Preschool Valentine's and Fun with Friends

Nicky's always so happy in the mornings:

Autumn was really excited for her class Valentine's party. She was dressed and ready to go long before it was time for school. She looked like a little sweetheart.

 Treats for her class:

 And teachers:

 Autumn and McKenna showing off the V-day necklaces they made in class:

Her stash:

Her 'stache:

Her favorite thing was the little sticky hand:

Calvin has a little friend in his Kindergarten class named Brianna. She happens to be my cousin Tammy's daughter. I adore Tammy, and she lives 2 minutes away, so I have no idea why we didn't get together sooner. Today Brianna came over in the morning, they played video games, and ran around, and Calvin laughed more than I've ever heard him laugh with a friend. They were like peas and carrots.

When we went to the bus stop, they made me take lots of pictures and about a dozen videos of them jumping off this green thing. They thought all of it was HILARIOUS. I like her way better than a lot of the kids that come over to play. He seems to as well. 

Valentine's Date

 Cute girl, ready for school:

Although it's a few days early, my mom watched the kids so that Andy and I could have a Valentine's date.

We tried out a new Indian restaurant. We loved it. The food was amazing.

 

Rather than going out, we decided to go back home. We watched a movie and played Scrabble (I killed him).

After the movie, we went to pick up the kids. It was a fun date, and it's nice that after so many Valentine's Days together, we still enjoy each other' company.

All in a Day

Nicky is learning to pull himself up on things. We see his little face peeking out of all kinds of random places:

For Christmas, Andy gave me headphones so that we can watch tv after the kids are in bed without waking them. Autumn's favorite thing to do when Calvin is at school and Nicky is down for a nap, is to watch a show by herself. She generally requests popcorn and rootbeer, which we occasionally indulge. She thinks she's in heaven.

I also love that she is so good at playing on her own. She'll go outside for hours on end and is perfectly content to be in her own little world.

Calvin keeps drawing creepy pictures of Slender Man:

Autumn, The Perfect Party Guest

Autumn was invited to a party today by a girl from her preschool. She was very excited.

The party was at a gymnastics hall that's closed on Saturdays, so the birthday group had the place to themselves. There was a room set up with balloons and a cake, but most of the time was spent in a free-for-all on the gymnastic equipment. The mom said I could stay with her or leave. Autumn didn't seem to care, so I sat in the car and worked on my laptop. About half-way through the party, I went in to check on her.

I saw her having a fantastic time.

The birthday girl's mom ran up to me and said that Autumn had just fallen from the trampoline on her head. They kept checking on her, and she seemed fine, but they wanted me to know that she had hit really hard.

#1 Perfect Party Guest Tip:
Always take the attention away from the birthday kid by sustaining an injury that keeps the focus on you instead of them. (Calvin did this one yesterday!)

#2 Perfect Party Guest Tip:
Sit as close to the cake as you can possibly get. While the birthday girl's mom is cutting the cake, crowd in under her armpit, and SNEEZE all over that cake. Have snot all over your face so that they stop the cake cutting to clean you up, before proceeding to slice the now disgusting, germ infested cake.

 #3 Perfect Party Guest Tip:
Grab the biggest piece of cake you see (which is super easy because you're right there, in the personal bubble of the person cutting the cake), take two bites, and then drop it on the ground, food down, so that ice cream and cake are on the floor. Watch while the (not very bright) girl next to you tromps through your food, smearing it in a 3foot diameter around the table.

They said she was super sweet and they loved having her, but let's be honest, she was THAT kid for the party. I hope they invite her back though because she had so much fun. She was completely oblivious to all of the ways she made an impression at that party.

Kindy 500 and A Battle Wound

Today all of the kindergarteners at Calvin's school did a Kindy 500. They each made a car out of a cardboard box, showed their car in a parade around the halls, and then visited different classrooms to learn about U.S. landmarks.

He told me the design he wanted, and then I stayed up until 3am trying to implement it. It wasn't perfect, but he was excited. BUT THEN we got to school, and holy crap some of these parents are hardcore! There were massive planes, a firetruck with real flashing lights, and a shiny red Mario Kart. I wish I had known how awesome others' cars would be, and I would have stepped it up a lot. Anyway, his car was cute and he had fun.

His driver's license:

 

Autumn holding Nicky in the hall at school, waiting for the parade to start.

These are terrible pictures. They're screenshots from the video I took.

Calvin in the parade line-up:

 Stepping out of rank to high-five Autumn and Nicky. Love the big smile:

Crushing everyone in his path to get back to his exact spot in the line that left him behind while he was high-fiving:

Someday we're supposed to get pictures that the teachers took of them. If we do, I'll post those as well. He said "it was fun but kinda boring 'cause we didn't really race, we just learned stuff."

Right after school he had a birthday party for a kid from our neighborhood. They held the party at the church, so there were a million kids running around the gym area when I dropped him off.

When I went to pick him up, he was over on the side-line with the birthday boy's mom holding towels to his face. Calvin says someone ran into him while they were playing tag. It was hard to stop it, and it was an impressive amount of blood.

Driving home:

Before taking a bath:

  

He's fine and happy again. It was an eventful day for Calvin!

Selfies and Activity Days

 It's fun to see what pictures end up on the camera when the kids get a hold of my phone:

My new assignment at church is with the 11/12 year old girls. Today was the first activity that I was in charge of.

 We completed a goal of writing a letter of appreciation to someone special by making valentines.

 Then played cupid by shooting arrows at hearts for points. Some of them were excellent marksmen. Others struggled.

 The girls with their finished valentines. They were super creative, and I think everyone had a good time. It went well, and I'm glad it's over!

Slender Man

Calvin has recently become fixated on Slender Man. I have no idea what this means, except that Calvin says he is "horrifying and awesome at the same time." He has nightmares about him, but then he'll talk about him all day and draw pictures of him and dress like him. I have strange children.

This is what Slender Man looks like according to Google:

 

 And here's Calvin's version:

And the added "girl version" according to Autumn:

Creepy, right?

Then they sat down and drew pictures and made signs:

And Calvin posted signs like this all over the house:

 

The signs say creepy things. But he had so much fun when his dad was running around the house looking for them because he had to find them all before he died. He laughed uncontrollably.

I do not understand video games or Slender Man or 98% of the things Calvin gets excited about, but it's fun that he's so creative and into his weird stuff and loves, more than ANYTHING, to play strange themed games with his dad. I'm glad they have each other.

Here Kitty Kitty!

The Pennsylvania Grandparents gave Autumn a kitten for her birthday that moves and purrs and paws at things waved in front of its face. It's a cute cat (and my kind of pet!), but I didn't realize its true value until Nicky discovered it this week.

It's perfect (purrr-fect. ha!) because Nicky has about a ten second attention span when it comes to toys. But this one moves around enough that he'll get excited and chew on it and hug it until it stops moving. Then he'll play with it for a bit longer, and just as he's decided it's boring and he's ready to move on, it will start to purr and move again, which grabs his attention all over again. It's awesome! He'll play with the cat for 30 minutes at a time. Autumn loves the gift, but Nicky can't get enough of it! Thanks for the gift that keeps giving, Grandma and Grandpa!