Kayden FINALLY Goes to School!

Here is Kayden's school. It is BRAND NEW!!! Which is good because the old one looked pretty shady. They have all day kindergarten here so he is getting thrown right in. Kayden has never gone to preschool, so I was a little nervous about him being able to keep up, but he is excited for school and is doing great!

We had to go to registration the week before school started. They did a whole health assessment. They checked Kayden's hearing, seeing, weight, height, BMI, teeth, and had behavioral assessment survey. Plus Kayden got his last chicken pox shot for FREE! (Which he cried and freaked out at.) Of course Steve had work so I got to go to this madhouse by myself with all 3 kids. I must say they were pretty good going from line to line. (I guess it might be time to try Disneyland.)


Here is Kayden doing his vision test. They recommended that he be tested again by the school nurse. Not sure if that is because he really does have trouble seeing, or because he kept uncovering his eye. (Kayden is in the blue shorts and white shirt)


Jenna just wanted to try it too. (This is the computer room. Plus all of the classrooms have computers in them.)


Here is Kayden the first day of school. The kindergarteners got to go to school the day before everyone else with their parents. Kayden was so excited. I woke him up, and of course he started whining saying that he was tired still. When I told him he had to get ready to go to school he jumped up. That is the fastest he has ever gotten dressed. (We are back to the whining now.)


He has also worn basketball shorts to school EVERYDAY!! It is below 40 degrees here in the mornings now. I am going to try and persuade him to wear jeans or khaki shorts for picture day tomorrow. I bet he ends up in basketball shorts though.

My pictures didn't load in order for some reason. So here is his school from farther away. The K-2 building is on the left (it is in the back) and the 3-5 building is on the right. There is only one way in and out for both buildings. The parking and drop off is in between the buildings (you can see the cars) and the playgrounds and fields are down at the far end between the buildings behind the parking lots. IT IS CRAZY!!! They usually have the police out directing traffic now, but the first week we were dead stopped out on the highway when the TARDY bell rang.


Doesn't it look like we could be in Vegas for all of the change of scenery? :)

Kayden came home from school on Friday and told me there was a fire at the big kids school. I got a little concerned. He was so excited and went on and on about how they saw the smoke and everything. Finally he said there was a fire at the junkyard to. When Steve came home later and I asked him about it, he said there weren't any fires at the school, but there was a fire at the junkyard that day. It is really smart to build elementary schools in the middle of the desert across from a junkyard? Just saying. I did feel better though that the brand new school didn't have a fire.

Here is Kayden sitting at his table. Look at those chairs!! I for sure did not get a chair like that ever in school. His classroom is more high tech than some colleges I went to.

He has an awesome teacher.




The teacher talked to the parents and the students about the school year and her class. (They call the kids "friends" here instead of "students". There are 22 "friends" in Kayden's class.) Then the parents went to the cafeteria for Q&A with the principal while the kids had their morning snack. They get a snack every morning. (So I don't feel bad when Kayden takes too long eating his cereal and I make him leave it.) I also did not ever get a morning snack at school!

After their snack the kids got to go on a tour of the school, while the parents came back and got to sit in those awesome little chairs and have Q&A with the teacher.

Then the parents got kicked out. As we were leaving Kayden and his class happened to be out on the playground. We had a hard time getting them to stop playing so we could take a picture.

This is Kayden's friend Keawe. She is the basketball coach's daughter, and we take her to school with us, while Jenna and Drew stay at her house during the day.


And me and my son who I am so proud of. He wants me to walk him to his classroom every morning, and then he has to give me a big hug and a big kiss, and he also wants one in return. I don't know how long it will last for.


And here is Drew on Kayden's first day of school. (I think Dad was about to cry too. Don't worry Mom didn't though.)


Drew asks me every morning as soon as he wakes up if he gets to go to preschool today, and it breaks my heart to tell him "no." We have tried to get him in, but he is still too young and they won't let him go (we were even going to lie about his birthday to get him in). Here the birthday deadline for schools is June 1st, so he misses it by a ways.

We had parent teacher conference today with Kayden's teacher and she said he is doing really well. He listens, obeys, and knows what he needs to do and how to follow directions. She said she never would have known he hadn't had any kind of schooling before. For kindergarten here, they need to know how to write all of their letters, count to 100, and be able to read and write about 30-40 different words by the end of the year. Kayden knows all of his alphabet now, and counted to 64 so far for his teacher. And he can read the words they have learned so far.

He comes home everyday saying a new little chant that Ms. Abeyta has taught them. For example: "The days of the week are: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc." or "a straight line down is lots of fun, and that is how you make a one."

We got a little confused though when he brought home the Spanish packet for September announcements. We got the gist of most of it, but told Kayden to try and get an English one next time. Kayden's reply was, "or the Portuguese one?"

Everyday when I ask Kayden what he did at school, I usually get something like this: "I only got to play outside for one time today." It is always about how many times he had recess, and how long it was, and who he played with, or what they did. Sometimes he will tell me what activity center he played at before school ended. I have to give him 20 questions to find out what letter they learned, or if he went to music or PE. Such a boy. :)


Just something else I wanted to write down before I forget:

We spoke in church this last Sunday, and I of course cried and had that high crying voice all through my talk. When I was done and came to sit back down in our row, Drew asked, "Mom, why are you crying?" "Because that's what Moms do." He proudly replied, "But Dads don't cry." He makes me laugh everyday!! He also gives me stress anxiety everyday, but it's worth it!!

New Picture

Thanks for the comments on the new picture. We tried to take family pictures last minute before Steve left. I was going to put up the good picture (which isn't really that good because everyone was being difficult), but then I thought that this one was reality for our family. So why not show everyone what reality is for us. Every time I look at it I love it more and more!!

Here is the "perfect little family, not really reality" picture

Drew had just woken up and doesn't have socks on. Kayden wouldn't put shoes on so I gave up. I just grabbed clothes out of drawers and they are all wrinkly. That is pretty much life lately.


Jenna didn't like the grass and just wanted to be picked up. She has since decided the grass is great and I can't keep her off of it when it is all wet.

And Drew wouldn't sit still to take a picture.

Drew the Disaster

This is how I think of Drew as I clean up mess after mess from him. He is just busy all the time, and it seems that whatever he is doing ends up in a mess. It is a good thing he is so cute making all these messes.

This last week was a hard week. It has been raining nonstop all week. The boys are driving everyone crazy. Drew keeps wanting to go outside and I won't let him because even if it isn't raining at the moment everything is wet and cold.

So Grandma decided she was going to make the boys some play dough. And this is how we found Drew.

The neon green food coloring actually came out of his shirt faster than it got off of his hands. Too bad he didn't turn himself green the week before on St. Patrick's Day.

Here are the boys playing with their play dough.


Kayden said that these are supposed to be cookies with candles on top.


Drew then went and got the sprinkles and put sprinkles on his "cookies". So then Grandma had to get the sprinkles off of the playdough.

It was just one thing after another to clean up all day.

We also had a huge cake disaster. Grandma had to make two chocolate cakes for the youth activity. So she had them sitting on the counter ready to go. When she came home from an errand there were slashes through the top of one and a huge chunk of cake gone.

Kayden was sitting at the table having himself some cake. He llllllluuuuvs cake! Grandma thought I had given it to him, and I thought Grandma had told him he could have some. Grandma was not very happy, but she got another cake mix and made another one to replace the one Kayden had demolished.

Grandma had just gotten the 3rd cake out of the oven and it was sitting on the counter cooling. Well the cake monster must have come back because when she came back in the kitchen the 2nd cake was now all slashed up and ruined. Now we are worried about why Kayden is slashing cakes.

So Kayden was sent to his room and when he came out I helped him make ANOTHER cake.

We ate cake #1 plain. Grandma salvaged cake #2 by flipping it over and making some delicious cream cheese frosting for it. Cake #3 and Cake #4 actually made it to the youth activity unharmed.

What a day! Grandma was exhausted!!!

Conversations with Kayden

Scene: Wiping Kayden's bottom

Kayden: I went diarrhea.

Mom: Does your tummy hurt?

Kayden: No. I think me and Drew ate too much gum?

Mom: Where did you get gum from?

Kayden: Uncle Weston's room. There's two pieces left. Do you want one of the last two pieces of gum? We ate all the gum.

Mom (mental note to go find the last two pieces of gum and now I know where that blue gum came from that Kayden had all over his hands last night)

Attention Aunt Sarah

Dear Aunt Sarah,

I know that you are very busy, but when you have some time will you Please come and cut my hair? This morning I woke up with it looking like this!! My mom tried to wet it and comb it, and so did I, but it just went right back to the way that it was. Mom doesn't know what to do with it. I am not an adorable cute girl anymore because I have this crazy hair and it is getting in my eyes and sticks out all over in my headbands. And Mom keeps trying to put hats on my head to cover it up, but I don't like them and have to keep taking them off. So please help me Aunt Sarah!! I will smile and laugh, and and show you how I can crawl and climb the stairs, and give you a big slobbery kiss.

Your favorite niece,
Jenna

PS. Drew just had to take his picture since Mom was taking mine.

Digging Out

It started raining yesterday early morning. By afternoon the rain turned to snow, and this is what we got to wake up to this morning after snowing all night!! And it is still going!!

Here is Steve digging out his car. Check out how high that snow is on the sidewalk. We park right in front of the house so there is less to dig.


After a while our neighbor came over to help Steve. He is a lot faster than Steve, but he has a lot bigger shovel too!

He cleared the whole front of our house in about 5 minutes.

Steve posted a picture on his facebook of the snowman him and Kayden made yesterday when it has first started snowing. Here was his snowman this morning.


Here is the front of the house this morning.


Here is the original front of the house.


And here is the park across the street all covered in snow.


This is a huge branch that fell down in our driveway. (Good thing we don't park there in the winter since it's so far away from the house. And glad it fell in our yard instead of the other way on top of our neighbor's trailer.)


Here is our backyard. It was a picture perfect winter wonderland. The trampoline has snow all the way up to the top of it now. The trees got so heavy that you could see snow falling off them all day long whenever you looked out.


This is a view from out of our garage. You can kind of see how high the snow was.


And here is me in the snow that Steve pushed me in. (I just got out of the shower so don't judge.)


I kept going and watching out the window all day. I LOVE IT!!! Maybe I won't love it as much tomorrow morning when I have to go to work at 5am, but today I still love it.

Playing in the Leaves

I think that we just attract leaves. In Omaha, everyone else had some leaves in their yard, but our yard was always totally covered with leaves. It is the same way here now too. I haven't seen anyone else having to rake their leaves yet, but our yard is already covered and most of the leaves are still on the trees.

I thought it was a lot of work in Omaha raking leaves, but that was easy compared to raking leaves with two little boys running through all of your piles!

I don't ever remember playing in the leaves growing up (Oh yeah, Vegas doesn't have a Fall.) so it was so fun to watch the kids. I went a little picture crazy. So enjoy.



















Look at that tongue!!





Running through the leaves







Jenna loves being outside and watching her brothers. She also loves being bounced on the trampoline...until she gets bounced over.



I swear I don't have favorites. Jenna is the only one that would sit still for me to take pictures.
















Here is Kayden's way of picking up the leaves.