Will's last day of Kindergarten...

I can't believe my baby is all done with his first year of public school. Where does the time go? I keep thinking, NO! This can't be happening. He was just a BABY yesterday, dammit! How did he get to be this big 6 year old with these long legs who can read and write? How did that happen so fast? I still think of Will and Ben as perpetual toddlers, I think. They were always just WillandBen, one word, my boys, my almost twins. Which by the way was the absolute best "accident" I have ever had in my life. Having them so close together in age has worked out better than I could ever have imagined. I keep accidentally calling Sam Ben. That started in the hospital right after his birth and I am still waiting for it to sink in that I actually do have three kids now! His little personality is really starting to emerge though. He is forging a separate identity for himself, separate from his big brothers.

Today Brian and I both met at Will's school to pick him up from his last day of school. I brought him a balloon in honor of this mini "graduation" from just starting out school to big boy 1st grade. Are we really old enough to have a 1st grader?!?! I still get these flashbacks of the two of us hanging out on the "quad" during snack in highschool, 16 and 17 years old, the biggest thing we had to worry about being what to wear on our date that night and making time to study for that next biology test. Are we really all grown up with three kids now? Some days I still feel like I am faking it.

The kids all marched out in a line, following thier teacher, Mrs. Shields, for the last time ever. They were all carrying large envelopes with thier names on them with presents from Mrs. Shields inside for both them and us. An adorable magnet with his picture on it, a dvd with pictures of the class, arranged and set to music, a book about the old lady who swallowed the fly, a ruler, a cd of music with the school name in it, and a photo album with pictures of Will and his friends taken all throughout the year.

All the parents waited by the tree, snapping pictures of the kids walking towards us, then posing them for pictures with the other kids, with thier teacher, and with us. All of us getting a little sappy over our babies growing up and moving on.

We all went out to lunch at Islands, Will's choice, and the kids had ice cream for dessert. Sam amazingly enough, behaved relatively well throughout the meal, talking and smiling, and eating fries, one of the few foods that my picky eater likes.

So that's it. He's finished with Kindergarten and our school adventure is really just beginning. Next fall he'll stay all day long and eat lunch in the cafeteria. Ben will be in his last year of preschool. I think I'll just keep Sam a baby forever;).

Will's 6th Birthday!

I can't believe my baby is already six years old! I can still remember exactly what he looked like the second he was born. He was so tiny and seemed so fragile. Now he is going to friends birthday parties without us, going to playdates, playing organized sports, and going into first grade! Where does the time go?

This year for his birthday we went camping. I brought along streamers and balloons and bought a cake while we were there and Aunt Wendy and I decorated the campsite while daddy kept him occupied, and then we surprised him with a decorated picnic table, balloons, a cake, and most importantly, presents. The look on his face was just priceless. His big gift this year was a Nintindo DS, a portable video game player. He's enjoying it immensely.


Here are some pictures of the festivities. The picture of him with the crown on was taken Friday after school. In his Kindergarten class, the teacher makes each child a special birthday crown and they all sing to them. Then he got to choose between six birthday hugs, six birthday kisses, or six birthday spanks from Mrs. Shields. He chose hugs:). He was just bursting with excitement when I picked him up from school. His teacher said he'd been floating on air all day:).

Our June Camping Trip

Last weekend we kicked off the start of the summer season by taking a weekend camping trip up to the mountains in Idylewild. The older two boys had a fabulous time hiking, roasting marshmellows and just running around in the dirt at our campsite. There was a little creek at the bottom of a hill right off our site and the big boys spent most of their days there. We also took the scooters and went for rides around the campground. The big hit of the trip was of course, the marshmellows at night. Everyone went to bed exhausted and happy. Sam had a little bit of a rough time of it, being off his routine, but we think that he'll get into the camping spirit before too long. Our next trip of the summer will be the houseboat on Lake Mohave in early July which the kids always look forward too, and then beach camping in Leo Carrillo. Looks like a fun summer ahead!

The joy of having a six year old

So yesterday we were doing our normal routine, driving the kids home from school and they (as usual) start fighting in the back seat. Pretty soon Will was hitting Ben. I threatened to take away his video games if he hit Ben one more time. He tested me, so the games got taken away. Boy was he MAD! If looks could kill, I would be a dead mommy. If you've never faced the wrath of a six year old before, it might look something like this

In case you can't tell what that says, it reads, "you hath to moov now", which traslates to, "You have to move now". He had apparently decided he'd be much better off if mommy just moved out of the house and left him to his own devies. No worries though! By bedtime he had cut out a little red piece of paper, colored it with an orange crayon and presented it to me, saying that it was "fire" because I was "fire nice". Whatever that means. I think it's something good though;).

He also, in his rage over losing the video games, took a blue marker and wrote on the tile floor the words, "Ben did this". I guess it didn't occur to him that the only thing Ben can write is his name. Either that or he just thinks we're stupid. Probably the latter. Unfortunatly that picture came out too dark too see. Would it be terrible if I wrote it on the floor myself and took a better picture of it to recreate the scene?