May Memories

What a VERY busy month May was with some fun day to day memories. Here we go!

 Is there anything better than a baby in a hooded towel? She yells "minnie towel" every time she is ready to get out of the bathtub.

 So, on this night, we let Atticus (and everyone) watch a new Star Wars movie he had not yet seen. They all liked it but Everly was the funniest because part of the way through, while she watches and plays with toys from the playroom, she comes to us with this little light saber and starts play fighting like she sees on the movie. Why am I letting my 2 year old watch Star Wars? It's a 3rd child thing, clearly.

 Vic went with Atticus to Literacy Cafe at his school this year. Each class in each grade sets up a "meal" for their parent, complete with snacks, and the "work" they show them are the different parts of the meal. Atticus did a report on chameleons and was so proud, as he was with all of his work. Vic was really impressed!

 I was so glad Vic got to go as I usually attend this stuff because my schedule is easier.

 We went back to Grace's 2nd night of her dance studio's recital just so she could watch her friend Brynn perform!

 And then we took some pics because one day I will take these pictures again and she will possibly be coming to A&M and be all grown up! Boo hoo!

 This month, Atticus was still so into all of the sports cards and would want to just sit and go through them over and over and ask us who we would pick or who was better than who and want to organize them over and over. I love this phase!

Cards everywhere in our house!

 We were given some free tickets to an Aggie game, and Vic and Atticus brought Steve and Luc with them!

 On the way to the game, Vic left his phone on his truck by accident and it fell on the road. When he realized he didn't have it at the game, I started tracking his phone and found it...in the middle of the road on William D Fitch! While the glass screen protector was shattered, the phone was perfectly fine! I took it to the Verizon store immediately for a new protector. Well, while the phone looked good, the camera was not working so we did have to get a replacement (for free at least!), but I was so impressed that it took such a beating and didn't have more damage.

 Fun day of Aggie baseball!

 Popsicles and the slip 'n slide with Luc and Ellie one Sunday afternoon.

 Well checks for all 3 kids...I just knew doing all 3 at once would be so much easier and while it was more convenient than 3 different appointments, it is always a zoo when you try to keep 3 kids contained in a 10x10 room at the doctors office. But, we survived!

 Looking cool. As always.

 When Pop came, he probably didn't realize how much Grace would need his attention and want to play! They built legos, read books, played ball, played games, and had fun!

 I'm sure Pop enjoyed the Fairy Ponies book that had lots of chapters to read! Actually, I don't think he minded at all.

 While Pop was here, I found out that Everly could count! I have a cute video I will post of her counting. I think we count things so much, in general life with little kids, that she just picked it up. Of course on video, she does less, but she can go all the way to 20 just skipping a couple of numbers. Then, while at our friend Hannah's house one day, I was telling Meghan about this and Hannah started counting too! These third kids...they are smart!

 So, the last month of school, Atticus and his friends were REALLY into creating books about wars and drawing war related things. Atticus had been interested in this series called I Survived and so they drew all kinds of things. One day, Atticus comes home with all of these papers and tells me he need to staple them together and finish a cover and take them back to school for the class shelf where kids can look at each other's books. He was really proud and loved them. Well, on the day before the last day of school, he gets into the car and is very concerned because he really wanted to take them home on the last day to keep. But there was another boy who had done a couple of pages and wanted to take them home. His teacher told them they had to work it out and Atticus just knew he wouldn't get them even though he'd worked so hard on them. So, we talked about it and I just hoped they would each get to keep at least one on the last day (I think there were 3 of them). Well, luck had it that the other boy didn't even come to school on the last day, so Atticus got them all! And honestly, most of these pages were done by Atticus so it was only fair, but it's a lot of work to learn how to handle friend problems, because life is not always fair.

So much fire and blowing up, but boys will be boys, I guess?

 Grace and Daddy have been having HEB dates on Saturdays. One day after their HEB run, they sat in the backyard and Vic said Grace told him she needed to relax after all of their work!

 This girl never stops talking so when we went to Hobby Lobby one night (just us), I did nothing but talk to her! And it's hilarious!

 Grace's sleeping habits have been tough for awhile now. Back in October, she got scared of Halloween stuff and started not only coming to our room in the middle of the night to sleep on the floor, but also needing us to stay until she fell asleep each night in her room. We did it for awhile and then would try to ease her out of this, usually to the result of tears and telling us how scared she was. Every little one is different and has different needs so we have just done this forever! With the baby coming and Kindergarten starting, we knew we would have to get serious quick about this habit, but one this night, I just had to take her picture of her little sleeping self.

 While at Atticus's end of year baseball party, I put Everly in her first ponytail!

 Such a big girl!

 And then, one night, the kids played in this little baby pool and went down the slide about 100x. Everly took no time at all to get brave as well.

 The bigger you are, the more water that splashes out! I think we need a bigger pool!

 Always stylish! I am going to miss these random moments during my days while Grace is at school.

 Atticus had a themed week of fun the last week of school and was SO excited for Beach Day!

 As we have always known, Everly loves a stool, chair, rocker, anything to sit in. One day, she comes out with the stool, sits on it, and writes in her little book for awhile. She looked so studious as she sat there!

And finally, fun with friends on Field Day at PCE!
And that was our month!

Last Day of First Grade for Atticus

Well, he did it! It was a great year for Atticus; he loved going to school, loved learning, loved his friends, and loved his teacher. However, the last day, he had a hard time. He got into the car after school and burst into tears. When we got home to have some one-on-one time (he did NOT like Grace asking him what was wrong in the car while he cried), he told me he was just so sad that he wouldn't see his teacher or friends again. He has the most tender heart at times and while he will see them all this fall, he just loves his friend and teacher and it bothered him. I love that about him; he is so thoughtful and really does know the importance of certain situations. When he got home, he looked at this entire ziploc bag of stuff that his teacher gave him: a certificate, a picture of him and and his friends, a letter she wrote to him, and some other special things from his first grade memories. He cried each time and just needed some snuggles. It had been a REALLY busy, exhausting month with so much going on and less sleep, and I think the emotional part of realizing 1st grade was over hit him. After a little bit, he was ok and by the time we went to our Last Day of School dinner at Torchy's, he was fine. And then he remembered how great summer was, so he has been fine since. Here is his last day:

This was his class photo this year. 

 So, Atticus decided he wanted to buy his teacher 10 giant bottles of Diet Coke for her end of year gift, because he said she would love that much Diet Coke. We bought her 1 2 liter and a gift card and then he wrote her a note. I loved it so much; he wrote a draft on a different piece of paper and then wrote the card and while I originally told him to write her something nice that he learned or remembered from 1st grade, I gave no other instructions and was so surprised to see this! Some of his language and some of the things he included just made me laugh and smile!

 Last Day of First Grade!

And this was about a week before, but here is his teacher, Mrs. Payne.

 We did this last year, because who wants to cook on the last day of school? And now we made it our tradition! Torchy's Tacos for dinner!

We are ready for summer!

Memorial Day Weekend with Reveille

On Memorial Day Weekend (Sunday), the Cummings invited us over to swim and play, along with a few other people. And she told us a special guest would be there. We arrived and found Reveille and Reveille's handler were staying with them for a few weeks! Apparently, Reveille's main handler (also the first girl handler in TAMU history) was in San Diego for a few weeks for training, so her second handler was in charge. Well, the second handler was from Louisiana and didn't have a home in College Station to stay in (plus in the corps, they live on campus during the school year), so the Cummings invited them to say with them. Reveille has a busy schedule of training on Kyle Field with noise and lights for football games 3x a week as well as a weekly grooming appointment, so she can't just leave College Station easily. And, she has to stay kind of hidden when not doing official events or going to class during the year. So, her handler and her just hung out for a few weeks. And WE got to see her and love on her! We arrived and the kids thought it was neat for a few minutes, but then wanted to swim. I couldn't really get enough of this moment. I mean - it's REVEILLE! And we could pet her as much as we wanted and it was relaxed and easy. Even in her official capacity at events, I'm sure she is pretty protected by her handlers, so this was really neat. We didn't get nearly enough photos and actually, we asked permission first. Her handler said we could take them, but requested we not post on any social media. I did ask him if I could put on my family blog and he said ok. Yay! But, apparently, people sometimes take advantage of posting silly memes about Reveille or other things and so they don't really want photos out there that could cause problems. Anyways, other than Reveille, the kids had a great time swimming! I didn't get in the pool at all, because I was pretty sure that Everly was not going to stay in the water. She was not super interested last summer in a big pool and it's sometimes easier for one parents to be in and one to be out of the water to handle kids in and out. Well, I was mostly wrong this day! She loved being in the water! And this gave Atticus and Grace another chance (they had actually both been to dance and birthday parties in May so they were already warming back up to swimming - especially Atticus!) to practice being in the water after 9 months of no swimming. It was a really fun day!

 Her handler was teaching the kids how to give her treats. She has to do certain steps to get her treat, but the kids were not consistent and poor Rev kept messing up. I mean - she WAS on vacation, so she should get a break! https://youtu.be/sMCYoLbrSoQ

When my kids are older, they will probably regret not playing with her more when they had the chance!

 She loved these Minnie Mouse goggles of Grace's.

Scott spent a lot of time teaching Atticus to climb up on his shoulders and jump in the water. The videos are so funny! Here is our video of our day! https://youtu.be/oTi-FvddDiw