Gwyn's First Soccer Game!

Sweet Gwyn had her first soccer game on Saturday morning.  It started out disastrous because she was standing in an ant pile during a talk with the coach before the game...she had hundreds of ant bites on her and probably ended up with over 20 bites.  It was a traumatic experience, but she recovered quite quickly and went on to play goalie in the 2nd quarter...it wasn't too exciting as the ball wasn't down on that end very much:

Her goalie skills weren't truly tested, but she did stop this penalty kick:
She got to play forward in the 3rd quarter and did so well...I was surprised at how fast and aggressive she was...must have been hours of watching Jacob's games:

In the 4th quarter she played defense and again, it wasn't too exciting:

Jacob's soccer game got rained out, so I'll have to get pictures at one of his two games next week.  He did go to his first pack meeting as as Wolf...he was pretty excited since the Fall campout got on the calendar for the end of October.

Annie photobombed Jacob's picture...seriously, where did she learn to pose like that??

Jacob and Gwyn had picture day at school, so we sponge rolled both of the girls hair...too cute!

Pre-bus photo day pictures, we'll have to compare to the actual photos we get back later:

Love this girl and her smile, we estimate she spends at least 1/2 of her days laughing!

I think she's about to move up to Gwyn's old bike with training wheels, this looks like a mini-bike for her!

Annie drew her family, so sweet!

Another picture of her family with Hannah and Elijah as well (they are the littlest ones):

I went to Annie's preschool's Parent Night, I love her self portrait...love the eyebrows and big ears and LOVE the crazy hair!

Gwyn's was the second to last name drawn to be Queen for the Day.  She wrote her name was Gwyn, her favorite color was purple and her favorite food was cake!

This little girl LOVES her big brother!

 I love that my girls love their big brother and that he's good enough to let them beat on him, ha!


Jason and I got to watch the Astros vs Yankees...awesome game!

It was nice to have Rick and Sue in for a four day weekend, they got to do lots of fun things with the kids, see Gwyn's soccer game, eat lunch with Jacob and Gwyn at school, go swimming, and shopping!

Into the Swing of Things!

 We are definitely into the swing of things now, we've got activities galore, the kids are keeping us running around busier than ever, and Annie only does gymnastics right now during the day...I can't even imagine what life will  be like when Annie has after school activities too!  Jacob is doing cub scouts and soccer.  Gwyn somehow managed to be doing gymnastics, soccer, and girl scouts!  We've been busy with play dates galore, Annie and I went up to have lunch with Gwyn one day, and both kids are in the swing of things with soccer practices...Jacob is on the Flames and Gwyn is on the Mighty Mermaids!  Apparently the boys threw out they wanted to be the Pink Ponies, and Brian told him he would not be coaching a team of boys called the Pink Ponies, ha!  Sweet Annie and her buddy Emerson love going to gymnastics, it is their moment in the sun without those pesky older brothers and sisters to steal their thunder, ha!

Gwyn is bringing home some sweet work from Kindergarten, I just love the things that she writes and what she draws:

 She really likes to help with dinner too:

 She is into making lists in a little notebook she got from a McDonald's happy meal:

 Gwyn was dying to have curly hair, and Amy sent a sweet picture of Eva in her sponge rollers and it reminded me of how my mom used to do my hair with pink ones when I was little.  I found some at at CVS and we put them to the test:

 It came out so cute, we're going to try it again tomorrow for picture day at school:

Sweet Annie before school with her pigtails:

 She's been trying out this funny little face:

 I think she is trying to make faces like Jacob:

 Annie has been working on many of these type masterpieces:

 Gwyn has been teaching Annie how to do headstands:

We are trying vegetables all different ways, this was a hit to give them the whole carrot with the leaves and stem and all...Annie said they were eating like bunnies:

 Brian and I both split duties and went to Jacob and Gwyn's back to school night at school.  It was so cool to be in their classrooms and see the things that they have created.  Jacob had a few cool things...here is his self portrait that he moves to answer the question of the day:

 Here is self portrait that was a "guess who I am:"  I quickly guessed based on his hair and the answers to the questions below:

I loved that he described himself as Jolly, ha!

 Apparently he wants to someday be a professional diver like his dad, ha!

 So sweet, love him!

 Gwyn drew herself with her hands on her hip, love it!

 My two funny bunnies:

 Annie and I went to a Little Lights of Houston event where we made sacks of food to take to a local elementary school.  It was pretty fun to do something like that with just her:

 One worn out little pumpkin:

Funny things the kids said this week:
Jacob:  This is epic! (after I let him do his spelling words in chocolate syrup)
Annie:  Jacob is a stink pot.
Me to Gwyn:  What did you do at school today?
Gwyn:  I chased William around. (oh my, it starts already!)
Jacob:  Do you think if I give Ms. Bacon $5, she would let me take off one shoe in class?  (Apparently, she will let you pay her $10 to take off both pairs of shoes as a reward...we're talking fake money here...I told him he needs to aim a little higher than negotiating to take one shoe off!)

Annie's first day of Preschool

Sweet little Annie had her first day of preschool at her school last week.  She is in the Duck class, the same class Gwyn was in two years ago.  She is in there with a few little friends and is loving it.  She doesn't say too much about it, only that she is going to Jacob and Gwyn's school next year.  That is all she talks about, like she is beyond preschool and ready for big kid school like her brother and sister:)

Annie also had her first little gymnastics class.  I wasn't sure how she was going to do since this was really the first thing she has gotten to participate in, poor thing has been dragged to Gwyn and Jacob's things for years, ha!  The friend we were going to gymnastics with called and was going to be 10 minutes late, and I thought for sure Annie would be a little scared, especially since her friend was going to be late, but she surprised me.  As soon as they opened the little door out to the gym area, she bolted out there and was the only one in the middle of the gym and sat on one of the circles.  I guess she had seen Gwyn do it so many times, she knew exactly what  to do and was just bursting for her time to shine!  She loved it!

 Here is a video of her on the balance beam:


Homework has returned with a vengeance.  We practiced spelling words in shaving cream one day, it started out rather tame and I thought, I can so do this on my table with no problems at all:

It started going down hill pretty fast:

All smiles from everyone:

And then it got pretty crazy:

Needless to say, the it took me awhile to clean up, and then I went into the bathroom where the kids had "cleaned up" only to find an even bigger disaster.  And to think I'm an engineer and it didn't even cross my mind to do this outside!!

Both Gwyn and Jacob had soccer practice last night.  This was Gwyn's first soccer practice and she did great!  She loved it, and she even surprised Jacob how well she did.  We went from there directly to Jacob's practice where poor Brian got roped into coaching for the second year in a row.  He doesn't know anything about soccer, so was watching YouTube videos on drills and such.  Luckily, the coach of the other 3rd and 2nd grade boys team is in the same boat, so they worked it out to practice at the same time and location, so they do drills for the first half of practice and then scrimmage the second half.  It worked out well, and we found out one of the boys on our team has an older brother who is the varsity soccer player at our high school and wants to help out...Brian said Jack Pot!!

Annie was excited at her Wii accomplishment of beating Gwyn:

Love this sweet little face:

Annie is still home with me Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we took advantage of the day and went to take Jacob lunch and eat with him:

Playing on the playground during Jacob's soccer practice:

I love Gwyn's drawing of our family, so sweet:

Gwyn has been loving Kindergarten, and was the first go to home with the bucket filler award in her class.  Her teacher also told me about how they do a series of tests to see how the kids think for GT, and one was they put glue on paper and fold it and then they ask the kids what they see in the shapes of glue.  Her teacher said, Gwyn's was a real blob, and she thought oh she just doesn't have anything good to work with.  When she asked Gwyn what she saw, she told her teacher she was holding it the wrong way and had her turn it, and she said, "It's a husband and wife with their feet in fountain."  And her teacher said it looked exactly like that, and she was so surprised she showed the other Kinder teachers and they all saw it.

Jacob's class gives each other little notes, I thought this one was sweet:

Funny things the kids said this week:
Gwyn (after going from her soccer practice to Girl Scouts):  I love this day!
Annie (after yelling for Brian after she went to bed):  I'm sad because I don't want you to go to work tomorrow.
Brian:  I really think she was sad, I don't think she was working me over so she could stay up later:)