My Sweeties are Growing UP!

Here is Hayden with his kindergarten teacher at "graduation"! He had a great year and learned so much! Lainey enjoyed it too.

Here are both my sweeties on the first day of first grade for Hayden! He looks so much older to me than at his graduation.

We love his teacher! She's a very sweet and caring person and Hayden is doing well! It's amazing the words he can read. Along with his weekly homework he's been meeting his Aunt Leslie for swimming lessons! He's gung ho about that as well... jumping into the deep end and diving for rings (in the shallow) seem to be his favorites.

Just a few days after school started he lost the second of his top front teeth. What a lovely smile! Since school pictures were last week, we'll have that gap toothed grin to look at for many years to come.
Lainey is busy being a big girl. She's learning lots of things and wants to be like her big brother. I'm volunteering at school to help his teacher a couple afternoons a week and working in the library during his library time weekly. She goes with me and takes her backpack with her homework (crayons, books, etc.) and a snack. She's always so good and rarely complains while we're there.

I just can't believe how big they're getting!

Finally, an update!

Hayden and Lainey are doing very well! The picture above is at a friend's new home outside Columbia. Her dog, Flash, was the hit of the party!

Hayden is officially a first grader. Below is a picture of him at our friend Becky's wedding in Lupus, MO. Our friend, Chuong Doan, is a fabulous photographer and took the 3 pictures shown. Many thanks to him! We are so lucky to have the pictures he's taken. Our kids are cute, but he makes their personality come out! We started piano lesson for Hayden and he seems to really like them. He also had allergy testing recently and is extremely sensitive to many trees, grasses, pollen, etc. Maybe that's the reason his eyes were so horribly swollen this spring! He's reading like crazy, asking so many questions I can't keep up and catching just about any frog, toad or bug that you can imagine. He'd also like you to know that he currently has 3 loose teeth on the top and can't wait for them to come out!

Lainey is also doing well! She is definitely our injury child. She's good at falling, sitting on pencils (this was a fun one!), but at least we've not made any really recent trips to the ER. The last one was because she got hit in the nose with her brother's head... and promptly had a seizure. Luckily, she was coherent very quickly and they didn't see the need for a CT, etc. Other than that, she now has an imaginary friend named Kiki. She has to do just about everything her "big brudder" does and she misses him horribly when he's gone.

Has it really been more than a year??

I can't believe it's been this long! I'll try to give a brief synopsis of the year...

Lainey is potty trained and in a big girl bed (and has been for more than 6 months). She's very "assertive" and will let you know what she wants (in a loud voice!) BUT she's also very shy and clams up when we're around people she doesn't know. She loves to dress up, have tea parties and read books. She also loves to do anything her brother does! She'll eat most anything except mushrooms (like her dad). She also recently renamed our large male cat, Taco (we're not sure why! His name was Boone, but everyone calls him Taco now.)

Hayden is in kindergarten! He's learning to read and is getting good at it. He spells words to me all the time... (i.e., "I'd like h-a-m ham on my sandwich.") He also loves numbers. He's taking a gymnastics class and is the only boy (which is ideal! He loves the girls!) He's also begun playing with all the boys at school. Legos are his new favorite thing! Before cold weather set in though, it was all about bugs. Taking his bug catcher, catching at recess and bringing them home to show us. He also got two fire-bellied toads after catching a virginia peeper. He was so sad when we let him go that we decided he should get a "real" toad.

We just finished remodelling our basement bathroom. It looks great! Doug did a fabulous job.

Hope the last year has treated everyone as well as it has us!

Merry Christmas

We've been so busy since Hayden started school! Getting adjusted, then we hit Thanksgiving (and activities) and now Christmas (and activities) and we're now on our official Christmas Break. He loves school and is having a great time! Here are a few pictures from school...

His Thanksgiving feast (I roasted the turkey legs.)

Here he is dressed up and ready for his Winter Program at school. His class sang 5 songs and he did a great job. He requested that I knit him a red vest for Christmas and it was finished the night before.

Lainey and her biggest cousin, Jackson, at the program before the singing started. Notice her beautiful "shiner". She managed to fall backwards off her car and give herself that about 1 1/2 weeks before this picture was taken. It's almost gone, but you can still see it in the picture below with Santa.Grandpa S graciously agreed to be Santa at the program (I'm the chair of the program committee.) Here he is with the family (I was in charge of taking pictures.)

I know I'm forgetting many things, but it's bed time for me!

Tardy Update

The biggest change recently is that H started preschool in mid-September. We've been working on getting into a routine and he really seems to love it. Here are a few pictures from his first day....
This is his class filing inside from the playground. If the weather is okay, we take them to and pick them up from the playground. It's a parent co-op, so I parent help about once a month. It's so much fun to really get to see them interact and meet the other kids. You can see Hubby and L over on the left side of the picture. Here are a few pictures of L. She loves to dance and keeps adding words to her repertoire (but Hubby and I are the only ones that can understand her.)

We had H's Trike-A-Thon fundraiser for his preschool last weekend and he placed 2nd in amount raised! They gave him a voucher for a new helmet and he also got a water bottle and a horn for his bike. He probably rode 50 laps! We're very proud of him! Here are a few pictures my friend, Pam, took for me!

I'll add a couple of updates soon on his first field trip (which is tomorrow.) I'll also try to update a bit more often!

Jenn

Still Busy...

This was an entry that I added pictures for, but never got around to updating.

Here's a pictures of little miss... Here's Hayden and Kate (he's not afraid of pink...)
We had an outing with Grandma and Grandpa Sonny to a local garden...

Lainey and her cousin, Jackson.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We've been busy lately... L has 8 teeth (top 4 incisors and two molars, bottom two middle incisors) and two more coming in! She's talking like crazy although not always recognizable. She's probably got quite a few words (mama, dada, bye-bye, ball, bird, balloon, cat, kitty, dog, meow, yes, shoe, juice... adding more everyday!) We had a couple of Carousel playdates that have been fun. H is excited about preschool in the fall! We've also gotten together with Dennie, Luke and Camille along with Emma, Ella and Alex for lunch. Here are a few pictures of the kids...

L having juice during a lunch date with our friends...L dressed up as a pirate using H's headscarf...

L and A... Her first boyfriend! They are so cute together and he's very sweet to her.

H with his firefly friends. He loves to catch them as often as we'll let him and they "sleep over" in his room to be released the next A.M. Doesn't he look like a big boy?

Hope all is well!

Jenn