Walking to School

Normally Josh walks Zane to school every morning, but this morning Josh had to be in Seattle at 6:30 a.m. for a work training so Landon and I had the privalege to walk Zane to school today.  It was dumping rain while the boys were eating breakfast so we figured we were in for a wet walk for sure.  It is not worth driving him to school as the traffic around the school is so slow and with kids walking/running all over its a little scary to drive around the school - so rain or shine, we walk!

Once we got outside the rain had stopped, but the boys were so excited to use their umbrellas that I didn't have the heart to point it out to them!  And of course they looked so cute I had to take a picture!

Poor Lando's hood is so big, haha!

Off they go!

Nilsson Baby Shower

I had the pleasure of throwing my great friend Lisa a baby shower for her newest bundle of joy!  Lisa already a little girl and is now going to be blessed with a baby boy - the all around nuclear family!  I went with a simple theme of "Aqua & Orange" with a little elephant thrown into the mix here and there!  It was nice just doing a "color" theme - much easier to find supplies for!  Thanks to a little help from Pinterest I was able to pull this thing off without a hitch and I think everyone had a good time and enjoyed themselves!

Here are a few pictures of the shower decor - I didn't take many of the actual shower - I was too busy stuffing my face!

The food table.

Little closer view of part of the food table.

The invitation I made!

The baby boy to be!

Yum!  They turned out better than I had thought!

I added some blue tape to the orange plastic-ware to spice it up a bit!

The simple decorations!

Can't have a party without personalized water bottle labels!

The drink station.

Same the mama some time!

Best gift of the party in my opinion (her husband is Swedish)!

The glowing mama!

Douglas Street Block Party - 1st Annual

Our neighborhood held its first annual (at least that's our goal) Block Party a couple of weeks ago and it was a blast!  We are so blessed to have such great neighbors all around us - this is something we haven't experienced before and we are really loving it!  The weather was calling for downpours most of the day and night, but we totally lucked out with clear skies and sun!

The kids enjoyed bubbles, chalk, stomping through the woods with glow sticks and just running around being crazy!  The adults enjoyed some delicious food (big thanks to my awesome husband for smoking a brisket all day) and some great drinks prepared by our resident bartender Carrie!  That girl knows how to make a mean drink that you won't forget!

Once it started to cool down The Miranda's pulled out their portable fire pit into the alley and we kept the party going with warm hands and feet!  It was a great night and I am already looking forward to next years!

Curriculum Night

Last night was the much awaited curriculum night for Zane's grade - I was more excited than I think a normal human being should be!  I was very excited to meet his teacher, see his classroom, see his table where he sits and just see the classroom from his point of view!  His teacher is great and I think will be a great fit for him, she has been teaching 17 years and 14 of them have been in Kindergarten - she loves this age and loves to help them learn!  I love that!  Mrs. Boysen is very regimented and very organized and all about routine and thankfully that is something that Zane thrives on!  I've always been pretty routined with my boys, sometimes to a fault - but I really think its been good for them.

One of the big focuses of the year is of course to help all of the kids learn how to read.  This is VERY important to me.  Someone once told me that in grades K-3 kids "learn to read" and in grades 4 and above kids "read to learn" if they don't succeed in learning to read in the first 4 years, they will have a hard time succeeding in learning anything the following years and I'm a big believer in that.  Zane does not take a huge interest in learning to read and I won't lie, it does bother me at times, but I'm trying to just let school take its course. He'd rather work on math problems all day long (who is this kid??)!  Mrs. Boysen assured me that everyone will have at least the basics of reading down by the end of the year.  She said there are 7-8 kids in the class who are already strong readers and there are 5-6 kids who don't even know most of their letters yet.  I was amazed at that.  Thankfully Zane does not fall into that group of 5-6 kids...he knows all of his letters, can write them and knows all of their sounds (its putting the sounds together to sound out a word that is still a bit tricky for him).  I was amazed at the wide range of kids in the class and it made me appreciate the roll of a teacher even more - she has her work cut out for her!

I'm very excited for this year and can't wait to see what it has in store for Zane!

Here are a few pictures I took (you didn't think I would go and not take any pictures did you?!)...

Love his little name tag!

Where circle time is held - just thought the carpet was cute!

Man, times have changed...we didn't have cool ActivBoards like this when I was a kid!
It was good old chalk and a chalkboard!

His teacher loves owls and its apparent in her room!  Each of the kids made their own owl - cute!

Soccer

Zane had his first official soccer game tonight!  His first game of actually playing against an opposing team!  He rocked it out there on the field!  I absolutely love his love of the game!

GOAL!!!!!!!

He actually scored two goals, but I only caught this one (or the celebration of it) on camera!

Kindergarten Rocks

Zane made his Kindergarten debut this morning!  He has seriously been waiting for this day to come for at least 2 years - its something he has always wanted to do...go to Kindergarten!  I on the other hand have been dreading this day.  Like my friend Lori put it - the first day of school is both sad and happy. I'm so happy that he's growing up, thriving and EXCITED about school and those are things that I hope never change.  At the same time, I am sad that he's growing up and less and less my baby (although last night he let me know that he'd always be my baby).  I was/am scared to death to leave his Diabetes in the care of the school - the teachers who don't know a lot about it, the nurse who is only there part time and with Zane who I already feel has to manage too much of it himself for such a young age.  I of course shed a few tears this morning after dropping him off, but made my day busy with errands and Landon (I plan to take the first day of school off every year until they graduate just like my mom did for us kids)!  I received a text from the school nurse one hour after leaving him there letting me know of his blood sugar (390 - way too high, but all thanks to adrenaline) - but that text is just what I needed even if a high number...it was a text to remind me that someone was looking after him and he wasn't lost in a sea of students.  I received a few more texts from the nurse throughout the day with updates on his numbers (only one low today - yippee) - all were little reminders that he WILL BE OK and he will be cared for as he should be.

After picking him up today I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and he promptly replied with "playing at recess"!  I asked him what he did at recess and he said "the monkey bars the most"!  I asked him what his least favorite part of the day was and he said "nothing, I pretty much just loved it all"!  Success!

Here are the much awaited for first day pictures! I took a ton (shocking, I know) and had a hard time picking a favorite...so picked my top ones!

Walking to school - love that we are close enough to do this!
We are so close that it would almost be embarrassing if we didn't!

Zane and his teacher Mrs. Boysen

Love this picture - Landon just kept saying all day
that Zane was "at his new big school"!  He asked about him
many times today!