Tennyson's natural athletic ability has always been something Kevin and I have noticed.
However, when it comes to riding a bike, it hasn't come as easily for him. He would not even touch the pedals with his feet until the middle of June despite much encouragement from his parents.
After he decided it was OK to actually use pedals on a Big Wheels bike, and was getting pretty good, Kevin and I decided it was time to whip out the two wheeler with training wheels.
He was super excited, but it was stop and go there for awhile.
I mean that in the most literal sense of the word.
He kept moving his feet back and forward. He didn't get that going backwards applied the brakes. It was hilarious.
Tennyson kept at it, and by day three had figured it out. He is still working on the concept of using the break. Thankfully, he is excellent at gauging when he needs to stop pedaling so that he will coast to a stop at the perfect spot. He loves being able to keep up with the big kids now.
Watching my kids master a new skill is one of my favorite things about being a mom.
Morgan came over a month or so ago. She is a girl full of imagination and I adore how she brings that wonderful creativity out in my kids.
Before I knew it, my playroom was covered in leaves and sticks. Which, of course, makes perfect sense when you realize it was to make magic wands.
Once you've made all these magic wands the next, natural, step is to sell them to the general public.
The kids were beyond excited to set up shop. They were convinced they had not made enough wands and people would be disappointed when they came to the front of the line and all the magic wands had been purchased.
They were pretty successful thanks to our awesome neighbor who bought some to use for FHE and Nana and Pappa who bought 10 from each kid....even though there wasn't that many left. The kids were thrilled and I can't wait to see what they decide to sell next!
On August 24, 2010 we celebrated our 10 year anniversary!!!
Logically, I realized it's been 10 years. That is 1/3 of my life. A long time...comparatively.
Emotionally, I feel as though we may as well be planning the wedding. Obviously we have kids and a mortgage to bring me back to reality, but marrying your best friend helps things glide along quickly, even over rocky terrain.
To commemorate this momentous occasion we are going to Europe in a week and a half. London and Paris! To say we are excited would be the understatement of the year.
We have been planning this trip for close to 2 years and can hardly believe it is just around the corner.
To keep us occupied until our "official" anniversary celebration we went Go Karting on our actual anniversary.
It. was. Awesome.
A little scary, but mostly awesome.
Kevin beat everyone and I was only 17 one hundredth of a second behind him coming in 5th out of 12.
(For the record, Kevin does not like this picture of him. I think he looks sweet.)
It wouldn't have matter what we did that day. We always have fun with each other. That's one of the many reasons I married him.
Karaia and Beckham started school Monday, August 23.
Karaia, 2nd grade.
Beckham, 1/2 day kindergarten. Which is really only barely considered school, what with the barely dropping them off only to have to turn around and pick them up again. hence only having a half a kid in school.
That didn't stop him from being SUPER excited. So excited, in fact, that he practiced his piano that morning with his backpack on.
The tragic part is the kindergarteners only went for one hour that first day an now have to wait clear until Monday before officaly starting school. They had the rest of this week off for testing.
Karaia has been looking forward to that day as well. She was wearing her special outfit that she helped pick out right down to the shoes (such a girl).
At one point during the morning I called her to come up stairs because we were running out of time to get her hair done. Lo and behold, this cute girl of mine came right up stairs.......
......with her hair already done!
She's been practicing all summer putting her own hair into pony tails and just recently pig tails. But she had never tried this particular hair style.
It's a little lumpier that I would have preferred for her first day back, but since she did it all on her own I think it looks perfect!
I made a head band for myself (cute right?!!?) a few days before that she BEGGED me to wear because it matched so well. It really made the outfit.
It was so fun to see her meet up with her friends. She is really getting so old. Even the way Karaia and her friends were standing was more grown-up than last year. I just know I am going to blink and pretty soon I'll over hear conversations about boys rather than jump rope. Sigh.
Beckham has already done his testing and he says the only thing his teacher asked him to work on was writing his 8s. He knew all his letter sounds, which is a relief because he never vocally went through the phase of sounding out words so I am happy to know he can break it down if he needs to. How to write upper and lower case letters. He did well with reading comprehension. And how to do math.
When I asked him if he was tested on math he said, " Yes. Add and Subtract. I just used my fingers. She didn't say that was cheating or anything."
Heaven help his teacher. If she can keep him occupied the rest of the school year we will call it a Tender Mercy for sure.
He class has a lot of kids, especially girls, from our ward.
(look at Beckham's face! You can totally read his thoughts, "Oh yeah. These cute girls are ALL my friends.")
He will have his work cut out for him keeping up with these cuties.
All in all school is going wonderfully...for Karaia. I will let you know how Beckham fares when he actually gets to go every day.
(Beckham and Karaia waiting for the first day of school to begin)
I love that they get to got to school together. I'm hoping they keep getting to be better and better friends.
On a side note: How can two darling kids from one family look SO different?
"Mom, when babies are little, like this (points to Sanders), they are so cute and fun! But when they grow up they get to be annoying. It's really true." ~Karaia
That's how we lovingly refer to Sanders these days. He has well earned his name and within 5 seconds of anyone new meeting him, they too adopt the appropriate placed name.
Example:
We went to a MAC BBQ for Karaia's upcoming school year. There were many people there. The one person that would have changed the outcome of this little story was out of town. By that I mean Kevin was traveling for work, again. (Although if you ask him he doesn't travel much. It's interesting to live the same life and have such a different opinion of things. All I know is it's kind of an inside joke around the ward now. Even those who travel more than Kev ask me if we knew he'd be traveling so much when he took this job. For the record, the kids and I miss him when he's gone, but we do pretty good and are so grateful he is willing to work so Mom doesn't have to.) ANYWAY. So it was just me and the 4 ankle biters, at a park, at the end of the day, with a million people, waiting for dinner to be ready. ------you can see where I am going with this.
Sanders never stays in one place long.
In fact, Church is a joke right about now because he won't even sit on my lap for more than a second. Sufficeth to say, I was chasing following him all evening. When the food was ready, I quickly jumped in line. Karaia and Beckham fixed their own plates (Hallelujah!) and I kept Tennyson and Sanders by my side, sort of, as I speedily tried to fix two plates while keeping one eye and a few fingers on Sanders so he wouldn't run or pull down any of the food. Not to mention trying not to drop any food, cause any traffic jams, and all in all not seem like a crazy lady.
At one point I became so focused on just. getting. the. food. and putting it in someones overly hungry, screaming mouth that I lost track of Sanders for about 2 mins. By the time the food was placed on our place in the lawn I had no idea where he was. After getting Tennyson all set, I ran to find Sanders.
Couldn't find him.
My friends started helping. (thank you Sabina and Jamie!)
About a minute or two into the search I found him.
He'd pushed his way through the throngs of people dishing food from the picnic table, climbed on to the bench near the sliced tomatoes, and had begun a game of Frisbee with said tomatoes.
Sigh.
There was a nice lady behind him trying to get him to stop all the while wearing the, "Where is this child's mother?!?" face. I retrieved my ill behaved son and mumbled something about being a single parent that night and how sorry I was.
Thanks to Sabina, I got everyone settled and I actually got to eat a bit of food before Sanders was off again.
It's funny now.
Mostly.
I just have to document it so when he has a son who we lovingly call Mr. Busy Pants he will know
1) it's survivable
2) it's a good weight loss program
3) his wife deserves whatever time off he can give her.
