Charlotte Turns FOUR!

 Charlotte celebrated her birthday at school.

They took a super cute class picture with Charlotte front and center.

Charlotte chose frosted donuts with sprinkles for her birthday treat.   The class LOVED it.  Charlotte loved being the star of the show.

 I picked Charlotte up early that day.  We went and got our hair done.  Charlotte was so excited.  I actually had to leave her and go around the corner to get my hair done separately.  She did really great though and it got me out of the salon early without being asked to buy products. Whoo hoo!

 I had informed Charlotte of our plans and she was so excited to tell everyone she was going to get her hair done and then go to Chuck E Cheese.  So that is exactly what we did.  She was super excited to ride the horse.

I couldn't believe she wanted to do the roller coaster game.  This game (ride?) was a little rough.  It shakes and turns and you feel like you're on a roller coaster.  It was kind of crazy.  Poor Charlotte's head wasn't quite tall enough to be on the pad so it had to be uncomfortable but she didn't care.  She wanted to ride again.  Not this girl.  I was dunzo.  Barf.  

It is a cool idea though!

 Charlotte rode another one of her favorite rides (?), the mini carousel.  She pretended to be asleep on it.  She is so funny.

Andrew and Tommy met us at Chuck E Cheese.  Then Charlotte and I escaped once again and picked out cupcakes at Gigi's.  YUM!

 The following weekend was Charlotte's party! I did make the invitation but I did NOT mail them out.  I used an app this year.  I am becoming much more of a no muss no fuss mom which is so exciting.  Instead of hand making all the food, cakes, and decorations, I bought decorations online, bought a Target cake, and ordered pizza.  Fantastic!

Here's the beautiful birthday girl in her unicorn shirt!

I took a picture to Meijer of the cake I wanted and they were not very accommodating.  But TARGET on the other hand, basically recreated this fantastic cake from scratch.  Incredible! They even included the paisley design on the side.  Are you kidding me?? (Is it because they practically know who we are because we visit 3 times a week? Maybe. ;)

 Time to blow out the candles!

 I ordered these crazy unicorn horns (yes, people made dirty jokes about them) from Walmart online.  Who would have thought?

 It was time to open presents! Everyone was watching closely. (Just kidding. Cake coma.)

Lovely picture of this trio! :) 

Charlotte loved all her presents.  She got some really fantastic stuff. 

 Uncle Adam had to help put together the Frozen Lego set that she got.  She is so excited to become a master builder like her big bro.

You can bet that as soon as the Frozen castle was made, Tommy jumped in and weaponized it.

She got this amazing mermaid blanket.  Charlotte was a big fan.

She also got a lot of fun books.  I believe this is the exact moment Emily had to read the word FART. :) LOL!

 Hey look, it's Mama and Dada in our unicorn horns and shirts.  We look dashing. :)

The birthday girl and her mama.  

After all the fun, we played outside because of course it was a beautiful September day.

Tommy and many others had fun playing b-ball.

We actually remembered to get a family picture.  Yay!! Another classic!

Happy Birthday to you, Miss Charlotte! We love you so much!

What's Happening in School These Days?

 We haven't had a school update in awhile. Let's see what's happening during a typical school day...

Tommy and his best friend practiced following directions with legos.  This picture doesn't look posed or anything. ;-)

They had their 100th day of school.  They decorated hats to celebrate and counted to one hundred a few times with the 100 items they chose to bring in. Tommy brought in 100 candy legos.  We found them in the pantry from last year.  He ate one and said they were gross and they've been sitting there ever since. :-)

I got this picture that day and freaked out.  First of all, he can have the Meijer brand fudge stripe cookies.  I had just brought those in for his snacks for after school.  Also, I thought those little brown things were raisins.  So I figured he was super disappointed about his 100 snack and felt horrible.  I sent her a message but it was too late after hers.  But she did write me back said that those were actually chocolate chips.  PHEW.  I felt better after that.  Just a little.  He's been expressing frustration lately with not getting what the other kids get.  I feel awful for him. He's pretty resilient though and gets over it quickly.

 This is a picture from the after school program.  Once again, it's Tommy and his best friend, playing cars.  Too cute.

 On this day, they counted feathers and talked about penguins.

 When you learn to tie your shoe, you become an honorary shoe sheriff. Tommy has not become a shoe sheriff yet.  Only two in the class have.  I'm thinking we should maybe work on that someday?  ;-)

They were flashlight reading in this picture.  His teacher said it's something they love to do.  I think one kiddo fell asleep.  Just kidding! ;-) It's the little things though for little kids.  I'm sure they get really serious about it.

Tommy had Show and Tell last week.  He decided to bring in his Smithsonian Space book that he got for Christmas.  His teacher told me that he was going through the book explaining everything about space that he knows.  All the kids were asking questions.  His teacher said she admitted at one point, even she was raising her hand and asking Tommy questions.  Haha!!

Tommy loves Kindergarten and he loves learning.  I love hearing about his days and all the fun stories his teacher tells me about what kind of person he is becoming.  I'm so proud of him and everything he is doing.


So we've heard plenty about kindergarten.  Who's wondering about the 3's class?

 Here's a picture of the core crew.  I believe this was their New Year's noisemaker celebration.  Best buds! Love the smile, Charshe!

Here's the kiddos doing a little painting. I love this picture just for the sheer fact of Charlotte's hair looking so ridiculously cute.  I can't get over it.

This was a game where each kid had a color ball they had to race to pick up.  She said they did fantastic with this task.  Looks like Charlotte had green which she says is new favorite color besides pink.

I haven't gotten as many pictures of Charlotte but I have gotten lots of stories.  They send me something all the time telling me how funny she is or how crazy her stories are.  Here are a couple snippets.

"Hey teacher, my mommy was 10 years old when she was a baby!"

"Hey guys, when I have a piggy at my home, it blows my house down and then my dad builds it again."

Anatomy lesson with Charlotte, "My heart is inside my stomach!"

Charlotte had a phone during playtime and said, "This is Mom! I'm stuck in Canada!!"

"Hey teacher, I went underwater and I bit and ate and kicked the shark."

"Hey teacher, my mom and dad ate a stingray."

Besides all the funny stories, I can already tell that Charlotte will learn best through songs.  She is constantly singing. They learn a song for each letter to get used to the sound and learn more vocab for  each one.  She just LOVES those songs.  She also loves entertaining her friends.  She is a riot.  Anything she can do to make them laugh, she is on it! She also loves school and her best friends.  She makes sure to get a "huggie" from each friend before she leaves each day.  It's adorable.

These stories and pictures make it slightly easier to be away from them during the day.  It makes me so happy to see how much they love their friends and their school.  I miss them so much but I know they are having such a great time becoming the wonderful people they are.

How's School Going?

I'm really enjoying the school's app. We see lots and lots of pictures of the kids throughout the week. But I'll be honest there were some during the first few weeks that weren't too exciting. 

 Like this one with their art teacher. Where's Tommy? Oh he's behind the art teacher.

Or this one? Where's Tommy? Behind the paper chains.

And there was the one from Charlotte's dance party in the last school post.  Where's Charlotte? Behind some other kid. :)

It truly makes me think of Monster Inc when Mike always got blocked out of the picture.  Haha!

Anyway, kindergarten seems to be going pretty well for Mr. Thomas.

 Most of his pictures, he is full of personality.

 Or completely offended he has to be in a picture.

 Or just not in the picture hardly at all.  :)

 Or he's the star of the show!

 It's mostly all personality though.

 He's been hard at work making new friends and being, in his words, the "best in the class."  He never says what he means by that but he claims to be the best. 

Painting A's! 

 The room that they are currently in is pretty dark and drab but next week they will be moving into their new classroom now that the renovations are finally done. How exciting! They will have windows again!

Tommy is so funny.  He is so full of... he's so full of WORDS! That kid talks so much! He is a leader too, according to his teachers.  I thought this was a good thing until he told me that he "likes his new friend Bode because he does everything I say!" So we are working on what it means to be a good friend.  Haha!!
He is so inquisitive and smart too.  The other day he asked how a baby gets out of mom's belly so I told him a mom has a hole at the bottom that it comes out of.  He thought about it for a moment and then said, "Like a duck?"  I said, "Yes.  Exactly like that." "Okay." He didn't ask any other questions after that.  Hahahahahahaha! I laughed so hard (later of course). 

So how is Charlotte doing??

 Does this picture explain anything?? Haha! No, she's doing fine and she loves books. I have no idea why she is looking at the camera in this picture.  Too funny.

 She actually let me put her hair in pigtails so they took lots of pictures on this day!

 These cuties are waiting on their friends to finish going potty. 

 Charlotte made a school bus in art class.

 I got this message the other day.  I thought I had the accident figured out until I picked her up and she told me that Jude puked on her.  OMG!! Even worse than I thought!!! 

The next week she was home sick with me, if you can imagine.  I picked up Tommy when she was sick and her teacher told me there were only two students left that weren't sick that day.  Sheesh.  It spreads quickly! She doesn't look too sick though, does she?

 But yes Charlotte is loving school. 

 I think she loves it most of all because she gets to play dress up all the time. 

And I mean All. The. Time.  Fun stuff!

I'm so glad they have so much fun at school.  I'm glad they get one more year of going to the same school.