Kindergarten journals

I love kindergarten journal writing. I know teachers claim they have the kids do it to improve their writing skills, but I secretly believe they do it to get a good laugh at the end of each day as they go through their students entries and read them. We have had some great ones come home over the years. I sometimes wonder what the teachers think about what goes on in our family. One of my favorites of Amanda's was when her teacher gave them a starting point of "Write about something you like to do." With much thought behind it, I'm sure, Amanda wrote, "I like to go to the bars." My heart skipped a beat when I read it wondering what her teacher thought. Did she think we were taking out 5 year old out drinking?! Luckily the picture accompanying it was a picture of her playing on the monkey bars at school. The all time favorite journal entry that our family still talks about and laughs about, to this day is another of Amanda's. This time the teacher told them to write about what they did over the weekend. To give you a little background, this was in the year 2002 and a trend at the time was necklaces with little flip flop charms on them. One weekend our family went to Coronado Island and walked through the Hotel Del Coronado and all the cute shops on it's ground floor. At one of the jewelry shops they was a very cute necklace with a flip flop charm on it. I loved it and being the good husband that Shaun is, he bought it for me. Back to the journal writing. When Amanda came home from school the following Monday I asked her what she wrote about in her journal that day. After the whole "bar" entry I always asked to assess what kid of damage control I was going to have to do. She said "Oh, I wrote about going to Coronado and buying you a thong necklace." (Shaun was a little behind the times and still called flip flops thongs at the time. He's learned his lesson.) O.K., not so bad except for the whole using the word thong instead of flip flop. Then she went on to say, "But that was a lot of words and I ran out of room, so I couldn't fit the word necklace. Yes, that's right. Her journal entry read, "We went to Coronado and bought my mom a thong." Taking her to bars, and then out to buy her mom a thong. The next day I talked to her teacher about it and explained and we had a good laugh about it! It just so happens that Connor has the same kindergarten teacher that Amanda did, but I'm not too worried. She already knows all our dirty secrets! The other day he came home with this journal entry and it certainly made me smile. I love that boy and I especially love how thin he drew me!

Princess time

Mads gets to have her friend Ava come over every Wednesday to play. So far it has been a great match, meaning Ava also loves princesses!


Both girls love all things girly so we made fruit loop necklaces to wear with their beautiful princess outfits.


Here they are with their finished necklaces. It wasn't long before both girls just had soggy strings hanging around their necks!

Princess for a day

This week I got to take Madison to Disneyland all by herself! I had been wanting to do this for awhile, but hadn't had the chance. Our passes expire this week, so I figured it was now or never. She is in full princess adoration mode. She is ALWAYS dressed as a princess, only likes to read her princess book and play with her princesss toys. We got to ride the Monorail into Disneyland which was first for me!


The first ride we went on was Matterhorn. It is the only "big" ride Madison is tall enough to go on. Last time she went on it was with her Grandpa Dell and all she remembers from it is that he screamed the whole way! Now, everytime we talk about Disneyland she says "Grandpa goes AHHHHHHHHH!" I tried to get her to say it after we went on it, but I think she was a little shook up from the ride!

The carousel was probably her favorite ride! After a few rides we hit the Bibbity Bobbity Bootique for Madison to pick out a princess shirt. It was no surprise that she picked the Sleeping Beauty one. It's all about pink with this girl! Before we met any of the princesses we ran into the Fairy Godmother. She was very kind, like you would expect a Fairy Godmother to be! We also got to meet Tinkerbell. The line for the pricesses was about an hour wait, but that was why we came, so we waited... ...and waited... ...and waited...


...and waited!




All the waiting was worth it when Madison first saw the princesses. I wished I had gotten a picture of her face when she first spotted them. It was priceless! This is the only picture I got of us together. I took it while riding Heimlich. All in all, it was a magical day with my little princess!

Rain, rain, go away

Here in southern California we have been receiving crazy amounts of rain. We are not set up for this. We rely on being able to go outdoors. Our malls are outdoor malls. Our schools are all outdoor schools also, meaning lockers, lunch areas, everything is outdoors. So rain=cooped up crazy kids. Luckily we received a package from Grandma Linda yesterday to help cure our boredom. She included a card game that Connor loves and it taking to school today to play during recess, since it looks like it will be indoor recess again today. She also included 3 cans of my favorite Stevens hot cocoa. Yummy! And the best thing she included? Dot Markers, with coloring books! The whole family, including uncle Logan who happened to be visiting, has enjoyed them!



Thanks Grandma Linda for helping cure our rainy day blues!

Rainy day

What do you do In San Diego on a rainy Monday when the kids are out of school? Go to Chuck E. Cheese with EVERYONE else in the county!

Gourmet kids

Both of my girls love watching all those cake shows on TLC and Food Network like Cake Boss, Ace of Cakes and Challenge. So for Christmas we got Sam the Gourmet Girl Cake Bakery. You get to bake your own mini cakes and then decorate them with fondant. Yesterday after church they got it out and made little cakes. It was so fun for me, as a mom, to see them all working together, getting along and helping each other. I included this picture for those of you that know Mads very well this picture is soooo Mads!



I had to get a picture of this, Connor and Sam getting along.



The finished products. I'm not sure why we didn't get a picture of Mads cake. Hers was really cute until she smashed it flat!

Crazy Charger Day

Yesterday was "Crazy Day" at my kids elementary school, which means, crazy hair and mismatched outfits. Then when our Charger's made it to the playoffs the theme day turned into "Crazy Charger Day". Here's my kids get ups.



The back view.


This was Connor in his crazy getup. He had just gotten his head shaved the afternoon before. After school I asked him if any of the kids liked his jersey. He said, "Yeah." Than I asked him if they liked all his wristbands. Again he said "Yeah." Then he said, "But do you know what they liked the best? My hair! Everyone except for about two people rubbed my head today!"

Gleeful!

I have been waiting since December 29th, when it was released, to buy the first season of Glee. I have never bought a TV show on DVD before but this one is so enjoyable to me I just had to have it! The problem? It's a 4 disc set and cost $40! Couldn't rationalize that. Then when I got home to Poway and got all my Christmas presents a $25 Borders gift card was among them! Yes! Unfortunately it is so popular they couldn't keep it on the shelf. I have been, not so patiently, waiting for them to get more copies in. Today it happened. Armed with my 33% off coupon I got it for only $4 after I used my gift card. I'm just so excited! So why am I sitting here wasting my time blogging when I could be watching, and yes, singing along with Glee?!

Lunch with Mom's week

This week was Lunch with Mom's week at my kiddos elementary school. That means I get to go pick up lunch at my kids favorite fast food place and take it to school to eat with them. I had lunch with Sam on Monday and Wednesday and with Connor on Tuesday. Since Shaun had Thursday off he went in my place on Thursday. It was so much fun to hang with my kiddos at lunch and on the playground!


Playing jump rope.




Playing on the playground.

Wii

Our family finally got a Wii for Christmas this year and we LOVE it! I think every ones favorite is the Wii Fit Plus, but we are also enjoying our Wii Fishing (Shaun picked this game out). When Uncle Logan came into town last weekend we taught him how to fish.



I think he got one!

Soccer player

Connor just finished up with another session of indoor soccer and had a great season! He is improving every session and we all love going and watching him play!

Yep, it only cost 99 cents!

We just got a 99 cents store here in Poway and it is awesome. I got this dress for Mads for, you guessed it, 99 cents. She thinks she's Hannah Montana. But our best find yet? Belly Flops. A big bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans that are irregular or imperfect. Shaun's favorite candy, for only 99 cents! Gotta love it.

New Years Eve

We missed having Matt and Jenny around for the holidays like we did last year, but we got to Skype with them over in England a couple of times. On New Years they called us from "the future", after the clock struck midnight in England!


It's now become a tradition, thanks to Matt and Jenny and family, to play BINGO on New years complete with New Years crackers as prizes. We all got these stylish crowns and some pretty cool tools, including my dad's stethoscope in our crackers!


We roasted s'mores over the fire but this is a picture of Logan and Connor throwing who knows what into the fire!

Sledding

Ever since we even started talking about going to Utah around Christmas time my kids started talking about going sledding! Finally just a few days before we left to come home we there was a big snow storm and it was perfect sledding weather! I forgot my camera, but luckily my dad had his so I stole these pictures off of his blog!


Connor has soooo much fun. He did not want to leave when all the rest of us were ready to go!


Grandpa Tom and Sam headed down a hill!


I even braved a few hills!

Mads first haircut

While in Utah Mads got her first haircut. She was really good and her new all one length hair looks so cute!


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