Turning 3

Mark your calendar - these special little ladies turn three next week!  It's my turn to host the party - we're having a garden party at our house next weekend.  Please pray for good weather!!

Summer Agenda - togetherness.

The kids will be at the perfect age this summer for them to be enrolled in camps TOGETHER!  Many of the kids programs in our area take kids ages 3 to 6 years old.  PERFECT FOR MOMMA!

I figured this may be the only year I can get away with this.  Next year, Kevin will be way to old.   I wouldn't normally enroll Katie in camps at 3 years old, but she is used to preschool and being with other kids, so I think she will do just fine.  Plus, Kevin will be with her.  They are going to two sessions of daycamp, held at our preschool.  They are signed up for library story time together as well as swim lessons.

**Ask me at the end of the summer if this plan worked?

Kevin is six - yes, everyone knows this already!

I may be the worst mommy-blogger ever!  With the ease of sharing pictures of the kids so quickly on Facebook, I have neglected my blog duties....Well, now is my chance to remind you again, Kevin had a terrific 6th birthday!

The birthday celebration started at 7:00AM!  Before school we went to Krispie Kreme for donuts - it's down the street from school so it was an easy choice. We had fresh, hot donuts - yum!  Kevin's teacher made a big fuss over him and he brought a treat to share with his class after lunch.  For dinner, Kevin chose to go to Buffalo Wild Wings - I was surprised, and so grateful not to go McD*nalds!  For his birthday gifts, we have Kev a remote control car, Woody (from Toy Story) and some dinosaur toys.  

At six years old - Kevin LOVES toys!  Sure, he does love to play with the IPad or Wii, but he still loves to lay on the floor and arrange all his toys for battle.  Just when I think he has outgrown some toys, he will get them out again and play all afternoon (sure makes it difficult to get rid of anything).

Kevin continues to excel at swimming.  Recently, his teacher suggested I put him on the swim team.  He loves to swim and I have seen a big improvement in his endurance and strength.  He can swim the entire length of the pool now.  His big goal is to pass the swim test at the Y so he can jump of the diving board.  The test requires him to jump in, swim a length, and then tread water for 1 minute - I think that is a huge task for a 6 year old!

This spring he is going to start soccer, and he's signed up for baseball this summer.  Along with swimming, it will be an active summer.

 Lego Party - quietest birthday party ever!  Highly recommend it!

I love that Katie insisted on being included - she "built" the exclamation point!!! 

Notes on Katie

PIGTAILS and SWIM LESSONS - those are the two big things in Katie's life right now!

Nearly 3 years on the making, her hair is finally getting long enough for pigtails!  Well, it isn't everyday that she will sit still and let me fix her hair, she will let me put pigtails in when it's time for swimming lessons.  Nate and Katie took the YMCA Waterbabies class last winter - it did not go well!  So, we took a break from swim lessons for a while, and this year she loves it!  She finally had the courage to go down the slide and "jump" off the edge ("jump" = walks off the edge into Daddy's arms).

Notes on Katie's behavior:  Some of you know that this fall Katie and I had quite a rough time together.  Her two year old behavior really peaked in early December which was when  I was prompted to buy this awesome book - it really helped us!  While we haven't implemented all of the techniques in the book, just a few have really done the trick for us.  Both Mommy & Katie have experienced less bouts of crying and yelling.

Notes on potty training:  She's almost there.  Some days Katie will ask to use the potty and other days she won't care and is content with a wet diaper.  Like most things with Katie, I am going to wait until she feels like it's all her big girl idea to use the potty and I wont have to force her.  Hopefully, this will all come together this spring (warmer weather = less layers of clothes to fuss with).  I learned my lesson with Kevin, no child will ever use the potty if their parents sit on the floor and read them book, after book, after book...

Notes on NO MORE napping:  This is the saddest thing to admit - neither one of my children take naps anymore.  Sigh... 

This fall we realized that on the days when Katie takes a nap she would be yelling in her crib until well past 10PM!  This did not work well with a tired Kindergartener next door, he had to get to bed.  So, we eliminated her nap.  It wasn't pretty (hence her behavior problems), but things have smoothed out.  There are still random days when I give her a nap and OMG do I CHERISH those days (ie - CHERISH = I do not do any boring housework or chores during that time.  It's all ME time like reading  or watching a non animated TV show!)  Nate can tell the moment he walks in the door at night if Katie's had a nap!  On a non-nap regular day, both kids are in bed by 7:30 which I find totally awesome!

Notes on activities:  With the loss of her nap we have A LOT more time to keep busy during the day.  Katie enjoys her preschool class on Monday & Wednesday mornings.  Tuesday mornings we attend a Brighter Beginnings toddler class which has art/music/play for the kids and an educational topic for the moms.  We normally make it to the Y several afternoons a week.  Lucky for me, Katie does not cry in the childwatch.  She loves to run and play with the other kiddos there.  She HATES going to the bus stop every afternoon to pickup Kevin.  It's a challenge to get out the door 500 feet to the corner to meet him.  I left her alone in the playroom one day and went to the bus stop.  She was not happy, crying so very hard when we came home.  She thought I left her home alone, forever!  Now that it's so cold here, we normally drive to the bus stop (500 feet - pathetic, I know, but warm)!

Christmas festivities 2012

Our Christmas season was full of fun!

December 19th, Nate took Katie to her class party at preschool.  I was due to take the treats & help at Kevin's class party on Friday, December 21st - but mother nature had other plans!   

The last two days of school before Christmas break were cancelled due to a blizzard!  We woke up to a very cold house on December 20th.  Our power was out for about 6 hours, brrr!  Compared to many people in Iowa, we were lucky our power wasnt out too long.  

  Needless to say, being snowed in with two kids five days before Christmas was rough.  To say they were excited for Christmas was an understatement.  They drove me nuts!    To keep them busy, we even got out the finger paints:

 ... but it was a good thing for me to be snowed in... I finished decorating the house, setting the dining room table, wrapping gifts, some baking, and cleaning.

My parents arrived on Saturday, Brian came on Monday evening.  The boys went to the iMax movie theater to see Polar Express, then we met up with the Spradlings for a family friendly church service at 3:00.  The kids were very well behaved at church, all of the adults were pleasantly surprised!

Stone Family Christmas Party at our house.  (19 people, 6 kids, almost 7 - baby Gogerty 2 is due this week!)

Isabel, Katie, James, Kevin, Tyler 

Today we went to the Science Center to play - Nate built the kids a lego fort: 

Around the house photos

Nate finally got a new phone, so he was taking some photos of the kids last weekend.

Friday night was family holiday movie night.  I surprised the kids with new Christmas pjs, we had pancakes for dinner, made popcorn and watched a fun movie.  They loved it - so did we!

Last Saturday night, Nate and I were invited to a fancy, adults only Christmas party.  It was fabulous!  Everyone was dressed up like they walked off the set of M*dMen.  To keep the kids busy while we got ready, they took a swim in our tub.  Katie used to be very scared of the jet tub, but now she loves it.  (this was an awesome way to keep them contained and very happy - might be my new go to winter activity!)

Thanksgiving

Roadtrip!

We had a very fun trip to Grandmom & PopPop's house for Thanksgiving.  The kids were sick with bad colds/fever/croup for part of the trip.  They rebounded with the help of some medicine.  Kevin loved playing at the "new" park nearby and was especially thankful the Uncle Brian gave him some of his old baseball cards & figurines.  He also spent a lot of time playing Battleship and Connect 4 (games that Grandmom saved from my childhood).  Katie wasn't feeling her best on this trip, but really enjoyed playing cars in the basement.

As a special treat, Grandmom took the kids to see a children's theater version of Cinderella.  They loved the live performance!  I wasn't sure how they would handle it, but they were entertained.

Nate and I got a rare chance to meet up with good friends. Great weekend - now bring on Christmas festivities (school parties, church pagent, cookie exchange, shopping - lots going on here!)

Catching up

Hold on - not fair - time is moving way too fast!  I think Halloween was yesterday!

Despite the look on Kevin's face, we all had a great time trick-or-treating with the Spradlings.

 Here's a photo of Katie during her preschool class party:

 2 Year Olds - preschool class:

We just attended Kevin's first parent/teacher conference.  His teacher said he is really progressing in reading and math.  Kevin has begged me to take him to Build-A-Bear Workshop for several years.  I told him it's a very special place and you have to do something extra special to go there.  We agreed that when he learned to read I would take him there to pick out a bear.  Kevin is still at the age where he LOVES stuffed animals (**** disclaimer - please do NOT take that to mean he needs more stuffed animals for Christmas!  Seriously, we might actually lose Katie in the house if we bring in anymore stuffed animals). A few weekends ago, Kevin and I had a date at the mall and this is his bear.  He named it "Smart Bear".  Why is Smart Bear in a wheelchair, you may ask?  I have no idea, he just really wanted the wheel chair and I caved.  He loves the bear and we are really proud of his reading.

We fit in a lot last weekend!

 Somehow Blogger jumbled these pictures up a bit - but you can see we had a busy weekend.  My parents came for a visit.  The kids got lots of treats and we all had fun.

Nate and I escaped for a trip to Iowa City on Saturday.  Neither of us had ever been to night game at Kinnick Stadium - I guess we were bad luck!  It was a lousy game, but a great day spent with Hawkeyes.  We visited some our our favorite bars & tailgated with friends.  The best part of the day was the Iowa Marching Band - that's how lousy the football part was!  While we were gone, the kids played with Grandmom & PopPop.  Everyone was in bed when we made it home at midnight :)

On Sunday afternoon we visited Living History Farms for their annual Old Fashioned Halloween.  The kids roasted marshmallows, listen to ghost stories, trick or treated and enjoyed lots of candy!

Darth Vadar and Hello Kitty are all set for next week's Halloween festivities!

The latest with Kevin

Kindergarten is going great!  Kevin really likes his teacher and he has started to read!  He is memorizing more and more "sight/popcorn" words each day.  If you ask him, he will say his favorite parts of the day are the bus ride with his new buddy Grant, lunch with is new best friend Pailey and recess.  I know there is some learning happening somewhere during the day, but he isn't too good about  sharing those details.  For now, we are so pleased that he's happy and adjusting well to being in school all day long.  That said, I feel a bit sad for him that he doesn't have much time to play at home.  Once Nate is home from work we have dinner then start the bedtime process much earlier than we did during preschool.  The kids are in bed before 8:00 (love that!)

Kevin's Top 5 Favorite things right now:

1.  Anything Star Wars related

2.  Chapter books such as A to Z Mysteries or Magic Tree House

3.  TV show:  still Wild Kratts and Curious George

4.  Food:  Spaghetti & Meatball soup and Pigs in a Blanket are requested a lot!

5.  Legos & iPad