California Trip

One of our best friends moved to California at the beginning of summer, so Kayden and I headed down to visit her and the family, while also hitting up Aunt Sissy on our adventure.  We had a great time and loved every minute of it.  We did so many fun activities and enjoyed being with our friends and exploring parts of California I haven't been before. 

We showed up on a Monday and after almost forgetting our carry on on the airplane, we met Linzie, Emily and Parker at the baggage claim.

Anyway we spent the first day chilling at their new house and learning what California heat is all about.  It was so stinkin' hot....like really hot.

Then we headed to the fair on Tuesday, where it was even hotter than the day before, I didn't know that was possible.

Um, if at all possible, enlarge the above picture and look at the terrified look on Emily's face!  I'm pretty sure the whole fair could hear her screams of panic.

 

 

I may or may not have consumed fried peaches, mac and cheese stuffed burger, capt' crunch chicken burger and a wine slushy. 

We did activities through out the week and spent some lazy mornings letting the kids play and watch tv while Linzie and I chatted and drank coffee and enoyed the air conditioning.

We took some walks around the neighborhood and let the kids ride bikes to a couple parks.  We tried some new, and amazing shaved ice dessert and a few other restaurants.  Linzie and I snuck away one night to get pedicures, and another night for massages and shopping. 

One day we went to a World of Wonders museum then walked around a little town. 

Then on Friday we met up with Aunt Sissy at the Jelly Belly factory, and took the tour around.  Sadly, the factory wasn't really operating that day, for whatever reason, but a good time was had anyway.

After the Jelly Belly factory we headed home with sissy and enjoyed chatting and lounging around the rest of the day.  Then Saturday we got up and headed to Six Flags and spent the whole day there, allowing Kayden to take the lead.  We had a great time and were all tired by the end. Then it was time to get up Sunday morning and head home.  Thankfully I didn't forget my luggage on the plane this time! 

We had a great time being in California, but were excited to come home and see Kyle and get back to a summer schedule. 

Fox Hollow Farm

Towards the middle of July Kayden and I met a few friends at Fox Hollow Farms in Issaquah and it was a blast.  We had a great time and it was a great farm.  They had all kinds of things, not just farm animals.  We saw five day old piglets, a few week old baby kittens, and baby chicks, as well as, many traditional animals.  They had a bounce house, electric hot wheel tractors and jeeps, a corn box (imagine a sand box, with corn instead of sand) and mini play houses, that adults couldn't fit in and pony rides.

The price was right for the amount of activities and there was a creek the kids could play in, had we had the time.  Picnic tables allowed us to bring our own food in and not over pay for bad cafeteria food. 

Kayden really loved that place and I wish we could have had gone one more time this summer.

 

 

We had a great time at Fox Hollow!



Too Long

It has been way too long since I posted last and I'm saddened that I haven't kept up with my "Once a Week" goal I made for myself last year.  I was going to just take the first month of the year off from blogging to give me a bit of a "breather", if you will, and I just got in a rut of not posting hardly at all!  Ugh....

So, I am hoping to catch up, and things will most likely not be in chronological order, but I'll try.  So, lets move on, shall we?

Our summer has been pretty busy.  At the start of the summer I was elated because I thought all we had planned was our California trip and Soccer Camp, but we have managed to stay VERY busy. 

One of the first things we did at the start of summer was go to the Cougar Mountain Zoo with some friends.  We really like this zoo because it isn't too expensive to get into, and it's small and not overwhelming.  On this particular visit they had four six week old wolf pups and they were too.stinkin.cute!  I tell ya, if I could, I would have taken one home with us!  Kayden LOVED them too.  All the kids were gone from the presentation, except Kayden, he was still sitting there watching the cubs. 

We had a great time visiting the zoo and seeing friends. 

Preschool Graduate!

We officially have a preschool graduate in our home and he happens to be the cutest preschool graduate I know!  I am bias, I know.

He survived preschool with flying colors and he loved every minute of it.  If only I could have gotten some better pictures of him during the ceremony and afterwards, but I have to remind myself he is pretty ornery when it comes to getting his picture taken, so I should be grateful I got what I got.

Since this graduation has ended, we have attended Kindergarten open house and his Kindergarten assessment and both *almost* had me crying!  Kindergarten, already? Come on.

Honestly, I have no idea where the last five years have gone....play dates, three years of preschool, making new friends, making a new house a home, I suppose, but I never expected to see Kindergarten come so soon.  Ugh.

So, here's to a fun and crazy summer before the real schooling begins!

I tried my hardest to convince Kayden to wear a suit, but he just wouldn't.  Stubborn child of mine.

 They had a talent show for the kids after the ceremony, it was so stinkin' cute. 

 Apparently I was the only one who heard the photographer (Christy, maybe?) yell "funny faces".

Gold Belt

Kayden earned his Gold belt in Karate in April.  He has done so well in karate and he loves every class.  He spends the entire class time with a perma-grin on his face, I love it!  I am grateful he has found something he enjoys so much.

Easter

Well, I am slightly behind on this whole blogging thing.  I did so well last year with posting once a week, and now I have fallen off the bandwagon. 

So, we had a fun Easter.  We invited friends and family over and had a good a great time spending it with everyone.  The weather was great, couldn't have been any better and the kids loved being outside searching for eggs and playing. 

How Kayden Almost Lost His Star Day

Kayden's preschool has each kid be the Star of the Day where they get to be the line leader, fill out an "All About Me" poster, gets a special bracelet, gets to ring the bell to signal the end of  outside time and the end of play time, they also get to bring in a special collection, get to use a special pointer to point to the different things on their poster and get to decide what song is sang and what book is read for the day, and each kid gets to say one compliment about the Star of the Day.  It's.A.BIG.Deal, people, like big.  All the kids talk about who's next and what collections are being brought in, it's very fun for them, as well as the parents.

So, Kayden happened to be first on the list, after one boy had to reschedule.  So, the day before Kayden's Star Day he is sent home with THE poster.  We sit down to fill it out and oh boy, does all hell break loose. 

"Mom, you didn't write my name the right way!"

"What, yes I did, K-A-Y-D-E-N, what is wrong with it?"

"No, you didn't use the write letters!"

Eyebrows furrowed to almost form a unibrow, looking at his name, silently mouthing each letter to ensure they are all there and in the right order, then adding a very confused look to my now formed unibrow.

"Honey, what are you talking about?"

"You weren't suppose to make all the letter's big."

Hmm, wondering how I could rectify the problem, since my grown up self used a sharpie to write his name, not a pencil.  Something I am beginning to understand is very important when you have a preschool child, and I imagine it won't change until he hits high school.  AND we were only given one poster, ONE.

Not coming up with a solution, and trying to convince him it's ok and there isn't a single thing to get upset about, only upsets him more.  He melts down...fast.  I turn my back and send him to find a quiet place to calm himself down since all I was doing was making the issue worse. 

I put the sharpie up, to where I don't think he can reach it, because what mom in her right mind would place a sharpie within a five year olds reach?  I then turn my back to do the dishes and whatnot.  I turn around and that little sneak, who was screaming thirty seconds ago and is now oh-so-quiet had reached the darn sharpie and scribbled his name out.  Like, SCRIBBLED it out, there was not even a point on any of the letters that was visible, NOT A POINT, I tell you.

And I, who apparently can also be oh-so-quiet, screamed, "KAYDEN".  He jumped about a mile high, having not realized I had turned around from doing the dishes to catch him, and screamed and started balling his eyes out...again.  This project is not fun...at all!

Ugh, once again I send him off to find a spot to calm down, as I need to do the same.

Once we have calmed ourselves down, I call him back to the table and have him pick out a couple pictures that he would like to put on his poster.  There are several spots to fill out, including, "What I want to be when I grow up.", "My Favorite Place", etc.  One of the boxes asks to include a picture of what you look like and a picture of what your family looks like.  So, I offer a few different pictures to Kayden and he selects one picture of him and Katie.  I cut the 4x6 to fit in the box and I started with the legs.

OH MY GOODNESS! 

"You cut off my legs!"
"I have no legs!"
"You cut them off!"
"Me and Katie don't have legs!"
"I want my legs back!"
"Put them back, mom."
"You ruined my legs!"

I have no idea what to do at this point.  Like, huh?  I offer to order him a new picture of him and Katie so he can put it in his room AND the legs would be attached.  Nope.  I explained I had to cut the picture so it would fit in the box.  If I left the picture the original size it would cover all the letters and categories up and people wouldn't know what each one was.  I was a magician with no tricks up my sleeve.  He was beyond convincing, rationalizing, or explaining at this point.

He told me he doesn't want to do his homework, he doesn't like homework and he wasn't going to do it.

I gave him a choice of calming down for ten minutes or calling his teacher to explain to her why he wasn't going to have a Star Day and there would be no making it up and doing it another day.  If he chooses not to do it, that's it, no getting it later.

So, he calmed down, but still didn't want to do his poster OR call his teacher.  He wanted me to do it.  Um, sorry, Sir, but that would be a no.  This is your choice, your decision and your call.  I'm not doing your dirty work for you, that's all you!

So, once he thought about it more and calmed down he decided he wanted to do his poster after all, but I withdrew the option of using photographs, instead he had to draw all his pictures!

So, here is Kayden on his Almost Didn't Happen Star Day.  It was extra fun because dad got to come too!

 Showing off his dinosaur collection.

See the big black sharpie blob right there in the top middle of the poster, not a point visible from the original KAYDEN.

Thankfully things ended well on his actual day, not sure I could have handled another melt down over this Star Day.

Lake Washington

Last Saturday night we decided to get out of the house for a bit and head down to a local park and beach.  It felt good to get spend some time outside and enjoy the beautiful sunset we had. 

Kayden got to run around a bit and Kyle and I got to watch him have fun. 

Dirt Bike Riding

On Sunday we hit up a friends house for some good ol' dirt bike riding, aka motor bike riding.  It ended up being a good day weather wise and it really felt good to get outside and watch the littles ride their dirt bikes and have fun together.

Kayden had a really fun time playing with Ellie and Brody.  They found a caterpillar and had a lot of fun looking around the yard for more. 

It was a well spent Sunday!