Jacob's 1st soccer game as a SWORDFISH!

 Jacob had his first soccer game yesterday.  The team had voted on their name, SWORDFISH, and you have to say it with exclamation to really get the feel for how awesome it is…Jacob has taught this to Annie who yells it and does it quite well.  His team won 6-0…it was really 5-0 but the other team scored a goal for his team by accident.  It was pretty fun, the kids are learning and it was very entertaining to watch.  At one point Jacob’s coach yelled at him to move up 5 steps.  He very dramatically marched off 1-2-3-4-5 steps, all the while not paying attention to where the ball was that went zooming past him, but hey, he listened to the coach and did EXACTLY what he was told.   Jacob LOVES his uniform, he is number 7, and wants to wear it all the time.

Annie is giving me a run for my money this week.  I realized that I had been making excuse after excuse for her, but then it hit me...she is in her terrible twos!  This week she discovered she could tear off the diaper clasps, not on the one she was wearing, but on the stack of new/clean diapers that haven't been used yet.  So, when I went to get a new diaper, I found it to be ruined as she had torn off the diaper clasps.  She climbed up and got the pack of gum that was by in a basket by the phone and proceeded to eat about 8 pieces...so far, I haven't found that this has done any damage.  I also found these little bathroom disposable cups at Bed Bath & Beyond, there were 100 for $1...worst $1 I ever spent!  My thought was that I would put them in the bathroom and the kids could use those after brushing their teeth, well Annie found she could fill them up and dump them all over the place, not fun for me!  Here she is after we went to eat some crawfish, Gwyn picks out her clothes and called her peanut butter cup all day since her dress looked like peanut butter:

 Annie also threw a major fit when Brian took Jacob and Gwyn to tadpoles, this was further compounded by both Gwyn and Jacob trying to explain to her that she was just too little to go and that is why she couldn't go.  We were hanging out, and she was adament about getting this lime, so I let her try it:



Jacob got to pick out a snack to have at school, and he absolutely had to have the HEB brand equivalent of cheese its that were in the shape of the state of Texas...I thought oh no, he's going to grow up to be one of those crazy people around here that have the Texas star plastered on their house!  He then surprised us all the other night at dinner, by picking out the Texas football helmet and saying, "hey, that's the longhorns!" and then he made the sign with his hands!  Brian proceeded to set him straight by showing him how to turn his hand upside down to put the longhorn sign down.  We later read him the "Pistol Pete" book that OSU had sent the kids since they are legacies, ha!

Jacob also tried to test us by lying to us the other day.  Jacob had covered his arms, legs and face with pink dots.  He then came up to Brian and said he didn't know how they got there.  It would have been pretty comical if it had been a joke, but he proceeded to flat out lie about not knowing how they got there.  Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize his parents were both geniuses and although it was hard, we were able to figure out that the dots were not actual chicken pox, but made by himself.  There was further evidence to back this up in that Gwyn told us she saw him marking himself up, and that there was a pink highlighter left out that had a jagged end where Annie had chewed it off, so it made the exact same type of marks as the ones that were all over him.  After about 30 minutes, he finally told the truth.  He did get consequences, but hopefully, we nipped this in the bud, and we are continuing to reinterate with any situation how telling the truth is the most important thing, and I found myself quoting my parents (and the bible) in that "the truth will set you free!"

This was our afternoon entertainment one day.  Our neighbors had a tall pine tree that had died and they had to have it cut down...that is a guy up in that tree with a chainsaw around his waist.  It was pretty amazing how efficient they were, they had obviously done this many times before:

Jacob is really getting into playing games, it is quite entertaining watching him tell Gwyn how to play things, what the rules are, etc.  Here he is teaching her how to play tic tac toe:

Sweet little Gwyn is constantly taking my computer paper to draw/make things, but with a face like that, how can I not give her some paper!

Here are the kids before church this morning.  They were looking pretty cute, but this picture and their expressions don't quite capture what I was seeing!  Jacob was proud for picking out his "fancy church clothes," a striped shirt with plaid shorts!  They were so excited about riding in Daddy's car to church because it is super fast.

We've stayed pretty busy this week.  We are so happy to have Brian home, and not looking forward to him being gone another two times to Norway in the next few months.  We had parent night at Jacob's school, it was fun to be in his classroom, walk through his daily schedule, and see things he has been doing in Kindergarten.  Jason went up and ate lunch with him this week, and was a hit.  I got my permanent crown on this week, and hope to never see a dentist for quite some time!  We went and had ice cream and played at the park with some friends after school one day.  I started back at my Bible study at church on Tuesday mornings, and that has been really nice.  

Here are a few pictures of artwork the kids have done.  I'm loving how much Jacob's writing and drawing is improving with every passing week.

 Here is a picture Gwyn drew of all of her friends...and she is very particular on her suns...she will spend alot of time to make sure her sun has all the right rays coming off of it.

 One of Jacob's writing worksheets which was sent home from school.  We did learn that Jacob got one of his tickets taken from him last week for talking during quiet literacy time, but he did earn it back when he was quiet the rest of that quiet literacy time.  He says he's saving up for 10 tickets to cash in for a special lunch with Anna Lee in the courtyard outside...too cute!

 I let the kids take the halloween catalogue and cut it up.  I didn't think too much of it, until I noticed that not only did they cut out the cute little kids costumes, but also the not so cute adult costumes out of the back of the catalogue.  They were gluing them to paper for a craft, but Jacob was also handing them out as tickets to our neighbor's kids...not my best parenting moment!

I've got to try to  get Annie on video this week.  She has started singing Justin Beiber's song.  She'll go "baby, baby, baby, ooohhh...baby, baby, baby, oohhh"  then she'll follow it up with "diaper, diaper, diaper...ooohhh...diaper, diaper, diaper, ooohhh," because she really does thing he's talking about a baby!  She has also started praying and it is the sweetest thing seeing her close her eyes and squeeze her little fists and say, "JESUS, thank you mommy, daddy, jacob, gwyn, annie, AMEN!"

Funny things the kids said this week:

Jacob (after it rained for the first time in months):  It is raining!  I prayed for it and it rained!!

Annie (as we drive by Chuck E Cheese):  CHUCK CHEESE! CHUCK CHEESE!
Annie (as we pass any bus):  JACOB BUS!

We survived a week without Daddy (barely!)

I love this photo, it is picturesque of Annie who is relishing every moment of being an “only child” when Gwyn and Jacob are both at school.  She is riding in the car in front of the shopping cart at the grocery store, and the first thing she said when she got in was “two wheels!!”  She was super excited to finally be in control of that car all by herself.

Brian was in Norway all week…8 days, not that I was counting…oh, wait, I was!  I’ve learned that I’m not good at the whole single mom thing, and I do appreciate him being here and all that he does.  We couldn’t talk that much due to the time difference, but when we did he asked if the kids were missing him, and my response was always “not as much as I’m missing you!”  Taking the trash out is not fun, watering the yard is even less fun, dealing with a sick kid and a dr appointment is not fun by myself, soccer practice and daily dropping off/picking up kids by yourself is tiring and early morning’s (Gwyn was up by around 5:30 am every morning this week!) are especially not fun.   Jacob was an extra big helper to me this week, and I let him sleep with me 3 nights, he was super excited, and I did find that if I put pillows in-between he and I then I could get sleep as well…he is a smuggler and likes to be all over you when he sleeps.  We survived without him, but did take advantage of meeting friends for an early dinner at Smashburger, swimming with friends and ordering pizza, going to sonic for happy hour drinks, and playing and having dinner with our neighbor and her kids, whose husband was also in China this week! 

Jacob is doing great in Kindergarten, he loves it!  He told me this week that he has 4 friends at school.  He started talking about really wanting to be a walker this week since one of his friends is a walker.  So, Friday, I rode my bike up with the girls in the trailer, and picked him up in front of the school.  I had brought his scooter and helmet, and then we all rode home together.  I told him we could start doing this on Friday’s, but not again until October sometime…we were there about 15 minutes early and it was too hot!  Jacob LOVED being a walker, but is happy to be back on the bus.  They go to the library once/week and they pretty much let them pick out any book they want.  His last two selections were “Worlds worst Earthquakes” and “Worlds worst Tornados.”  Those were some interesting reads…not really, they talk about how many people died in all these different instances, it was depressing, and hard to read to the kids.  We kept trying to leave stuff out, but Jacob is a little too smart for that now.  Thankfully he came home with “Night Cat” this week.   They worked on words with B and M this week, he’s doing so well:

He also had an assignment this week to make a writing folder for his journal writing at school.  We picked out a few pictures, went through some magazines to cut some things out, and then got a few images from the computer.  I love how he did it all by himself (the ideas, the cutting, the gluing, even the writing his name on paper and cutting that out).  It really does represent what he likes:

He's got pictures of a baseball, a soccer, a football, a spider, a scorpion, a grasshopper, an ice cream cone, a cookie with sprinkles, star wars characters, Phineas and Ferb, a tiger, strawberries, an airplane, bacon, the number 5 (since he's 5), a picture of himself swimming, and a picture with Gwyn and Annie.

Gwyn is loving her school as well and making new friends.  She wakes up in the morning and asks if this is a day she is going to school.  When it is a day, she pumps her fish and says, “YES!”  She goes MWF, so on Tuesday and Thursday her and Annie get some quality time together.  Here they are playing outside:

Annie hung out with my mom, Jason and me at the hospital one day last week (thank God, Jason is okay, home and doing well)...she's quite proficient with the iphone:

Gwyn has also decided this week to roll her bike shorts up really short, we are trying to not draw that much attention to it…I’m thinking this is just a phase and since she is 3 it is no big deal, she thinks it is super cool!

Here is a video from Jacob’s soccer practice, he’s in all red (his Buccee’s t-shirt and some “matching” red shorts):

This was supposed to be an bath off-night, I give them baths every other night while Brian is gone, but I ended up having to do two nights in a row since both Gwyn and Annie decided to play in the dirt while Jacob played soccer.  I remember how dirty I must have gotten while playing on the playground or under the bleachers during some of Jason’s practices/games growing up.  This is just the beginning for Gwyn and Annie (who was MUCH worse, but would not let me get a picture of her), who will be having to entertain themselves while Jacob plays sports for many years to come:

 Monkeying around on the playground:

Gwyn wanted to play hopscotch, so Jacob made her this hopscotch board…he did awesome, and I thought it was too cute!

Lastly, check out my awesome bag I won from Matilda Jane!  They had this contest to give suggestions for use of the mesh bags that their clothes came in.  Out of 782 suggestions, mine made the top 25!  I think it is because it is a girls clothing company and most of the other suggestions were things like holding bows, washing sea shells, organizing clips, etc.  Mine was to use them as portable bug catchers for little boys!  See here (http://matildajaneblog.com/mesh-with-matilda-jane-continued/)

Funny things the kids said this week:

Me to Annie as I’m getting her out of the car:  Alright Annie, let’s go into Target.

Annie:  Go Target and go poop. (poor thing thinks every time you go to Target you go poop because that is what Gwyn wants to do. Every. Single. time.)

Jacob:  Let’s rock this thing (another Kindergarten-ism he’s brought home)

Gwyn:  I need a really sharp saw?

Me:  For what?

Gwyn:  So I can cut a bad guys head off (oh my…she obviously has an older brother!)

Jacob:  Guess where I’m going to have my birthday party?

Gwyn:  Laser Quest?

Jacob:  That is where I’m going to have my 7^th birthday party, guess where I’m going to have my 6^th birthday party?

Gwyn:  Chuck E Cheese?

Jacob:  No, I’m going to have it at that place where you can go and see the real Darth Vader and Storm Troopers.

Brian and I (laughing):  You mean the Star Wars Tours at Disney World??

Jacob:  Yes, why are you laughing, it isn’t funny.

Me:  It is a little funny because it would cost A LOT of money to fly all of your friends over to Disney World for your birthday.

Jacob:  We would just get all of Daddy’s money to pay for it.

Brian:  We don’t have that much money, we might need to get some of Jason’s money. (joking)

Jacob:  Yes, and Stacy and Justin, we could just get their money too.

Brian and I (laughing):  Okay, you want to just ask Jason, Stacy and Justin to give us all their money so that we can pay to have your birthday party at Disney World?!?!

Jacob:  Yes, why are you laughing?? (He is dead serious, and we have gone seriously wrong in the parenting department!!)

Gwyn's first day of Preschool

Gwyn had her first day of preschool today!  Cutest little girl ever decked out in her ultra girly Hello Killy dress, light-up twinkle toe shoes, her Duck class bag that her teacher Ms. Tiffany made for her, and her R2D2 lunch box!   I asked her how her day went, and she said it went great.  She said they read books, went on the playground twice, went to music, went to chapel, did a craft, and she went to the Butterfly class.  I asked her why she went to the Butterfly class, and she said, “because I wanted to.”  There you have it, she rules the school already on the first day!  She had a great day, loved it, and is just sad she can’t go back until Friday.  She had done great last week, when we went to meet her teachers for orientation, and I have to admit that I love this school and I'm so excited about this year for her.

Jacob is still doing great in Kindergarten, he’s on his third week now.  He has had little homework assignments each night, from sorting patterns, counting socks, making lists of things we had for dinner, and one night he had to sort the laundry by color.  He was pretty upset we didn’t have more green clothes, and announced that we “REALLY NEEDED” some more green clothes, ha!  I had gone to this French bakery that we like, and he loves dipping the bread in olive oil and begged for me to send that for his snack.  So, I put some Tuscan Bouquet flavored olive oil in a little container, put it inside a Ziploc bag, and sent him 4 slices of bread for his snack.  I was terrified that he was going to spill olive oil everywhere and his teacher would not be very happy with me…turns out he did spill some, but his teacher helped him clean it up…he said it was okay and it was the best snack ever!  The biggest news of the week is that each kid in his class got to throw out a name for their two little water frogs.  Jacob suggested Buster, and it won with the most votes (13).  He was so excited and wanted to tell everyone he knew.  Going to Kindergarten and meeting new friends has its perks…we’ve had two “ice cream socials” after school, and Gwyn and Annie are starting to REALLY like Kindergarten!  What is not to love about getting to pick your own yogurt (which is really just like soft serve ice cream), and then pick your toppings???  

 We love Kindergarten!

 Jacob chose sour gummy worms with Reece's peanut butter cups, yuk!

 Gwyn chose M&Ms and Reece's pieces...then she wanted only the M&Ms and wanted me to pick out all the Reece's pieces, ha!

 Annie ate it all, and loved every bite!

Gwyn, Annie and I went up to Jacob’s school to eat lunch with him on Tuesday, he wanted McDonald’s, which posed a bit of an issue when I realized you couldn’t order happy meals until 10:30, and he eats lunch at his school at 10:45.  I drove quickly over to Starbucks and ordered me a coffee, and then I ordered 3 cake pops for dessert for the kids since they love them.  They get them with Brian, and I wasn’t sure what they were called, so I ordered, two pink ones with sprinkles and one that looks like an eye ball (at least that is how Jacob tells me about it)…they knew what I was talking about and gave me the right ones.  I then drove back to McD’s and I ordered at 10:29, and we made it to school just in time.  He was so excited to see us, and Gwyn loved it.   Annie had a great time, and the girls in his class thought she was just awesome.  Jacob was “King for the Day,” in his class that day, hence the crown.  They get to be the helpers, and he told me as they were drawing names that he was saying in his head over and over, “please be me, please be me,” and then it was!  It was pretty cute.

Gwyn and Annie are getting to be little buddies.  Annie is missing her big brother, but Gwyn is taking this opportunity to recruit her own little posse.  Gwyn basically tells Annie what to do, and she does it.  She says lets go play dress up, I’m wearing this, you wear that.  Annie does it.   This proved to be to my detriment when I decided to try Annie in her big girl bed.  Annie would nap just fine, and slept all night one night fine.  The next night, they both came walking down the stairs carrying their animals at 4 am.  Put them back to bed.  They came down again at 5 am.  Put them back down.  They came back down together at 7:30 am….now Gwyn explains to me that they miraculously woke up at the exact same time in all 3 of those instances, funny huh??  That is what I thought, and I did later learn that Gwyn told me she woke Annie up.  I can just picture her going over to Annie’s bed, and saying Annie, it is time to get up, get your animals and come with me.  Annie says ok, and does it.  What I’ve learned, is that Annie is definetly ready for a big girl bed.  She will take naps and sleep all night if left undisturbed.  Gwyn, however, is not responsible enough to have someone sleeping in her room yet.  I plan to try this in another few weeks when Brian is not out of the country, Annie is not having pain from her eye teeth breaking through, and she doesn’t have a runny nose anymore. 

I took them to a little indoor playscape, and they had a lot of fun together, but Gwyn could do so much more than Annie and Annie did not like that one bit.  Annie is pretty independent, but doesn’t like to be left out.  She will pretty much do what she wants.  The other night Brian took her little bottle of water away at dinner because she almost spilled it twice, and she just got down from her chair, went into the other room, got herself another bottle of water, and then brought it back to the table like, “ha, I showed you, you can have that bottle of water, I’ll just go get me a new one.”  She also has pushing chairs all over the house down to an art.  Whether she wants a napkin, a pacifier, or anything, she pushes a chair and climbs up to get what she wants.  She pushed her chair over the other day, got into my purse, and proceeded to eat every single tic tac in this new container.

 Annie trying to go up the slide, poor thing is just too little:(

The weather has been gorgeous here, it is still hot, but it has been breezy and cooler at night.  We have been playing outside even more, Jacob is loving practicing baseball, throwing, catching, batting with the tee and from me pitching.  He also had his first soccer practice on Labor Day, and he will have another one tomorrow.  One little fiasco we had is that Jacob found two snakes in our yard on Sunday.   They are no more. Enough said.

Never too early to start the slave labor!

 Two seater wagon, no way, it was made for three!

 Gwyn likes to play tennis for about 3 minutes, and then she is done.

 Jacob loves to play in the field next to the house, and when he hits it over the fence, yells "Home Run" and takes off running.

 Annie has got to have a baby with her anywhere she goes.  I used to be able to just give her an animal, but now it has to be a baby.

 Brian usually is the one who does this, but I decided to get creative with dinner one night, to which Brian laughed and said, you actually think that is good??  Well yes, I do, and the challenge is on now, let's see what he does next week!

I could not find a family picture for Gwyn's class that wasn't over a year old, so Jason took our picture for us!

 Gwyn's first set of egg people...I love how she makes sure to put two eyes and a belly button!

We have been busy this week, so much going on and Brian was out of town for a bit in Mobile, Al.  I got my temporary crown on, and go back the week after next for the final appointment.  Other than that, the main focus these past few days has been on Jason, who has hospitalized with pancriatitus.  My mom flew down yesterday, and is here now.  He might be in the hospital through the weekend, and we are praying for his healing and quick recovery.  They have ruled out the major issues, so he won't be having surgery, and are just trying to get him healthy again, as it is very painful. 

Lastly, here is a funny clip of Annie and Gwyn, who beg to put on make-up whenever I'm putting it on:

Funny things the kids said this week:

Jacob (after doing several math problems in the car):  I could do math all day! (LOVE HIM!)

Gwyn:  Jacob called me stinky again.

Nicholas to Gwyn:  Will you marry me?

Gwyn:  I want to marry Ben.  I’ll do craft and then I’ll marry you.

Jacob (dramatically):  You are going to let me be the only kid in the whole entire world who doesn’t get to bring candy for snack at school??  (talk about guilt trip, ha!  He was laying it on think, but still didn’t convince me that EVERY other kid just had candy for their snack)

Jacob:  Can we move to Tulsa to be closer to Nana and Papa and G and Grandpa? (no, I explain about brian working here to buy us a house, etc).

Jacob:  How many days do you have to work to buy a house?

Jacob:  Can we just move to a new house because it doesn’t snow at ours.

Annie:  I poop, I stinky (as she is grabbing her rear)

Annie:  I need pacifier...(I give her one.)  Thank you.   (I drew the line here, if we are having a conversation back and forth over a pacifier, then I don’t think she needs one…we are down to them at naptime and bedtime)

Annie (all. Day. Long…seriously):  Jacob bus.  Jacob on bus.  Jacob bus.

Annie (when asked anything):  okay