First Day of First Grade

Well, I officially feel old now.  I have a First Grader!!  Riley is so grown up!  He loves school, and this year doesn't seem any different.  He was excited to get all his school supplies, take them to school for meet the teacher night, and start his first day. 

He loves riding his scooter to school (and Mommy loves that I can fold it up and bring it home!)

Heading in with Zack

One last goodbye wave!

He's been in school for nearly 2 weeks now (yes I'm that behind on my posts), and really loving first grade.  I thought for sure he would come home those first couple days completely exhausted and need a nap, but no way!!  He just didn't stop!  He is in the same class as his friend Zack, and it sounds like they are having a good time together.  His teacher is Mrs. Hartman, and I love her already.  She is very sweet, caring, and patient with the kids.  But also expects a lot of them.  Teaching them people skills, problem solving and working well in groups are top of her list.  So another awesome teacher that goes above and beyond for her students.  I've met with her privately already, and she is really pleased with Riley and how he's doing in class.  I like the initiative she's taken with regards to Zack (and Riley) and it just shows me that she is on top of things with his situation. 

I've signed up to be a room-mom this year, a new experience for me.  I think it will be fun and exciting.  Mrs. Hartman didn't have too many options for volunteers, and I wasn't exactly up for a weekly commitment.  So I'm looking forward to helping out with the parties. 

Spelling tests start up next week, and that sounds like it will be the bulk of the homework.  Which at this age is important with regards to sight words and reading.  Riley is already sick of writing words multiple times, so I'm sure I'm going to have to get creative with him to get his practice in.  ;)  Otherwise I think it's going to be a great year for him!! 

We have been really busy the last couple weeks.  Finishing up things for school to start, and getting back into a routine have been tough.  We took a trip to the Larimer County fair, Jayce LOVED all the animals!  He was way into it, more than Riley has ever been.  No fear when it came to petting the animals!  He even got to get up close and personal with a beautiful cow. 

We did some more swimming, at the beach with our good friends the Sandstrums.  And had a couple MOPS play dates.  One was at the park, a typical play date for us.  But the other one was at a Mom's house.  Lauren owns a farm with horses and invited us over to have a Pony Party!  It was so much fun!!!  We got to ride a couple ponies, and even paint on one.  Jayce was so excited to ride the horsey, talked about it all the way there, the whole time we were there, but then when it came time for his turn he chickened out.  Riley was being shy when we got there, and I thought for sure I would have to convince him to get on the horse, but it was Jayce that was scared.  Riley jumped right up, no problem!  He loved it!  He was a natural!  So proud!!  Jayce still had fun though.  They got to color a bookmark, feed the goats, and Paint on Peanut (that's the horse's name).  He loved painting the horse.  That was definitely his area of expertise!  I can't wait until he gets older and wants to ride too.  Maybe one of these days we'll have a Cowboy/Cowgirl birthday there and everyone can ride!!

Jayce feeding the goats

Kinsey feeding the goats

Riley got to ride Peanut

2 laps around the house

Kinsey rode on Thumbelina

Jayce liked painting the horse more than riding.

Peanut was a great canvas!

This past weekend we had the pleasure of experiencing some fame in our little town of Fort Collins.  The US Pro Cycle Challenge had it's second to last stage here in northern Colorado.  They started in Loveland rode up through Windsor (we got to see them go through there), then up to Estes Park via the Big Thompson Canyon, back down and through Masonville, up over the dams at Horsetooth Reservoir and last ending in Fort Collins at Old Town.  It was so exciting to watch.  We met the Sandstrums in Windsor (just in time) to see them going back south to Loveland.  It was cool to see the parade of photographers, police, and support vehicles that accompanied the riders, but then to see the pack of all of them so close together!!  They hadn't had any chance for a break away pack that early on, so the whole group came by at once, and it was over in a matter of seconds!  Such a blur!!

waiting for the riders

Here They Come!

Then we headed home and watched them ride through the Big Thompson Canyon (the same route we drive to head up to Rocky Mountain National Park).  It was neat to see them on tv and recognize the locations they were passing.  And after that we packed the kiddos up and drove into Forst Collins to see the finish line.  We got a ton of free stuff (mostly clif bars) and signed up for a few drawings.  But got to watch them finish up the race.  So cool!!  I hope they come back again next year so that we can plan a little better and really enjoy it.

At the finish line

Last thing I want to update everyone on is our growing kiddos!!!  I told you all about Riley already, so I'll just talk about Jayce and Amara here.

Jayce is still doing good with potty training.  I've pretty much nixed the idea of daytime diapers.  He still has some accidents every once in a while, but I've noticed putting him in diapers just confuses him and he has more.  So he's only wearing them at night now.  We are also working on the fits a little more.  I'm trying out some new forms of time-outs called time-ins.  It's new for us, and takes a lot of patience from me (something I don't have a lot of) but I'm hoping it will help him learn to cope better in the long run.  He's having a hard time adjusting to Riley being at school.  The first few days, he just kinda moped around trying to figure out how to entertain himself, and even asked me by Friday if Riley would hug him bye when he hugged me to go to school (adorable!).  He's better now, but walking to and from school twice a day to take/pick-up Riley is posing some problems.  I'm sure it has to do with the time constraints that I'm on to get Riley on time. But that stress is rubbing Jayce the wrong way (especially when I have to wake him up from his nap to get to school on time) and we've had fits just about everyday.  I'm also working on some school things with him too.  I got (and made) some flash cards for him to practice with, and he's really enjoying it.  He doesn't seem to pick up on things as quickly as Riley did, so I can already see he's going to benefit from any extra head start I can give him.

Amara is also making leaps and bounds (almost literally!!)  She can crawl on all fours now, but still prefers to army crawl for speed (and she's pretty speedy at it! lol).  And she's getting closer to walking on almost a daily basis.  Just today she stood on her own balancing for a few seconds, and started walking with the rolling lion we have.  Also, she finally figured out that she likes finger foods!!!  YAY!!!  she will now eat just about anything you give her.  we've been doing canned fruits and vegetables, and other soft foods.  She is liking being able to feed herself (and so is mommy!!), but still seems to prefer being spoon fed, or nursing, for the majority of her nutrition.  She's still not taking a bottle, and I've decided to completely do away with them.  We are moving on to sippy cups.  I figured if she's having this much trouble taking a bottle, I can't imagine transitioning to a sippy cup in a few months.  So I'm going to skip it all together. We have a few sippy cups that are similar enough to bottles, and I think those will be best for her.  She's already enjoying chewing on them and playing with them, now we just have to get her to figure out what they are for!  lol.  Speaking of chewing, she still doesn't have any teeth, but it's just a matter of time now.  We can see them coming, she's been an absolute pill for the last couple weeks, and the snot has been a flowing!  ;)  I think she's gonna be like Riley and get them all at once.  I noticed a couple days ago that her top teeth are coming in just as quickly as her bottom ones, so they may all cut through at once.  Oh my that will be a nice day!

Squash face

Well, we are just getting back into the swing of things.  MOPS starts back up in a couple weeks, and between now and then we have a few fun activities planned.  Amara had some pictures done yesterday with our friend Nicole, and we have a berry picking session planned for next week.  So look for many more photos to come in the next couple weeks!  I'll try to be better about updating.  I'm shooting for every couple weeks consistently.  We'll see if I can keep up!  lol Have a good Labor Day Weekend everyone!