Class Parties

Brynlee had her class party this last week. I always love going to her school and seeing her in her element. Here she is all dressed up as Rudolph.

Here are the herd of Rudolphs that attend her school. All ready to hear a Christmas Story from Miss Becca, their teacher.

Brynlee's Turn

Little Miss Bryn has been growing up way too fast lately.  She has such a fun sweet sass to her  but I am always amazed at how sweet and caring she can be.  She definitely has a tender heart and enjoys 'mothering' those around her.  Sometimes this is a big help...  other times I have to remind her that I am the mom and I'll take care of it. 

She is learning so much at Special Start Preschool.  She has so many friends, I think it's a pretty even tie on what she likes best at school... learning or socializing.  Every 2 weeks they focus on a letter, color and shape, then they get to bring objects in for show and tell that correspond.  She absolutely loves this and has to have something new to take every day.  They also get to do gymnastics as one of their rotations during preschool.  This is probably the thing I hear most about.  She is always begging to get signed up for the 'real' class.  One thing at a time, is what I tell her. 

{Bryn and her class when they had a Policeman come visit} 

Her favorite part is when she got to sit in the back of the police car... where the bad guys sit.

{Bryn and her classmates playing in the parachute on PJ Day}

Bryn is also thriving in her ballet/tap class that she takes once a week at the Walton Life Fitness Center.  She has been chosen as "Princess for the Day" a couple times.  When this happens she gets to wear a "beautiful tutu and tiarra" and stand up by the teacher the entire time and lead the class in all their exercises.   They are learning the dances for their recital.  They'll be dancing to a couple of songs from Mary Poppins.  She comes home each week and practices her little heart out.  It's quite the show to watch.  She'll be in the kitchen while I'm making dinner saying;  "first I do this  and my hands do this, then when the songs says this, I do this and my feet do this, then when the songs says this I do this and then ....." on and on and on...going a million miles a minute.  I'll be honest.  Sometimes I make her practice silently.  But it's so fun to watch her do something she really loves, and something she's really good at.   It makes me smile. 

I just love this little girl.  I'm am so not ready for her to grow up.  I'm having way too much fun with her right where she's at.   Sass and all.

Interview Time

Please excuse the little helper... he was so interested we decided to do one for him!

To Come: Interview with The Tan Man

Heart Day = Heart Hair

I found this on She Does Hair blog. I knew Bryn would love this and just had to try it for Valentines. Besides, Bryn keeps asking to get her hair chopped, and I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do 'do's' like these. When she went to playgroup that day we found out that 2 of her friends had the same idea! Way too cute!

Heart Day Parties

As usual with the holidays Kade and I were able to go to Bryn and Tanner's Valentines Parties at their schools. It is always fun to go see them in there element and hear the stories their teachers have to share. Here are some pictures to share from each of the parties.

Kade always makes himself at home when we go to Bryn's school. Thank goodness there are things for him to do. It helps me be able to watch Bryn (at least a little bit).

Eating snacks.

Bryn getting ready to play with the parachute. It was so fun to watch her interact with the other kids in the class. She really loves her class and her teachers.

This is at Tanner's Party. When we walked in the classroom, Tanner was at the 'snack' station. It was pretty funny to see Kade kick Tan out of his chair, climb on up and start eating his food. I think he ate more of it than Tanner did. I couldn't even tear his eyes away from the plate long enough to take a picture. I really don't think Kade enjoys being the youngest. He honestly thinks he should have been born first!

I just realized I didn't get any other pictures from Tanner's party. I think I was a little preoccupied with keeping Kade from tearing up the classroom.

Fancy Nancy

This past weekend Brynlee was invited to a Fancy Nancy Birthday Party. Hands down the most fun party I have ever gotten her ready for. In preparation we got out our favorite Fancy Nancy Book and looked through the pages to find just what combination of outfits would be just right to be called "Fancy" This is what we came up with.

All fancied up!

I really think I had just as much fun as Bryn did for this party!

Winter Weather

The kids have been begging for the snow to come- unfortunately I don't have any power over the snow. But the Ice definitely came. Luckily we were only out of power for an hour, some were definitely not as lucky. Greg was able to take a few days off work, the kids were out of school for a week, in fact, the whole town shut down. But, we didn't sit home bored. We had a GREAT time. Here are our adventures.

We received quite a bit of ice during the storm. It really was beautiful, but very dangerous as well. We were grateful for a warm, stable home that night.

Kade really wanted to be outside (as always) but I don't think it all lived up to his expectations. Especially when mom uses him as a prop for her pictures. Poor kid.

Greg and the kids spent hours out being pulled on a sled behind the four wheeler. Kade and I joined them for a little bit and it was so fun to watch Tan hand on with all his might while Greg tried to buck him off. Luckily Tanner only really took one fall and he quickly found a greater motivation to stay on the sled. ICE. It may LOOK just like snow, but it definitely doesn't FEEL just like snow when you fall!

Playing in the backyard. Nothing slowed these kids down!

Art Gallery

Ok, so this will be my last post for the night. I guess I've kinda been saving them up.

Saturday morning was a slow one for us, the kids disappeared upstairs and this is what I found.

They had created their own art and had taped it up on the wall by the stairs. Creating their own Art Gallery. They took me on a tour and informed me that they were closed on Mondays. I love these two kids, they are always coming up

with something that blows me away.

Brynlee

Lately Bryn has been cracking me up. Out of the middle of no where she will say, "Old MacDonald, that reminds me of a song..." then she'll break out in a song that she makes up as she goes. Here is a sample of her up and coming album. Enjoy!

(You'll have to pause the music at the right.)

Brynlee

So I am about a week late...but here we go. Bryn started preschool this past week and is completely in love with it. I went in to drop her off and as soon as she had her back pack put away she leaned in to me and said "Ok Mom, I want you to go now." Uhhh, I wasn't quite sure how to react. I convinced her I needed a picture first then we'd head out. She must have had a pretty good time too because when I went to pick her up she didn't want to come home! I literlly had to pick her up and carry her to the car while she was kicking and screaming. I am trying not to take this personally because she was also upset that she didn't have enough to bring home in her back pack. (I'll fill you in on a little quirk my little girl has... she loves to fill any bag and every bag she has with anything and everything she can find. If there isn't something in every pocket the bag isn't full enough. Just to get her ready for school I had to empty out her school back pack 2 or 3 times.)

So she is completely loving preschool and I am enjoying my time alone with Kade, but I'm not quite sure I want my little girl and big boy to keep growing!

Wendy

About 3 weeks ago Bryn and I found a caterpillar crawling around on the carrot leaves in the garden. I had recently watched an episode of “John and Kate plus Eight” where they caught caterpillars and watched them change into butterflies, and I did the same thing as a little girl. So, we caught this caterpillar and Bryn lovingly name it Wendy. We have had a great time watching it grow and grow and grow. Watching Wendy eat it is no wonder how a plant can be devoured in such a short time.

After about a week Wendy climbed up to the top of the jar and attached herself to a stick (I really don’t know if it is a Wendy or a Wendell, but we refer to it as a ‘her’ because Bryn would be devastated otherwise.) It seemed to take a couple days for this part of the process to complete, but we woke up one morning and Wendy was completely in a cocoon. For the next couple days we watched Wendy and noticed that it wasn’t a quiet process that was going on inside that cocoon. There was definite movement and ‘twitching’ going on. I was completely enthralled. The ‘twitching’ only happened for a day or so, then all was still.

Now it is about 2 weeks after Wendy went into a cocoon and this morning we woke up to a wonderful surprise. Wendy had come out of her cocoon and we had a beautiful butterfly. The kids and I were a little excited and maybe a little anxious because we weren’t sure what to do with her next. We took her out back and opened up the jar so she would be able to ‘be free’. Only I think we were a little premature in our actions. Wendy wasn’t quite ready to fly away. We watched her walk around on the patio for a few minutes, and we were able to get a few great shots of her spreading and drying her wings. She was quite beautiful. But it was obvious the patio was not where she wanted to be. So we got her popsicle stick and helped her into a bowl and carried her to the flowers out front. It didn’t take long to see that this was where she wanted to be. The kids and I just sat and watched. It was simply amazing.

Our tummies finally reminded us that we hadn’t eaten breakfast so we went inside and gave Wendy some privacy. A few hours later Tanner and I went out front to check on her. She had climbed to the top of the flowers and had her wings completely spread out. I had a chance to take one more picture then she was off. It caught us a bit by surprise, but it didn’t take her long to disappear.

Bryn was disappointed that she wasn’t able to see Wendy fly away, but came to peace with it when she remembered that Wendy was flying off to find her family. See the dark spot in the top right hand corner? That's our Wendy! Fly Wendy Fly!

Okie Dokie

I realized today that I sounded a bit bummed on my last post. I admit, it probably wasn't the best time for me to be telling you all about it, the 'mommy guilt' was still hanging pretty heavy. So, here is an update on my Bryn.

Things went pretty well with the extraction. The biggest complaint Bryn had was that she couldn't eat before we went in to have it done.

Once we arrived at the Surgical Center she wanted Greg to take her back into the room where he was able to hold her while she breathed in the gas. Once she was asleep he came back to the waiting room and it was probably only 30 minutes or so before she was waking up and we were able to go back with her. The Doctor said that everything went just as expected. The tooth was broken in 3 other spots, so it was more of just taking the puzzle apart and then convincing the root to come too. The only hiccup was that they decided they wanted to put an IV in her, but after sticking her 4 times and being unable to find a vein they decided not to. Her poor little arm has quite a few bruises. She woke up pretty easily, and wanted to go home right away. On our way out the nurse stopped us in the lobby just in time for Bryn to get sick. Thank goodness for tile floors!

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We just tried to catch up and make sure she was happy. I am glad kids bounce back quickly, but I think a bit of Bryn's sweetness was knocked out with her tooth! :) Now we just wait for 3 or 4 years for the next tooth to fill the space!

Message from Bryn

Translation:

Hi Friends. I lost my tooth today. Cheese.

We were just leaving the swimming pool this afternoon. Bryn had her towel wrapped around her and was running to catch up with the other kids when she tripped over her towel and landed face first into the sidewalk. I didn't see everything happen, but I remember the sound, and I knew then that something had happened to a tooth. She stood up with a fat lip and scrapes on her nose and cheek. Her tooth was still in place but as I looked closer I knew it wasn't going to stay that way. On the way home she would say "I got it out, here mom" and I would put my hand back and she would place another piece of her tooth in my hand. Not a fun feeling. Luckily we were able to get her into a Pediatric Dentist within the hour and he pretty much told us, as nicely as he could, that there really wasn't anything that we could do. It looked like the tooth had not only broke off almost flush with the gum line, but it was pushed back up into the gum as well and with that combination there just wasn't enough of a chance for the (remaining) tooth to survive any sort of crown. He referred us to a Oral and Facial surgeon to have the remainder of the tooth extracted and we went straight there. On the ride down the guilt really set in...my beautiful little girl. I know there wasn't much I could have done to prevent this from happening, but isn't it my job as her mom to make sure it doesn't happen? Anyway, we arrived at the surgeon's office and spoke with them for 5 mins then they sent us home because they couldn't use the anesthesia if she had eaten with in the last 6 hours. So, tomorrow morning at 8:30 we take our little girl to have the rest of her front tooth taken out.

I know I am going to hear a lot about her finally fitting in with the locals here in Arkansas, so I'll get that joke out of the way before anyone else tries it. (Truth is that I am a bit sensitive about this topic right now and I don't think I could really handle hearing this joke right now anyway.)

Tonight as I was tucking her in bed I she said she wanted her tooth back to be a tooth. Poor girl. I hope things go well tomorrow. Just makes me a little nervous.

But then again, I was just reading on my cousin's blog about their friend who just lost their 1 year old little boy this week... kinda puts things in perspective... after all, it is just a tooth.

Interview Time

I just started asking Bryn a bunch of questions this morning and thought it would be a priceless thing to have record of.

Brynlee:

Tanner:

(Sorry about the craziness, but he is who he is, and we love him for it.)