Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Box Top Season...

I am still in charge of Box Tops for the boys' school and it is that time of year again.
I have a contest, collect them from the teachers, sort, clip, count and send them in once in the fall and once in the spring.
So thanks to help mostly from Kelli (and a couple friends that counted some for me) a couple nights ago...she and I stayed up late. I am pretty much completely done! I just need to total them and send them in.
It will be nice to have that done and not worry about them again till March.
Oh and my other cute helper...
Counting the ones Grandma sent :)


Cutie :)


Feeding the ducks...

One morning the week before last I asked Gunnar if he wanted to go up to First Dam and feed the ducks before school. I don't think we ever made it up there to do it all summer, so it had been awhile.
We didn't have a whole lot of time to spend, but had so much fun.
It was such a beautiful day and Gunnar loved feeding them!
He just giggled most of the time. They get so close to you.
He was talking to them and calling them to come over to him.
At one point he saw two that looked just alike and said..."They must be twins Mom." Then a third one that looked the same came over and he said "triplets!"
Then a 4th one...he thought it was hilarious.
Anyway I guess I'm always just thinking that these days with him still home in the mornings with me are going by so quickly and I want to enjoy them as much as I can. So many days we have somewhere to be and he just has to tag along with me. Which is actually fun too with him, but it was nice to get out and do something different.
I'm so grateful I get to be this little boy's Mom...
And grateful for this time in my life :)





Parent/Teacher conferences...

It's been a couple weeks ago now since we went to the boys' first parent/teacher conference of the year. And Gunnar's first one ever.
I actually wanted to sit down and blog about it right after, but obviously I never got around to it, until now.
I walked away from the school that night feeling so proud that I wanted to cry.
Both of their teachers had nothing but positive, wonderful things to say about them. They are both off the charts academically and doing so well in every subject & just doing great all around.
A few weeks ago, as I blogged about before, we were having some really rough days with Ashton, but he's really turned it around and Mrs. Rees let us know that. So proud of him! And they both just sat quietly and respectfully through each others conference...it was so nice!
And Mrs. Coburn just beams when she talks about Gunnar...she loves him and loves to tell me how he just brightens her day. Makes sense to me, he brightens my days too. She told us how he never shouts out answers, but almost always is one of the first to raise his hand and knows almost all of the answers. I love that he is loving Kindergarten and getting to know and like all of the cute little kids in his class. And that he's getting comfortable enough to come out of his shell a little bit. I can't remember if I wrote this in an earlier post, but one day Mrs. Coburn stopped me as I was walking Gunnar out of the school and she said, "I just have to tell you the cutest thing Gunnar said today." She went on to tell me that she'd been teaching the class the definition of the word transparent and she described it as something see-through kind of like the chrysalis' that they had in their classroom at the time. Then awhile later, she asked all of the kids what the word was that meant see-through. So Gunnar raised his hand and said kind of hesitantly "trans...momma"? As she was telling me this I had to think about it for a minute and she said "You know, he was thinking instead of "parent"..."momma" So cute!
Just yesterday she said that he was the only one who knew all of this week's vocabulary words. He loves to learn!
I remember when Ashton first started to learn to read, and all day whenever he saw words anywhere he'd try to sound them out. Gunnar is doing that every day now. I love it. And I love how his eyes light up when he sounds one out and realizes he got it right.
When we got home after school today, he and I stayed outside raking up and playing in the leaves for quite awhile. (fun pictures coming later :)
Anyway at one point he said to me "Cool Mom! It says In God We Trust on my penny!" It took me a minute to realize he'd read one of his very first sentences all by himself. And I love that that's what he read!
I love their little school & their teachers and am just feeling really proud of the awesome little boys that they are :)
 


Tuesday, October 15, 2013

School pictures...

This year's school pictures...
That morning Gunnar kept asking me if I got to go with him for it.
Turns out I should have so I could have gotten a real smile :)
Still a cutie...
 Ashton has gotten pretty good at the school picture thing over the years...
Gunnar is getting retakes today. It was funny, he came home
with the flyer for retake day and said "Oh man...school pictures again?" just thinking this must be something they have to do often...haha. So I said um...yep :)
He never did catch on that it was just him getting them done again, not Ashton...
Practicing before we left today...haha :)

 


Monday, October 14, 2013

Thanksgiving Point...

The weekend before last after Gunnar's 9 am soccer game, we drove down to Thanksgiving Point to meet Nana, Papa, Shelley, Mat, Hunter and Ali for the day. They have Cornbelly's going on now with lots of fun fall/Halloween activities etc...
Ashton actually remembers when we went about 4 years ago and kept asking if we could go again...

Some pictures from that day :)
I sure miss them being that little...


Anyway, and some pictures from our most recent trip there.
It was a fun day!
 

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Gunnar got his hunting day...

Last week after being so sad that day when he woke to find that Lars and Ashton had gone hunting, Gunnar got his turn on Thursday. Lars went to work in the morning figuring he wouldn't waste his time going in the bad weather, but then it ended being really nice all morning, so he called me a little before lunch and said he was thinking about taking the rest of the day off and taking Gunnar up hunting with him.
Gunnar was SO excited when I told him. He had been playing over at his little friend's house and came right home and started thinking of what he needed to pack in his backpack to take with them.
So I called and told his teacher he wouldn't be there that afternoon and they took off about 1:00.
Unfortunately the weather got really bad again...Lars said they only had about 15 or 20 minutes that they spent outside of the truck walking around before it started to blizzard.
But he said Gunnar still had fun just playing in the truck.
Good thing he is such a good sport!
I'm glad he got his hunting day with Lars :)

Monday, October 7, 2013

More photoshoots...

Most recent photo shoots...
Some cute neighbors...
 Their adorable little boy Hank..
And another friend's cute little girl Isabelle...
Luckily we have had a few beautiful fall days in between all of the cold ones!