Maya's prayers

On our route to Maya's preschool from our house, we pass Collin's school.  And our morning tradition is that at the point we pass Collin's school, we pray for Collin and other family members with Maya in the 3-5 minutes before we arrive at her school.  Some of her recent prayers include:

- That Grammy's toe feels better [she stubbed it over Labor Day but it still receives prayers 2 months later]

- That Collin would be a good listener and get his wiggles out [Collin's excuse the afternoon before when he received a conduct mark was he just needed to get his wiggles out.]

- That Daddy would receive help with the pool, that it wouldn't be green, that it would be blue-y

Here are some other iphone photos and conversations with our kids:

Monday morning, 6:00am, before I even woke Collin up, I came into the living room to see Maya on the couch.

E:  Maya, we stay in our bed until it's light outside or Mommy comes to get you.   How long have you been in the living room?

M:  Maybe 50 hours.

A moment of sweetness - Collin providing moral support to Maya as she asked for a snack at Collin's soccer game -

Maya setting up a tea party for her friends.  She constantly pretends to be the teacher, imagining her friends from school are always with us and instructing them to listen to her book as she reads or to be careful when climbing the jungle gym at neighborhood parks!

On an overcast Monday, we had the park to ourselves, and I was trying to work in some exercise moves as we moved among the equipment on the playground.  Maya imitated, "playing squats" - 

 And enjoyed playing on the equipment the way it was intended too -

Cas:  do you want to go swimming?
M:  I literally do not like kicking and blowing bubbles. [we make her practice her skills before letting her play in the pool normally]
E:  Who says literally?
M:  Grammy [according to my mom, she picked that up from somebody else!]

Collin:  this is my favorite dish to wash (ie lick the icing!)

Between Collin's observations and Maya's dramatic outbursts, we laugh with or at these kids every day!

Halloween 2016

There was a long lead-up to the Monday night Halloween of 2016.  On October 21, Collin's school kicked off the dressing up activities with book character dress up day.  The week before Halloween, his school had red ribbon week where every day there was something different to wear (crazy socks, sports team jersey, etc).  And Maya's school had a two week plan where they were bringing or wearing items related to nursery rhymes or other stories.

It was all we could do to get Collin on the bus on time, so we didn't capture the crazy sock / backward shirt / all red, etc outfits in the morning.  We did get one of super hero Maya.  She originally planned to be Wonder Woman for Halloween.  Though she changed her mind numerous times, Maya was able to wear Wonder Woman on Thursday to school for their super hero day (and then later that evening to Collin's soccer practice)!  Looking happy and looking fierce -

Friday morning was Maya's fairy tale ball.  She went in what was supposed to be her Halloween costume, Belle.  Collin was geared up for the color run at school (followed by sno-cones).

Maya and her friend Gail at school (not pictured, Maya's three boys - Ben, Walker, and Pierre - who reportedly have all received kisses from our silly girl) -

Friday morning, I was able to volunteer at Collin's school's spooky science lab.  My station was a bloody hand print - a combo of a special paper and some magic potion (ie Windex).  It was fun, I always had a volunteer who would let me suck the blood out of their arm, and it was simple.  But the actual experiment took 10 seconds, and then I stalled for the remaining 3 minutes, 50 seconds with 6-12 first graders!

The kids made slime, made tissue paper ghosts stick to balloons after rubbing the balloons on their hair, and made dry ice bubbles - a fun morning for all!

Friday afternoon we went to our church's trunk or treat.  But first, we had to paint Collin's shirt for his homemade Halloween costume, Eli Shane from the cartoon Slugterra (it was so obscure I couldn't order it on Amazon!).  Cas and I had a dress-up party on Saturday, so we had Halloween costumes for the first time in years.  Cas was Grimes, a sheriff from the tv show Walking Dead.  Basically he wore the only costume in his size at the Halloween store on Friday at 3pm.  His cheap costume was clearly ironed on icons, but someone at our trunk or treat thought he was a really officer and started asking him questions! 

We had the lamest trunk or treat game - we ran out of time (mostly due to Collin's costume) and we just grabbed some glow sticks and random bottles of juice/cokes in our house for a ring toss.  We did have candy, which was the main thing the kids appreciated anyway!

Maya in Belle, I'm dressed as a bandit.  The ski hat and gloves were a little toasty in our 85-degree late October weather-

We had a low-key Sunday - no soccer practice, no big community group.  Moments like this - which is what you get when you play hangman with a 6-year-old boy!

Maya wore a Halloween dress from last year for church Sunday morning.  As she was getting in the car, it was evident how much she had grown - the dress was basically a shirt.  I had to scramble inside for some leggings.  Photo to document my first attempt at pig tail buns - which she left alone for maybe two minutes -

On Halloween Monday, we got Collin off to school and then Maya and I met my mom at 9am at the zoo for the last day of Zoo Boo.  Maya was in a pitiful mood on Monday morning - rounds of tantrums in the morning (for the horrors of me not letting her wear dress shoes to walk around the zoo or not letting her have candy in the morning, etc).  The only reason she's smiling here is that she was allowed to climb on the sea lion statue -

The zoo wasn't crowded on a Monday morning, and we let Maya completely set the pace, visiting whatever she wanted.  We stayed at the elephants to watch the baby take a 20 minute bath, saw the cheetahs sleeping, and posed by every statue we passed -

She once again was happy as can be to sit on the immobile bench on the carousel and enjoyed making faces for selfie pictures -

Near the end, we visited the petting zoo, a spot we hadn't been to in over a year despite almost monthly trips to the zoo.  It was cute watching all the kids, most in costume, all over the zoo -  

 Checking out the horned stork -

And posing before we headed to our cars for the ride home -

What a fun girls morning with these two -

Finally it was time for trick-or-treating.  We donned our costumes for a few more pictures -

Maya stayed in her Mulan costume through the zoo, her nap, and all afternoon.  Though she's never seen the movie and didn't know the princess' name, this is what she chose to wear for Halloween -

Family selfie before we grabbed our jack-o-lanterns -

We first stopped by my grandma's for a treat and picture -

Then crashed our friends' neighborhood trick or treating party, where both kids saw classmates and we wandered their family friendly neighborhood with friends from church, work, school, Cub Scouts, sports and pre-school -

At one house the kids were invited to hit a big pinata -

Halloween 2016 plus the ten-day lead up - you were a scream!

Our Tiger Scout

With an Eagle scout for an uncle, grandpa, and lots of great uncles and cousins, we were excited for Collin to start Cub Scouts in first grade.  The night of his first meeting, we were hosting a church group at our home, so my sweet Uncle Bobby took Collin to the den meeting -

And this last weekend, we went on our first camp out and first family camping experience.  Collin, Cas and another dad and his son went up on Friday night, and then Maya, the mom, the sister Cate and I joined on Saturday morning.  Maya was equally excited about watching a movie in the car on the ride to the state park as she was about the actual camping experience.  

You never know what you're going to get in Texas in October - the previous weekend had temperatures in the 90's - but we ended up with a gorgeous fall weekend.  When we arrived, I learned that the boys had been running around through the woods until 9pm Friday night like maniacs, and that Cas had slept so late on Saturday that he almost missed breakfast.  Who sleeps well in a tent and sleeps late camping?  The gifted sleeper, Cas!

Saturday morning the boys went on a 2-mile hike, and we arrived in time for lunch and group activities like tug of war - 

Walking on a slack line and racing through an obstacle course -

Maya and Kate - just two months apart and friends from their brothers' baseball and now soccer - played together all weekend.

Saturday afternoon we carved pumpkins for a contest.  Then we tried to get the exhausted and melting down Collin to nap - unsuccessfully - but got Maya to crash for a nap in the tent.  Soon it was time to get dressed in his cub scout uniform for the dinner and pack meeting.  I had heard dinner Saturday night was catered, but then I heard it was hot dogs.  Fortunately, it was hot dogs and fruit for the kids, but catered BBQ for the adults.

I had laid out cute Aggie clothes for Maya and had fixed her hair in the morning.  We forgot her jacket at the house and her hair got a little wild in the woods.  Our little nut and our happy boy -

The little sisters -

In earning his bobcat badge, part of the pack meeting ceremony included painting the boys' faces to represent different qualities (ie blue, look to the sky, enjoy and take care of nature sort of thing)

Then the boys were able to paint the parents' faces - Cas took one for the team here -

First badge ceremony.  Our troop took over a huge loop in the state park campsite with 250 campers!

We're excited that Collin is entering the world of boy scouts and we hope he (and we) build great friendships and learns lifelong skills.  After we put the kids down on Saturday  night, I enjoyed sitting around the camp fire and getting to know the parents of first grade cub scouts a bit better.  It was a pretty successful first family camping trip!

Fall 2016 iphone dump

On the last week before school started, I took both kids to this great, free indoor church playground near our home.  Maya loved having Collin join her, and at 8am, we had the place to ourselves!

Collin's cousins - and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law - invited Collin for his first sleepover.  He had a great time, and we met at the Children's Museum to pick him up and share more fun with family.  The strong boys showing off their muscles - 

Maya had her fair share of play dates and activities on our Mondays and Fridays together.  Two Mondays this year, we've been able to meet one of my best friends for Maya to play with her daughter -  

 Some days we hang around the house (in our pajamas) and use up bottles of Spin Art paint -

I picked Maya up from school one day to see her "reading" to her classmates.  Her teachers had read the book earlier in the day, and she remembered quite a bit, retelling the story in dramatic fashion!

One Friday we watched Collin's school performance, the annual Friday morning patriotic sing-a-long

And then hit up a neighborhood park -

On a Saturday afternoon in September, we were supposed to meet up with our 3rd grade mentee  at the Children's Museum.  With plans up in the air, communications broke down, and it ended up just being the kids and me at the museum over Maya's nap time.  They had a great time!

We spent forever in the restaurant, writing down the orders with great concentration - 

Collin's writing has improved so much, seen by the fact that he voluntarily tried to write out my order

Maya was a serious waitress with a lot on her tray -

We were able to spend a Sunday afternoon with cousins involving countless rounds of hide & seek  -

On a Saturday morning at 7:15am, we were at our neighborhood park for a race to support an organization sharing the gospel through radios in Sudan.  Collin ran his first race - a 1k - and then told everyone he was a marathon runner.

Collin had a virus and was home Thursday and Friday.  Thursday he vegged out with hours of tv time, but Friday he started feeling better so we did a lot more activities.  We built train sets -

We did science experiments, played games, read a chapter book, did some math activities - as Collin called it, we "played school."  He had a great time and wrote his teacher a note about his time off.

The following Monday was a school holiday, and Collin was disappointed to have another day off school after being absent the previous two school days.  We love that he enjoys school, but I'm also thankful we had a fun day meeting my mom at the zoo -

Crawling through the tunnel that is within an aquarium -

Success on the carousel - Maya requested to sit on a bench, and though it felt like a waste of a ticket, she was happy as could be -

Who knew a bench could be this exciting?

Last stop - reptile house (this is usually when I'm melting down with hunger and ready to wrap up the zoo visit) -

Sometimes it takes some bribery to get through the grocery store.  The mess with this popsicle didn't occur until we got to the car.  Parenting fail!

In October, we were able to connect with our 3rd grade mentee, with Cas picking him up and meeting the kids and me from a soccer game at the Children's Museum for take two of our Saturday afternoon/early evening plans.  Posing before Tallandis arrived by the Halloween scenery -

I had seen a cute mother-daughter pose on Pinterest that I wanted to try in our upcoming annual family photo session.  Collin snapped one of Maya kissing me in one take - 

When Maya took on the photographer role for the same picture, these were the results - 

Collin is on a more intense soccer league this year.  It's not ideal, mostly because he doesn't love soccer and doesn't have that aggressive, competitive drive in this sport yet.  I wish some other friends had stayed in the low-key church league, but every single 1st grade boy from his school who played soccer seemed to play in the league where they needed a copy of his birth certificate to confirm I wasn't lying about his age!  Anyway, his blue team played another team made up of his classmates and we took a group photo -

In mid-October, my wonderful mom spent the night to watch the kids while Cas and I attended the elementary school charity auction, and then stayed the night at the hotel followed by a late brunch on Saturday.  She on the other hand, had Maya wake up at 5:15am and had to get both kids to the soccer game at 7:45 in the morning.  We love her so and had a great early-anniversary mini-vacation!

Character dress up day - Charlie Bucket from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory - a book we had read earlier in the fall - 

Picking out pumpkins by the store -

Celebrating our last day of Monday music class for the season, a great hour I was able to spend with Maya at a local church for about 9 weeks this fall -

We've had a fun fall so far!