Friday, August 28, 2015

Third Time's a Charm

Monday morning we started at our third school in 3 years. Jumping around from school to school is definitely not the most ideal, but we are finally in where we hope to stay. The kids were nervous and excited for their first day.
 
Our big THIRD grader...




And first grader...


Our first day teacher gifts were these "apple for my teacher" cards with EOS lip balm as the apple...







 
We're a week in and loving it so far. I can already see a big difference in this school from last year. The kids have done great this week, and Charlotte gets to be good citizen of the week next week. It's going to be a great year!


Friday, August 21, 2015

Last Summer Outing

We had 2 things left on our summer fun list, and we crossed one off today...Dallas zoo! This summer has gone too fast, and I've worked too much! So I was thankful to have the day with the kids. The four of us headed out this morning and went straight for the carousel. The last time we went to the zoo, we tried to ride this and Grey was not having it, so I sat in the spinny nest thing with Char and Amelia. The minute he saw us walking toward it today, he started to get scared again. He fought me getting him out of his stroller and fought me putting him onto his horse. Then he looked like this the entire ride...
You can't see, but he had a death grip on me and would not let go! He started shaking when the ride started and had a look of terror on his face. I tried to soothe him with my, "Isn't it so fun!" and "Yay! The carousel!" comments. I'm not sure how well they worked, but he wasn't shaking by the end. He wasn't smiling either, though. This definitely makes me a little nervous for our Disney trip in November.


Charlotte loves to pose by these elephants...

Best group shot I could get...

We headed to the Giants of the Savana section first...


Then after seeing the elephants, giraffes, zebras, one leopard and attempting to see the lions (who are never visible when we're there), we headed to the other side. First stop, children's zoo...
The kids went straight for the water. Grey LOVED it. He sat down, fully clothed, and was soaked by the time I had to rip him away...and believe me he fought!


We ate lunch and saw the koalas and several other animals, including fighting a bee that was insistent on hanging around our stroller. Char and Hunter were not amused by him!
 
It was a great day! I'm sad summer's almost over, but the start of school is always exciting to me:) I'm a school nerd for sure. Love that I get to be the mother to these kids!

Monday, August 10, 2015

Pizza Challenge

Hunter and Charlotte are really into YouTube right now. Charlotte mainly watches videos of people acting like various Disney princesses, and Hunter loves videos of people playing or talking about video games. Hunter has even asked if he can have his own YouTube channel, to which I obviously replied "no way". That doesn't stop him and Charlotte from making videos on his tablet, though. He even named his pretend channel "The Clash Files". He begins every video with "Hey guys! Welcome to The Clash Files" and ends with "Subscribe, like, comment, and share!". It's the cutest thing ever. They have both watched several "challenge" videos on their favorite YouTube channels, and have been begging to do a pizza challenge all summer. So Sunday night, we finally did it.
 
Prepping their pizzas with sauce and cheese...

We picked 10 toppings so each child would get 5. Then I wrote each item on a sheet of paper and they had to draw out of the bag...

Whatever topping they drew had to go on their pizza...








Charlotte made a lemon, pickle, BBQ chip, Cap'n Crunch, and chocolate chip pizza...

And Hunter's was a marshmallow, tomato, mushroom, sprinkles, and mac & cheese pizza...

Ready for the oven...

After they were cooked...
They were both nervous to taste...




In case you're wondering how they were, I think their faces say it all!

I'm not sure that we'll ever do it again, but they sure did have fun!

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Frozen Summer Fun!

As much as I tried to persuade Charlotte to choose to have her party at a venue outside of our house, she had her heart set on a Frozen themed party at home, so that's what we did...



Of course we had to have themed food;)






And snowflake cupcakes!



I found this idea on pinterest...


The kids - especially the boys - loved throwing the snowflake water bombs at each other!

I also found a recipe for fake snow on Pinterest, so we had a "do you wanna build a snowman?" center..


And some Bahama Bucks snow cones since it was SO HOT outside...

We had Hershey's hugs for party favors...


The birthday girl ready for her party!

Before any girls came, we had like 5 boys arrive in a row. They went right for the water guns and water bombs...

Finally some girls arrived and these three were the first to play in the snow. They were so excited about how cold it was! (I had stored it in the freezer for several days)...





Instead of making snowmen, the kids just made it snow on themselves...
So FUN!
...and SO MESSY!
Sprinkler!!!


After the kids were pretty warn out, we came in for food and cupcakes...




Then they played like banshees upstairs before finally coming down to open presents...
(Or the girls came downstairs while the boys played in Hunter's room;))





Charlotte got tons of Frozen and girly goodies. She had a great party!