callie had told Jack that he should have worn shorts:
"That's okay cause I have a hole in my pants so if I get warm I can just feel the air from the hole. It's better if you have a rip in your pants because if it's hot & you have a rip in your pants your knee can feel the warm."

(4/9/10)
"Heavenly Father made me a handsome boy, huh? He's great at making people, huh?"

(5/12/10)
On the way home from school Jack was practically giving me the silent treatment:

Me: Why don't you want to talk
Jack: Because I want to go to sleep. Cause I'm tired. Cause I worked my butt off at school today. And I played hard outside.

(6/29/10)
After I took a picture & was reviewing it on the camera:
"Are you gonna put that in your camera trash?"

Ellie:

(5/19/10)
Me: Are you a sweetie?
Ellie: No I'm not a sweetie! I'm just Ellie!

(9/10/10)
Ellie: I hate going to bed! Do you hate going to bed mom?
Me: No, but I don't like going to bed.
Ellie: Well I hate it!

tooth fairy strikes again

Callie unexpectedly lost her 2nd tooth Saturday morning while chewing on something. She acted a little put out with me since I'd recently told her it wasn't loose enough yet to pull out with dental floss again!



Can I just say, thank you SOOO much to all you parents (and you know who you are), who's tooth fairies give your children obscene amounts of money for their teeth! It would be fantastic if there could be a nation-wide standard (same goes for our winter friend), instead of this tooth fairy giving a $10 bill b/c that's all they had in their wallet, or this one giving a 5 b/c they think that's what a tooth is worth. COME ON! Our tooth fairy gives $1. My friend Wendy's gives $2. I could possibly entertain the idea of 2 (although I still think that 1 is plenty), but not 5!

Because Callie is old enough (which most tooth-losing children are) to think rational thoughts, she is upset about the variance & feels like her teeth are worth more than what she was previously given. So then her Aunt Chelsea eggs her on & promises to write a letter to the tooth fairy in Callie's behalf:



So at that point I'm damned if I do & damned if I don't. How rude if the tooth fairy completely ignores the letter, but how the heck should the tooth fairy diplomatically reply? (The little print is: "Aunt Chelsea- Please tell Callie that I would love to give her $30, but teeth are only worth so much! I will put in a good word to my friend Santa Clause, although he may feel she is too young still for that toy. Best of luck to Callie, and thanks for the tooth! - The Tooth Fairy")

BTW, the Easy-Bake Oven issue is this. I'm a fairly big supporter of age suggestions on toys. There are some exceptions, but for the most part I think the recommendations are pretty accurate. Easy-Bake Ovens are 8+, but we see our friends the Taylors at Walmart one day birthday shopping for their little girl's 4th birthday & Callie sees that they're getting said girl the Easy Bake Oven. So now she is totally annoyed that I won't let her have one (as if I let my kids just have a toy simply b/c they want it anyway) because she's not 8, even though Tatum is only 4 & she gets to have one. I told Tatum's mom about it & she said that one of her older boys is the one who really enjoys it the most. Too bad for Callie not having an older brother who would love to spend all afternoon supervising and easy-baking.

Back to the tooth. Callie woke up at 6am Sunday morning and checked under her pillow right away and then promptly started crying (I know, ungrateful little girl) about only getting a dollar since so & so got $5 or $2 or $10. What's a mom to do?

First Day of School!

Thursday, August 12, was Callie's first day of school. First grade! The afternoon before we went to meet her teacher. When I asked Callie what she thought of her teacher she said that she looked different than what she was expecting - her face, her hair, everything. Callie's new teacher is an older Asian woman & I think Callie was probably expecting a young Caucasian woman :)

We were worried about Callie crying about going to school on the first day & not getting out of the car since she was so apprehensive about being at school all day & eating lunch in the cafeteria. But everything was fine (the crying & not getting out of the car didn't happen until the 2nd day of school!). After school I asked if she had a great day & she said yes, but when I probed a little more it didn't sound to me like her day was very great. She said her teacher was kind of grumpy. She also said she mostly walked around (by herself - to check things out) at recess.

Then there was lunch. Like I said she was really nervous about lunch & guess how it goes down? She had to sit in between 2 boys she doesn't know & she says she tried talking to them but they didn't want to talk, so my poor little 6 year old is basically all alone eating her lunch with no friends & no socializing. She barely even nibbled her lunch. After talking to another mom that evening who has older kids, she told me that whoever the kids are in line next to when they walk into the cafeteria is who they have to sit by to eat lunch. An adult is standing directing them to places. That ticks me off that they can't choose to sit by their friends! As it's turned out for the past week + the first 2 days, Callie has been in charge of taking the basket that the kids deposit their lunch boxes into down to the cafeteria so she has to be at the back of the line, meaning she's not been able to line up to go to the cafeteria next to her friends. Hopefully her turn's over & this week will be different b/c she comes home most days with almost all of her lunch in her lunchbox. She says she's too embarrassed to eat it at school. I'm almost positive it would be different if she was sitting by friends! So frustrating!

Jack's first day of preschool school was great!



He loves doing what he thinks are rock star poses. I asked him a million times to just stand normal & give me a nice smile, but this is what I mostly got:

Jack is going to the same preschool that he went to last year. He LOVES his teacher and her 3 year old son who participates in class. Also his best buddy Tyler goes to preschool with him. There are only 6 kids in his class, not including the teacher's son, & this year they are all boys. One of the other boys is also in our ward so Jack knows him a little. He was totally stoked to go to school last Tuesday morning and was going to just hop out of the car & go in since that's what he did the last part of last year. Since it was the first day I went in with him though & he walked right in & made himself at home while I said hi to his teacher & some other moms. After school he said he'd loved it.

I asked him what he'd had for snack that day. The teacher's son is assigned to bring snack the first week of school so when Jack told me he had ice cream for a snack I thought how lucky/fun for a first-day-of-school snack! I asked him what kind & he said vanilla. And chocolate. And blueberry. I asked him what kind he chose & he said he had them all. I doubted that! A minute later after we'd moved onto other topics he said, "I was just kidding about having ice cream for a snack today mom. We had carrots & celery." LOL My 4 year old is a little trickster! Then we had a little discussion on tricking vs. lying. This time it was tricking & it was fine (and funny). I told him to make sure & tell the truth when we ask him things like, "Did you make your bed? Have you picked up your toys?" etc. You know, the important stuff. Good times.

beginning of the school year surveys {2010}

Callie

Age: 6
Height: 45 1/2 "
Weight: 41 lbs
Hair color: light brown

Favorites:
Animal: Baby penguins. And peacocks. And dogs & fish. Pretty much all animals.
Food: Pasta Carbonara
Game: Bear Trap with Daddy
Toy: Baby Doll
Thing to do: spend time with my Mom doing crafts
Book: Quite Enough Hot Dogs (Rookie Reader book by Wil Mara)
Color: Pink. And all the colors.
Movie: Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses
Song: Bella Note (from Lady & the Tramp)
Primary Song: Come, Follow Me

My best friend is: Corinne, Kenadee & Kaelene
Other friends I like to play with: Alexis
Things I like to do with my friends: "I like to play with them & do crafts & stuff"
If I had a pet it would be a: dog (she actually has a fish)
named: Kaelene (named Kaelene)
What people like about me: "That I help and care and share, and I'm nice. And that I'm so cute."
Things I can do really well: "I'm really good at making people feel better. And I'm really good at helping. I'm good at doing crafts, playing the piano, singing, listening (not), following, being brave, math, baby-sitting, and pretty much everything."

Jack

Age: 4 1/2
Height: 40 1/2"
Weight: 36 lbs
Hair color: dark blonde

Favorites:
Animal: shark
Food: Pasta Carbonara
Game: Piranah Panic
Toy: "Imaginext dinosaurs. Or Legos. Or dragon castle stuff (also Imaginext). All my toys!"
Thing to do: Play Mario Bros (which he's been grounded from for 6 months and rarely gets to play anyway)
Book: Dinosaur Book (Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs [and Other Prehistoric Creatures] by John Malam)
Color: blue
Movie: Peter Pan
Song: Apples & Bananas
Primary Song: I Am a Child of God

My best friend is: Tyler
Other friends I like to play with: Isaac, Kenadee, Kiera, Collin
Things I like to do with my friends: Play Mario Bros (he's only ever played w/Tyler a few times)
If I had a pet it would be a: sea turtle
named: Jack-in-the-box
What people like about me: "I'm always nice. I don't know what else they like about me."
Things I can do really well: "I'm good at playing Mario Bros & I always smoke aunt Kayleigh on playing. And I'm good at playing with my toys & writing."

whoops!

Callie ran in the kitchen today after spending some time exploring my medicine cabinet and proudly held up her baby tooth that she lost 3 weeks ago! She was really really excited about finding it & said something like, "Look what I have! My very first tooth that I lost! Now I can put it under my pillow again & the Tooth Fairy can bring me another dollar!"

I was on the phone with my mom when she made the discovery so I paused for a moment (for effect) & let Callie know that Grandma had just told me that the Tooth Fairy always gives the first tooth back to the parents so that they can keep it forever to remember their child's first baby tooth that was lost. I told Callie the Tooth Fairy must have just forgotten to tell us about that & where she'd hidden it!

She still wanted to try for another dollar but I told her the Tooth Fairy can't be tricked so it would never work & for her to go put it back in the medicine cabinet.

Not really sure why I kept it anyway.

Callie's first visit from the Tooth Fairy!

At the beginning of July I showed Callie this post from my friend Janelle's blog about tying floss around her little girls tooth to yank it out. Callie loved the idea since she'd had a loose tooth for MONTHS so we got all geared up to do it when Jeremiah got home from work that night. When Jeremiah got home he wiggled her tooth and told her it really wasn't ready yet & that it would bleed a lot if we did it so he convinced her to wait. Then a week later Callie & I were telling Callie's friend's mom about it & the mom told Callie about her niece who's tooth hadn't seemed that loose, but when she bit into an apple one day the tooth just came right out & stuck to the apple. It didn't hurt & was unexpected. Callie loved that idea so we got an apple from a friend the next day & tried it out.

Fig. A - pre-apple

Fig. B - biting the apple


It didn't work. But it did loosen her tooth up quite a bit! About a week after that Callie had been really begging to try the floss thing & her tooth seemed pretty wiggly. I said we could do it & she was too excited to wait for Daddy to come home from work.

Fig. A - pre-floss (just ignore the breakfast around her mouth)

Fig. B - floss attached to tooth

Fig. C - floss attached to door

Well that didn't work either. Jack pulled the door open & the floss slipped right off her tooth! I got a chair for her to sit on & a flosser pick while I worked on the loop. It was pretty difficult to get that teeny loop around the base of her tooth so it wouldn't slip off again. That's where the flosser came in handy so I could push it down under the gum. While this was going on she was sitting on the chair close to the door with the door partially open. My hands were halfway in her mouth trying to get that loop around the tooth when Ellie hung on the door & swung it all the way open & the tooth popped out. Callie was very surprised and then a big grin spread across her face & she hopped down to look for the tooth.

Fig. D - proud toothless girl!

I made this little tooth pocket (there's a flap in the back) so the tooth could be safely slipped under her pillow without worry of it getting lost. When the tooth fairy takes the tooth out of the pocket she can slip the money in. Callie was super excited to use it!

Swim Lessons Summer '10

We did 2 2-week sessions of swim lessons this year at the public pool. The classes were small & the kids had their 30-minute lessons at the same time. They also got to take them with friends!

Jack & his best buddy Tyler had Jose & Tiffany for their first session, & Annie for the second. Jack does NOT like getting his face/head wet so swim lessons didn't go too well for him. Usually by the end of class he didn't want to get out of the pool, but I would by no means consider him a water-baby & he squealed like a pig when I gave his instructors permission to dunk him (almost every day). He didn't pass level 1 preschool aquatics after 4 weeks! lol

Callie on the other hand loved swim lessons! During the first session she & her friend Emily (Tyler's older sister) had Evelyn for their instructor. Callie repeated level 1 (non-preschool) with instructor Amanda this time around & passed to level 2 after the session. Since we don't do a lot of swimming during the year between summers I wonder how she'll do next year. She thinks she can swim though (even though I wouldn't say that) so I would have to watch her closely & constantly remind her to stay in the shallow part of our friend's pool when we'd go swimming. She loves the water though!

Ellie & I hung out together in the sweltering heat & watched the kids with my friend Cindi (Tyler & Emily's mom). I should have done Mom & Tot with Ellie but when I signed the kids up I chose not too since it was miserable last year with Jack. Silly me - I would have LOVED to be in that water every day & poor Ellie was sad many times that she wasn't getting in her swimsuit with the big kids. Plus Ellie's not afraid to get wet like Jack is. Next year I'll know.

Happy 6th Birthday Callie!

Callie turned 6 on July 1st. I'm sure that with every birthday she has Jeremiah & I are going to be saying to each other can you believe she's _? Can you believe we've been parents that long?

Her morning started with breakfast of her choice - crepes (just like last year), and one present!

I think Callie had the best birthday a 6 year old could ask for! Grandma Darcy took her to lunch & she got to spend the rest of the afternoon with her. Grandma even took her to PetCo & got her a FISH! Callie was stoked! Grandma tried to talk her into getting a pretty male beta but Callie insisted on having a "girl fish." She named her new fish Kaelene after a new friend in her primary class. Callie got home to our house with Grandpa & Grandma just in time to have her birthday dinner. The Haws family came over too. Callie chose hamburgers for her dinner & pie for dessert. She was very particular & let me know that she wanted the frozen kind of hamburgers (patties), not the ones I make myself! lol

As far as the pie goes, I tried & tried to talk her into cake or cupcakes. The night before her birthday we had this conversation:

Me: So you still want pie for dessert?
Callie: Yes!
Me: I just can't believe you don't want a birthday cake for your birthday!
Callie: Okay Mom, I'll have a cake.
Me: Why?
Callie: Cause you want me to.
Me: I don't care if you want pie, that's fine! I just think it's really funny that you want pie for your birthday treat. That's all!
Callie: Well I've never had pie for my birthday treat before and I just want to try it out & see how it goes!

Isn't she funny? She wanted a raspberry/blueberry pie. I told her I hadn't made one before. Then she said strawberry/blueberry. Same thing. Then she said okay, one strawberry, one blueberry. I said okay. Then I had her talked into just 2 strawberry pies. Then she came up with cheesecake instead! At the point she decided on cheesecake it was almost lunchtime on her birthday & I wasn't going to be able to pull off a cheesecake in time, so Grandma took her to Walmart to check out some options. They came home with 2 Edward's cream pies & one of those variety cheesecakes. I had also made a strawberry pie. Callie was totally stoked! :) (And I have to add that I LOVE choco cheesecake & I thought Walmart's was pretty good - surprisingly)

Callie is WAY into her baby doll lately! She's had her baby for 2 1/2 years but just in the past few months has she really started playing house & mommy with her baby doll. So for her birthday almost everything she wanted was for her baby doll! We ended up getting her a REALLY cute little diaper bag that I found on etsy, a few doll outfits and even a pair of pj's for her to match her baby doll's, and a mobile for her doll crib. She was also totally spoiled by her grandparents & some of her aunts/uncles!

Callie got birthday money from her great Grandma Watkins (my dad's mom) and she couldn't wait to go shopping with it! She was especially excited because usually I just have her save it. So she kept talking about how this was the first time she was actually going to get to pick something out with her birthday money! Am I a mean mom for holding out on her all these years?

She really wanted this FurReal dog and it's normally $30. She had $17 but there was this little clearance sticker on the front of the shelf where the dogs were that said $15. Callie was beaming as we went to the register, but then started crying when the dog rang up at $30. She was SO disappointed! I explained the sticker to the cashier who sent a manager back & the manager came back & said it was $30. I had to take my cart full of paid for stuff & the kids back to the toy section with the manager and show her the little sticker. She got special permission from the toy dept manager to honor the clearance sticker (which was promptly taken down), and Callie got her dog after all! Lucky girl cause I wouldn't have paid the difference - my kids have plenty of toys! But Callie got home & didn't let the dog out of her site for a couple days.

It even shed like a real dog!!!



We had a combined birthday party with 2 friends a couple weeks later. I didn't take any pictures so hopefully someday the mom who I think did will send them my way :) We did a water party (not at my house - yay! - not that it would've been possible with all our dirt!). Jeremiah got a giant inflatable water slide from a guy at work (R&R Jumps anyone who's looking for jumphouses & stuff), and there was one of those 2 1/2' deep pools there. Between those 2 things the kids were total fish & had the best time! I was in charge of invites & food. We had pizza, fish & starfish shaped jigglers, little fruit kabobs, raspberry sherbet floats, and chips & dip. Another mom made spritzer cookies too. That same mom did the favors & pinata, and the 3rd mom was in charge of decorating, cupcakes & games. There were some challenges doing a combined party, but it all worked out & the kids (I think there were 12 party girls plus Jack & Ellie) had a blast!

See what I mean? Callie had the best birthday a 6 year old could ask for! Love you, Callie-girl!

End of the School Year Wrap-up

I've already become one of those mothers & I knew it was going to happen even before the school year ended: I can't wait for school to get out & I can't wait for school to begin again! But enough about me.

Callie had a kindergarten awards assembly. It was lame. The kindergarteners didn't do a special song or anything - they just sat there & waited for their name to be called. Every kid got a certificate, which they should, but it was like, here's this selection of certificates we can give out, should we give Callie citizenship or writing? Hmmmm, writing. (What does that even mean - writing? In third grade it would be like creative writing. Kindergarteners don't really do that. Does it mean handwriting?) I realize my elementary school memories may not be perfect but I'm pretty sure at our awards assembly, besides everyone getting a certificate for just being a cool kid, they also actually recognized special things. Like wow, Jonny really is so kind to all of the other children and always tries to make people happy - let's give Jonny a special citizenship award. Can you tell I substitued Jonny for Callie? It really could have gone either way. No, I'm not bitter that Callie got a writing award instead of a citizenship award - her writing is great. I just think it's a little silly how the awards assembly all went down. Whatev.

Jack had a preschool "graduation" night, although he wasn't actually graduating from preschool. 3 of his classmates were though. It was a totally cute program!

At one point all the kids donned beaks & did the 5 Little Ducks song. They also did another one that was really fun to watch them perform (Mother Goonie Bird). These videos are so totally because our family might want to see them. And sorry for the sideways one. I thought the iPhone was amazing enough that it would turn my video right-side-up when I turned my phone but I was wrong!

Jack got an award for being so nice to his classmates all year. He ALSO got an achievement award just for going to preschool!

For an end-of-the-year teacher gift we made candy bar notes for Callie's & Jack's teachers. I wish I'd thought to take pictures before we gave them away - that way I wouldn't have to come up with a new message when I repeat it in the future! The kids loved helping glue the candy on & they especially loved taking them to their teachers!

These are the monster cupcakes Miss Cami made for the graduation after-party. They were a huge hit with the kids!

Besides Jack's awards, we came home with a cute book of a bunch of stuff like this. This one's my favorite because it is SOOO Jack!

PS- We absolutely LOVE Jack's preschool & are thrilled he gets to go for another year. If you're in ktown & want the preschool info let me know - it's awesome!

PPS- Does it seem like Callie's being neglected in this post? What can I say? Jack's preschool program was just so much better than Callie's kindergarten program. Even if there hadn't been refreshments! :)