Six...or....sixteen!?!?

We went to Sea World last weekend, to get the kids out of the house for a special treat, and planned to stay there until evening (something we wanted to do over summer but never made it). The plan was for me to go through some of the kids clothes in the morning and then in the afternoon we'd leave. We left a little later than we wanted to and found out that Sea World was only open until 7:30 now. That's okay with me, not sure if I could have made it much further than that anyways. We met our friends Jesse & Stephanie down there and later Mike's sister, Tiffany and her daughter Brittany.

We got there earlier than everyone and so we headed to Elmo's World first to ride some rides. This was Brandon's first time getting to ride this ride. He LOVED it!

Funny side note story: Makayla had been telling me all along that she had her phone with her. The kids like using our old cell phones that don't work anymore as "their" phones and they carry them around a lot. It didn't phase me that she brought it. But when her, Mike and Brandon were waiting in line, she pulled "her" phone out of her back pocket, sat down, and began texting. Mike couldn't believe it! What he didn't want is for other people to think that he had actually bought a six year old a cell phone. I thought it was funny, it's really her just watching all us text away and wanting to be able to do it also.

We were in for a treat when we got there because they had set up for their Halloween Spooktacular and were handing out candy at different stations. So the kids and I (not Mike - he claims he didn't want any candy...he ended up eating all mine...what a booger!) hit up a couple of stands. It was Brandon's highlight and he guarded his candy bag all night and even the next morning.

This was the first time Zachary got to "watch" some shows also. The last couple of times, him and I would walk around while Mike took the kids to the Pet's Rule show or he just stayed in his car seat. This time he got to watch the Clide & Seymore show and then he stayed awake to watch Shamu Rocks:

Him and all the kids loved the show and Zachary fell asleep within minutes of putting him in the stroller. It was a nice evening!

1st Grade

In August Makayla began her 1st Grade year. She is in room 6 (she thinks it's because she is 6) and in Mrs. Dickey's class. I envy most things about Makayla, but what I envy most is that sometimes she is not fearful. I tend to over think things...okay not tend to, I DO. So I was always nervous about my first days of school so I always wonder what is going on inside her little head. It seems to me...not much about school...or at least not worrying about it. Which is a great thing considering her Aunt cried for about the first two months of her 1st grade year and her Mom would get stomach aches for about the first week. So to have her confidence and fearlessness is such a relief for me.

It was madness that first day. I took the day off because we had to something in the afternoon and also because I wanted to be able to walk her to school. Luckily we live about a mile or less away and so we walked her to school...besides if we drove, we would end up walking the same distance anyways because cars were parked practically to our development!

The madness continued on campus as it seemed all the parents came to drop off their kids (us included). We found her number on the black top and then trekked to the back of the line. Her teacher came out and said Hi to me and I introduced her to Makayla (luckily I had met her over the summer at work and had a good chat about students and teachers - this was before I even knew she was going to be her teacher) and told all of us parents that they would be fine and to head onto the back of the black top.

Makayla was excited to see that her friend McKenzie was in her class this year and only a little more than a handful of her Kindergarten friends were in her new class. (She already has a new friend that she talks about all the time...Hannah.)

The first graders line up next to the Kindergartners. We watched all those parents and remembered how we felt just one year before. We saw her Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Perez-Anderson wearing the cute outfit she wore on Makayla's first day (Makayla even remembered it) and watched how she greeted each parent. We loved her and I know that we will love her new teacher just as much.

Mike and I left after watching what we thought was her class line (there were so many people!) walk to their classroom. On the way out...I couldn't help to think what had happened in this last year and where it went. It just seemed like Kindergarten started and yet here we are...a big FIRST GRADER! Soon Kaleb will be going to that school and the year after Brandon, and the year after Logan, and the year after Zachary, and the year after...Chantelle! It will be fun and exciting!!

Pierced!

For Makayla's 6th birthday we promised her that she could get her ears pierced. It's the one thing that I've been putting off since she was born. I had really hoped to do it when she was a baby...then put it off...then when she was under a year I wanted to..but she was in daycare and my fear of another baby yanking at her ears and ripping out the earring made me worried...so I waited. Then I wanted to do it when she was a toddler, but I figured that she might be the one to yank at her ears...so I waited. Then when she was 5 I thought about it, but if she was going to play soccer I didn't want her to have to take them out...so I waited. Six seemed to be the *perfect* age...so I asked her if she wanted to...instant YES!!

So it was supposed to be for her birthday...and here it is almost the end of July, BUT she is still six...so that counts...right?

We took her this last Friday to the mall and she was so excited. She had to wait until I got home from work. That's all she talked about to Brandon all day. He thought that he was going to get his ears done also and got quite upset when she told him it was only going to be her. Mike had to keep reminding him that boys don't get their ears pierced (although Makayla kept correcting Mike and told him that she has seen boys with pierced ears -- who she is talking about we have no clue). When I got home from work was the first time she asked..."Is it going to hurt?" I couldn't lie, so I said yes, a little...okay so it was tiny white lie.

So we were off...to the mall...to pierce my precious baby girl's ears. So sad. We got to the mall and I had already gone online to see our earring choices and knew what I wanted. I told Mike that she would probably want the Hello Kitty studs, which she did and which we cleverly steered her away from. We (meaning ME) chose a lavender daisy stud (she wanted the rainbow daisy stub)...um...I won no doubt!

(before )

She practically jumped up into the chair and waited for the lady. The lady marked her ears and Makayla squealed with excitement! Then both ladies came at her with the guns, I think that stopped the excitement.



They did it quickly, she jumped a little and her face turned white and she looked in shock. Poor girl, she held back her tears and I quickly tried to stoop in to redirect her thoughts from the pain to the prettiness of the earrings. It shocked her for maybe a couple of minutes, but she was back to herself in the Claire's store...asking for every.single.item in the store.


so pretty!!! - she is still in shock! ;0)


So now she LOVES having her earrings and loves to tell me that she is six now and has pierced ears. Oh boy!

Kindergarten...what? where?

Kindergarten? Over???? Already? How did this happen?


I was just crying a year ago about how my little baby was starting Kindergarten and how life would now be spiraling!

{first day of Kindergarten - August 2010}

Boy was I right! It's over...her Kindergarten year is actually....over. *tear* She LOVED Kindergarten, she LOVED her teacher, it was a great experience all around. I was scared that the kids would be mean to her...those kids are all little too, I guess I forgot that! She met some really great kids and I'm excited to see them all grow up together. Her friend Kiersten aka Kiki from preschool got to be in her class this year so that made me very relieved that she would know and have a friend on her first day of school.

She learned and absorbed so many wonderful things and it was so fun to hear some things that would just pop out of her mouth. My favorite was when we had rainy weather she would say "inclimate weather" because that's what her teacher would call their schedule for that day since they had to on the "inclimate weather schedule."

She learned how to read and write, stretch out words to read or spell them. She's done a great job trying to stretch out words and write letters to people or make a pretend shopping list. She adds and subtracts and we practiced rhyming words all the time.

They had a clip system and we would ask her everyday if she had to move her clip. If she moved it up to blue, it meant she got a "blue ticket" to put in for the treasure box. If she stayed on green that was good, if she had to move it to yellow she got a warning, orange was a note home and red was a visit with the principal. She moved to yellow maybe a handful of times and to orange once! For playing in the bathroom! Go figure. Other than that she was good. I just loved how she would spill her beans if we forgot to ask her about the clip. All of a sudden she would say "I think I moved my clip down today" then I would have to prod the information out of her. And if she wasn't up to confessing right away I would just say my magic sentence..."Then I'll just have to ask Mrs. Perez-Anderson what happened." Boy did that ever work! She knew that I "worked" with her teacher and that I would ask her what happened, so I usually got all the info I needed in seconds.

She had homework that had to completed daily and turned in every Friday, was that ever stressful! Sometimes I couldn't even figure out the answers...to much creativeness for my wee brain! :)

Overall, she grew a lot and is very much ready to be a 1st grader! They even got to pretend to be 1st graders and play on the 1st grader playground. That was a BIG deal that last week of school.



{Last day of school with Mrs. Perez-Anderson - June 2011}

Drive Safe-a-lee

Makayla has the sweetest heart and says the most sweetest things sometimes. For about a year she says to me every morning..."Drive safe-a-lee Mommy." Every-single-morning! It's very cute and at first I wasn't quite sure she even knew what she was saying. She must have picked it up from someone. AND, what made it cuter was if she thought she had forgotten to tell me while I was still in the house, she would run out to the garage to tell me again.

She got in the habit of telling me and Mike to drive safely before he left for school during the evenings and for me going to work. Then when Mike's parents were watching the kids for us during Mike's externship, she would tell her Grandma and Grandpa to drive safely every evening when I got home from work and they left.

The other day, the kids were playing in the pool we had set up and I was watching them while Mike went on a run. Makayla comes to me and asks where Mike went and I told her that he went running, she asked me..."did you tell him to run safe-a-lee?" How cute!

Model to be...

It's pretty scary that Makayla who is only 5 (turning 6 this month...yikes!) is a great photographer. She has been taking pictures with my camera and other people's camera for a couple years:


She gets some really great photos:


Lots of ground and ceiling photos:



She sometimes has a cooperative model:



Often times she just taking pictures of objects around the house:



She loves to take self portraits. She's gotten really good at turning the camera around and capturing herself:



Holy cow! When did she become a teenager???? (This picture is an all time keeper!)

I like fufis

Makayla is in Kindergarten and her little brain is absorbing so much! It's fun to see her start to read and recognize her "site" words. The new thing in class that they are learning is to "stretch" out the sounds. So she writes her site words everywhere and can make some decent sentences out of them. The other morning as we were getting ready for school, her and Brandon were coloring and writing at the kitchen table while I was probably screaming my head off trying to get everything ready to go with a crying newborn wanting to be fed.

Before we left, I glanced at the sheets of paper that they were working on and I had been listening to what she was trying to write but not fully understanding what all she was doing. Well, she was trying to write a sentence and color a picture to show it. Her sentence was "I like french fries" and instead of asking me to spell french fries, she tried to stretch out the sounds to spell it!

When I saw this, it melted my heart because I thought it was pretty close AND eventually she will learn how to spell french fries but for now I like that they are "fufis"! Oh and by the way, the dots are "salt" go figure that my daughter would draw french fries with tons of salt on them! Must take after her grandma's!!!