Wordless Wednesday

Professional Photos - Siblings

The interaction between kids is priceless and difficult to capture on camera. Our photographer is amazing and you can really see their personalities in the photographs.

They are officially 5!

Can you tell who has the dominant personality?

One is a bit more of a huger than the other.

They aren't always full of smiles. (This is my 2nd favorite photo of them.)

They are awesome.

He'll put his arm around her for a dinosaur picture.

A somewhat traditional photo with a birthday cake and present.

This is my favorite photo of them. These are the kids we see every day. This is the photo I have in my classroom at school. It is perfect.

Professional Photos - Family and Individuals

One of our annual traditions is to get professional photos for the kids' birthday. This year we went with an urban feel and I LOVE them. Today I will post my favorite family and individual kid photos. Tomorrow I will post the best sibling photos.

Don't you just love the background?

I was so excited to see that red mustang that I demanded this photo.

Painting a scene on a flat surface is difficult. Painting on this wall is a sign of real talent.

For anyone who knows us, you will know my kids picked their own outfits. His sweet smile kills me.

She is always full of smiles and giggles.

Turns out we were dressed perfectly for this backdrop. 

(Weird side note, I just looked down and realized I'm wearing this same outfit today as I write this post.)

He wanted a photo with bacon. That very much sums up his personality.

This is her personality. She was not posed. She was told to go stand in the doorway and she did this. She is full of attitude.

Birthday Parties!

First the kids had their birthday party at school. They are allowed to bring a special treat. Each year we have done something cute with fruit. One year Wonderful Husband carved sharks out of watermelon, one year we make fruit rockets, etc. This year we make Birthday Bananas.

Aren't these cute? The kids loved them. They were easy to make. First I glued a pom pom to the bottom of each cup. Then I glued the googly eyes to each banana. Then I added a sticker to each hat and drew on the mouth. The last step was to tape the hat on top of the banana. The hardest part was getting the eyes to stick - granted I made 50 of these total so if you are doing smaller quantities it might not be so frustrating!

The kids wanted a birthday party with an explosion, so we headed to our local Science Museum.

First the kids made their own paper rockets. Here Sweet Daughter is getting ready to shoot hers off.

Here Sweet Son is getting ready to test his. Each child got to make their own and shoot them off twice. It was fast paced and the rockets were literally flying across the room.

Then we headed outside. The party guests all lined up while Sweet Son and Sweet Daughter got to add Mentos to their Diet Coke.

There they go!

Sweet Daughter's is really high!

Now Sweet Son's is even higher!

The kids had a blast, literally and figuratively at their party. I was exhausted at the end, but happy kids are worth it a million times over.

Happy Birthday!

Every year for the kids' birthday we fill something with balloons. For a few years it was the playroom. However, the playroom isn't always clean (or every clean really) so covering the floor with balloons isn't the safest idea. This year we decided to fill the hallway outside their rooms. Bonus: This means fewer balloons to inflate after they fall asleep.

The hallway with balloons

The kids loved to run and jump in the pile.

Here they are laying on their backs hitting and kicking them up.

They played with these for an hour. Happy Birthday!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Hockey

Here are the best photo from the kids first day of little rookies hockey.

They don't look very intimidating.

The first thing they teach the kids is how to raise their sticks up and not hit people.

Once all the kids are on the ice they lay down and learn how to stand up. There are a ton of kids, but there are also 10-12 coaches. After practicing standing up they told everyone to skate to one side. This is how they divided up the class. Those that could skate went to one side. Those that couldn't make it were in the other group. Very effective.

Sweet Son made it into the "able to skate" group. Sweet Daughter who can skate pretended she couldn't so she could stay with the female coach. She only made that choice once, haha.

Sweet Son is getting ready to score a goal! (He's the one in the center of this photo.)

Sweet Daughter scoring a goal. This group spent most of their time learning how to stand up.

After class they were so happy. We knew they were hooked. This is the first sport they have both really loved.

Ice Skating

The hotter it is outside, the more we appreciate ice skating. This post has a surprise at the end.

They are becoming more confident on their skates.

They are skating faster and without help. Clearly it is time for a new challenge.

That's right. We signed them up for hockey. There is a great program near us called Little Rookies. It is a month of once a week hockey classes. It is FREE and includes the use of full equipment. This is a great chance to find out if they like hockey before making a full investment. Come back tomorrow to see photos of their first class.

Football

It's September which means football season. Here are some photos from one of the games the kids attended.

Here we are before the game. I'm in the alumni band and we play for the crowd before the game starts.

The kids spend great amounts of time running up and down this hill. Not the best place to watch the game, though you can still see some of the action, but it really wears the kids out.

The two guys in this photo were friends in Canada and roommates when they moved to the US. Now they are at football games with their families. I would say the immigration is going well.

 

  This is a cell phone video from off to the side of the alumni band. The sound quality isn't the best, but we are playing Sesame Street, which is one of my favorites. You can't see me in the video, but I promise I'm somewhere in that trumpet line.

Kids are Funny

Sweet Daughter is building with the marble run stuff while Sweet Son is building with Legos.

Sweet Daughter: Brother can you help me?
Sweet Son: (without turning around) No I'm building a crane.
Sweet Daughter: Please Brother? I need to stabilize the base.
Sweet Son: Oh! It's an engineering problem. I can help with that.




Today the kids and I were discussing rules versus laws and different types of consequences (natural versus authoritative). The kids had to come up with their own rule or law, the consequence, and label the type. Sweet Daugher came up with "don't pour water on the floor" with the consequence of "trouble" and it was an authoritative type. Sweet Son came up with "no soliciting" with a consequence of "lost business because it's annoying and lost money because we don't read it anyway and it's killing trees" and then he got stuck on the type of consequence that was. Right.




The kids did a sheet titled "My Wants and Needs" as part of their Kindergarten work. The directions were to list 5 things they need and 5 things they want and number them from most important (1) to least important (10).

Sweet Daughter:
1. wotr (water)
2. sheltr (shelter)
3. food
4. shooses (shoes)
5. coler (clothes)
6. brol (doll)
7. prs (purse)
8. trs (toys)
9. scootr (scooter)
10. bol (ball)

Sweet Sonlan:
1. foud (food)
2. watr (water)
3. luv (love)
4. clothing
5. and sheltr (shelter)
6. firtruc (firetruck)
7. sirin sistum (siren system)
8. robot
9. train
10 cende (candy)

Wordless Wednesday

Dallas Arboretum - Other

The children's garden of the Dallas Arboretum was so huge that it has taken me almost two weeks to post about it. Here are some other photos that don't fit anywhere else (also tomorrow's Wordless Wednesday post is from there).

Making a water vortex

Looking at cave drawings

They can almost reach the waterfall!

Stalactites and Stalagmites

Dallas Arboretum - Edible Garden

Near the cafe in the children's area of the Dallas arboretum, there is this cute playground. There is also a garden with real plants that you would eat and a garden that shows what is made from different plants (i.e. ethanol).

Two peas in a pod

A celery slide

I might have squealed with delight at the cuteness of this. Maybe.