First Day of School

Yesterday, the kids went back to school.  It was a rough day for me - Grace was starting her last year of elementary school and Adam was starting his first year of school.  Needless to say I thought I could keep it together but as soon as I hugged him, the tears flowed.  Grace gave me a reassuring pat on the back to let me know that Adam would be ok.

A while ago I saw this idea on Pinterest - make a shirt with your child's graduation date in a size that they will hopefully fit in by the time they are a senior and have them wear it the first day of school every year.  Well here's Adam wearing his shirt and in his normal clothes

 

Grace likes to make her own fashion statement so here she is, ready to take on 5th grade.  She's grown a lot since her kindergarten picture.  In fact when I compared her first day with his first day, I found that she was the same height as Adam back when she started school in 2009.  So look how much she's grown when you see her standing next to Adam.

I have this thing about taking pictures from behind with these kids so here are my sweet babies walking to school.  This is our tradition - walking to school the first day and he was really excited to do it.  Of course by the time we got to school his back hurt from carrying his book bag (full of school supplies) but he made it and loved walking in to school with his big sister.

Lots of parents were taking their kids into school so the line was long to sign in and get a pass.  But once we got through the line, Adam told me he knew where he was going so we followed him to his classroom (this of course is helpful since when he goes back on Friday I won't be there with him).

He was very excited to see his teacher and her assistant.  Mrs. Perry is the lady on the right and Mrs. L (the assistant) is on the left. They were ready to help him unpack and start the day.  He even brought them both a gift (you all know why, to butter them up before he showed them the real Adam - LOL).

For the first time ever, I requested a teacher for Grace.  All of her teachers have been wonderful and I know that all the 5th grade teachers are great too.  However, this is a pivotal year for her and she needs a firm hand to guide her as she prepares for the depths of middle school next year.  So after making a comment to the principal and receiving her permission, I sent in a request for Mrs. Kopp.  She's a former Marine, the chair of the 5th grade teachers and she doesn't take any crap.  Not only did I want Grace to have her but that's who she wanted (she also has been in class with her son).  Of course I don't know how excited she was about the choice when she came home with her first project assignment.

  At the end of the day, they took the bus to Tutor Time (their after school facility) and I picked them up a little early to take them for a treat to celebrate the first day.  We went to Sweet Frog to enjoy frozen yogurt.  But it's more like cup of candy with a little yogurt on the bottom.  I'd probably be better off just taking them to a candy store :)

After their treat, we went home to relax a bit before dinner.  Thankfully Monday is our free night so we didn't have any activities to squeeze in.  When David got home from work he was anxious to hear about their days. Grace came out of the playroom to give a quick recap and then she told us that Adam was asleep.  Sure enough there he was curled up on the couch.  I should have known he would fall asleep.  As we were driving home from the yogurt store he was rubbing his eyes.  When I asked him if he was tired he uttered one of the best lines to ever come out of his mouth - "well I didn't get a nap today".

Our Beach Trip (in photos)

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post beach photos sooner, but getting ready for school got in the way.  Here are a few of our favorite pictures from this year's trip with a quick summary.

We took the kids to the Ocean Drive Pavilion in North Myrtle Beach where they got to ride a whole lot of rides and see Uncle Sammy, we hung out at the beach (more than the pool), went to Broadway at the Beach to buy more useless crap (that we could totally buy at home) and we finally walked the Apache Pier which takes you pretty far out into the ocean.  We had a great time!

Summer Fun

It's hard to believe how fast summer is going by this year.  School just ended 7 weeks ago and the kids start back on August 25 (4 weeks).

I feel like we haven't stopped since the summer started but in reality we're just doing the same things we do year round.  Grace has karate 2-3 times per week and golf once a week while Adam has swimming every Saturday.

We've really just been doing little things here and there and hanging out at the pool.  Both kids had a movie on their summer bucket list so we made sure to do that.  We've also gone to a Kannapolis Intimidators game and hope to visit Carowinds before summer ends.  And of course, we've got our beach trip!!

Here's a little taste of our summer:

Summer is Here!

Well school is over and my wallet just shrank in fear - yup summer is here and the daycare bill has just gone up 31% for the next 10 weeks.  But when that 10 weeks is up, we'll have a 5th grader and a kindergartner.

Let's talk about the rising 5th grader.  She finished 4th grade on Tuesday with all As and 1 B for the entire school year.  She participated in chorus (which I hope she will continue next year), continued with karate and is now back on the golf course.

 The little one is ready to start blazing his trail.  He "graduated" from pre-school and is enjoying these last few weeks preparing for kindergarten.  He just finished up his first year of baseball and has signed up for soccer in the fall and then wants to play basketball after that (he's my boy - all three sports that mom played).

We are looking forward to summer - movies, the pool, the beach and no traffic on the way to Tutor Time every morning!!

Running in a Million Directions at Once

We are really getting the hang of this multiple activity thing.  Case in point, last Saturday we had a full day that was carefully planned out and the slightest miscue could result in catastrophe - well not really but it could upset a 4 or 10 year old.

Our day started at the baseball field - where Adam has been doing very well.  He's gotten better at stopping the ball and his hitting is improving.  Now if we could just get him to stay on his side of the field we'll be ok

After that I had an appointment, Grace had black belt karate class and Adam had a birthday party to attend.  Things did overlap a bit and I forgot to factor in other people.  But it all worked out as we split duties and everyone got where they needed to be.

The final destination for the day was the Kannapolis Intimidators game where Grace would be singing the National Anthem with the Odell Chorus.  They did a great job!  And we had fun at the game.

By the time it was all said and done we covered a lot of ground and still made it home in time to watch the All-Star race!

Good Intentions

I started this blog with good intentions - I was going to share pictures and stories about the things going on in our corner of the world but guess what I've been too busy enjoying our corner of the world that I don't get to update the blog; It's not that I don't want to.

So rather than fill you in on every single detail of the last, gulp, 5 months here's the highlights

Grace - earned straight As on her 2nd quarter and 3rd quarter report cards; became a black belt in karate; started golfing again

Adam - enrolled in kindergarten which begins in August; continues swimming; started playing baseball

Of course we've done a few things since our trip north at Christmas - we played in the February snow, we went to the beach in March and we spent Easter at the beach.  Here we are now in May - 4 weeks of school left.

Here's a couple pictures from the past few months.

Achievements and Accomplishments plus a little fun

This post is all about catching up with photos.  I forget that everyone is not on Facebook so I tend to skip the blog updates.  So here goes:

Halloween - Adam was a Ninja Turtle and Grace was Mordecai from Regular Show

Shortly after Halloween Grace received her report card for the first quarter.  She had three A's and one B which put her on the Honor Roll.  Right after that we received a notice that Grace was invited to the award ceremony for the UNC Research Institute Art Contest that she had entered over the summer.  To our surprise she won first place in the 4th - 8th grade category.  The topic was Keeping Your Neighborhood Healthy.

Thanksgiving was spent at home.  This year the kids made the pumpkin pie!!

As I've mentioned before Grace made the We R Odell chorus and this weekend was her first performance.  They sang at the Cox Mill High School Christmas Bazaar.  She was pretty awesome.  Can you spot her in the photo?

When the performance was over we walked around and took a moment to visit with Santa.  Adam told the big guy exactly what he wanted while Grace informed us that she wrote him a letter and that he knows what she wants.  Thank God only Mom and Dad know Santa's address.

Sunday, Adam went to a birthday party at a local stable.  He never took to the horses when Grace was riding, but he was all about getting on that horse with his friends.

So now we are all caught up.  Grace turns the big 1-0 this Friday and then we have Christmas and Adam's birthday on the horizon.  Thanks for checking out our blog.  I really promise to do better.