Hunter had his first take home project this past weekend, it was bringing the class dolphin "Dolly" home. We had a very fun-filled weekend though I was really hoping for rain so I would be more inclined to stay inside and get some things done around my house....no such luck in the sunshine state though. Friday was sort of a lounge around day though after getting home from work because it was raining and so I started to unpack my scrapbook stuff. Matthew had gone over to my sister's house for pizza with mom, Sean had gone to his fantasy football draft night, so Hunter and I stayed home and unpacked scrapbook stuff but got too side-tracked looking at all the pictures. Saturday we had lunch with Carol, did some swimming, had friends over for cards that night and the boys had an indoor camp out. We had put up a tent to let them play and have a camp out sleepover, and made cupcakes for them to decorate...guess I really should have thought that through more before feeding 4 boys that much sugar. Ha! But they had a good time and we had fun playing cards, so it was all good. Sunday we did actually spend a little bit of time shopping for some new pictures for the house because there are some really big walls....of course by the time we got to the store neither of us could remember what color anything was so it wasn't really that productive of a shopping spree. Then we went to Don Pablo's to meet some of our friends for dinner (the Lopez and Chase families). We had a great time with them and the kids spent most of their time watching the people cook tortillas and throwing pennies in the fountain that didn't have a drop of water in it. The good thing with that is that once we ran out of pennies they just reached in and grabbed some back out and threw them all in again.

So anyway, here are some pictures from Hunter's weekend with Dolly Dolphin...he had her dressed up in his costumes and everything...he really loved that little dolphin and he was so excited that she picked him to go home with first!

Off to preschool again...

Okay, so since Hunter missed the cutoff for kindergarten by just 5 days...here we go to preschool again. I think it's going to be a good thing for him to be one of the older kids in his class though, since it seems to have worked well for Matthew. So today was Hunter's first day of school and it was a little nerve racking. He's an old pro when it comes to going to school, but I was so worried with his allergies and how the new teachers would do with him. I didn't have the best feeling when I left because they don't allow him to have his red medicine bag in the room with him, it has to be kept in the office...so I quizzed the teachers on how fast they could get to it and back and they assured me that they run fast. Then one of the parents had a puppy in the classroom with them so I had to complain about that and then I was worried to death that he was going to have an asthma attack or something and the school didn't have any of his asthma medicine...I was a sick wreck when I left him there and was on the verge of tears....but fortunately all was okay. They took good care of him after all....so all those extra gray hairs in my head for no reason at all. Ha! He did inform us though that he got put on the red light which is the bad spot in his class. At least he's honest and shares these things with us but he just has no shame at all...ugh! But when we asked why he got in trouble he said it was because he yelled at a little boy because he kept hitting his Spider Man lunch box...the little boy is lucky all he got was yelled at to be honest...gotta watch for "anger management" as we've come to nick-name Hunter. I just don't know what we're going to do with that little hot head! Anyway, here are some pictures from his first day.

One quick story about our night at home with "study time". I bought all these flash cards at Target in the dollar bin so we're using them at night for study and reading time. So I had the USA flashcards out, and I was amazed by just how many states Matthew could recognize just by their selves...I think he and Raymond did a great job on the computer working on those state puzzles. Anyway, we came to Mississippi and Matthew identified it and said "mom, I can even spell it" and he proceeded to say "m-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i" and Hunter not missing a beat jumps up and says "he said pee pee" and they both started cracking up. Ah the potty humor of boys...when does it ever end?

Until my next post...

First day of 2nd grade!

Well, I'm happy to report that Matthew survived his 1st day of second grade at his new school....
it was a close call though having to sit between 2 girls at lunch that he didn't know. Ha!

It was a beautiful, sunny day, a little hot but I guess that's what you get in August in FL. But Sean and I both took Matthew to school for his first day. After all the pictures we took, I'm sure next year he'll suggest we stay home! ha! You could tell he was really embarrassed but still let me snap the pictures anyway, and his teacher was so nice and was encouraging us to take all the pictures we wanted, like I need that kind of encouragement.....

Anyway, after I finally finished my last shot of him then my sister went in and started snapping shots of her own as well. I know he just wanted to crawl under his desk and hide...poor little guy. He was a good sport about it though and smiled for all the pictures. He seems to have had a pretty good day, all that we could drag out of him at the end of the day was that they had indoor recess because it was too hot and they didn't get snack today for some reason so he was starving. They did get lunch but that just wasn't good enough. So we took him (along with Sis, Kenzie, Keegan, Mom, Hunter, Sean and myself) to Friendly's for dinner and ice cream, actually as it turns out we had ice cream first and then dinner...the waiter thought we were nuts. But the kids ate all of their dinner so maybe ice cream first is the way to go? After that we went to our library here for the first time to do his homework and read books since we haven't gotten to unpacking our books just yet. We ended up staying there until 7:30pm....what a long day! Anyway, he had a wonderful day but of course didn't meet anyone new. So tonight we worked on how he could start conversations with the girls in the lunch room...we'll see how tomorrow goes for him, he'll have to speak to them eventually right?

Summer's coming to an end...

Although you would never know by the heat that's here...our summer in FL is coming to a quick end. The kids are back to school on Monday, another summer has come and gone, bummer! The kids went to meet their new teachers today. Hunter will be going to the Pre-K program at a private Christian School because he missed the cut-off for kindergarten here by 5 days! We tried to get them to test him in but it's a state law so there's no way around it...I guess it's not such a bad thing to be the oldest in the class, hopefully it'll work to his advantage at some point. His teachers are Ms. Shannon and Ms. Robin, they both seem so nice and the school was awesome, I think he'll really like going there. His favorite part was the huge sand pit they had at their playground. His classroom also had centers: Math, Science, Home Living, Blocks and Leisure. It's actually just like what he would have had for kindergarten in VA because he even goes for 15 hours a week, though here he'll be going for 3 5-hour days vs. 5 3-hour days there.

Matthew's new teacher is Mrs. Bird. He was excited to know at least 1 person in his class, not bad considering he's the new kid. His teacher seemed very nice and outgoing and she has promised to bring him out of his shell because he was very shy when she was trying to talk to him. The principal said they put Matthew in her class just because he was shy and if anyone could bring him out of it, it would be her. His favorite part of his new school is that everything is outside. There's no indoor hallways, you have to go outside to get to everything and it's all in modular type buildings...pretty cool. He's now a Hawk rather than a Penguin...guess it's too hot to have a penguin as a mascot around here. He did have his old school in mind though and wore his yellow class t-shirt from last year to his new school today. It'll be an adjustment to not have all of his best buddies around, but hopefully he'll be okay.

We sure miss all our friends in VA and hope that we will have some visitors soon!

Until my next post...

Pictures don't even come close...

Okay....here's a good riddle for you:
What do you get when you turn your back for a split second, on two silly boys, in a jetted bath, with a full bottle of soap (or what used to be full anyway)?

BUBBLES....LOTS AND LOTS OF BUBBLES!

We thought it was bad enough when Sean went to turn the jets on and they sprayed water straight up everywhere like a fountain in our bathroom because neither of us realized that you have to actually aim the jets downward before turning them on. So after finally getting that cleaned up, we put the boys in and let them play while we hung some things in the closet right there in the bathroom and then we hear the dreaded words of boys..."uh oh"! We looked out and bubbles were coming over the sides of the tub and you could barely see the boys anymore. They had such a mess but boy did the have a great time...they even had time to "shave" their bubbles off while we tried to find a way to drain all of them. They were laughing so hard, and they were so cute....pictures can't even come close!

Until my next post...

3, 2, 1, blastoff!!!

We had a hot but very exciting day today...we went to see the shuttle launch at the Kennedy Space Center. It was like rush hour on the beltway getting into the space center, the typical 1 hour drive became 2. We wouldn't have minded so much but we were on E, what kind of crazy are we going into traffic and forgetting to check to make sure we had enough gas? Ugh! Well, we made it but we were very nervous. Anyway, we were there with about a million other people in 400 degree weather, but it was sooooo worth it! I would do it again in a second and so would Matthew...Hunter thought it was "boring, and horrible because it wasn't loud enough". Ha! Sean is not one to fight crowds and didn't like the heat but he did enjoy the shuttle launch part of the trip. We spent the day at the Kennedy Space Center taking in an IMAX show about the space station, the Mad Mission to Mars kids show, they played in water, and we did the Space Launch Experience ride...that was pretty cool, but I felt like we would all have shaken astronaut syndrome by the time we got off. The launch was a dream come true for me...I've always wanted to be an astronaut, go to space or and see a launch in real life...one out of three's not bad huh? We had a good time despite the heat and crowds and it was so exciting to count down the blast with all those people. We saw the shuttle taking off and then about 2 minutes later heard it, it sounded like fireworks really, I was expecting much worse. I would highly recommend it to anyone coming to town to try to catch a shuttle taking off....it was something I'll never forget. I'm going to try to go back for the October and/or December launch as well....maybe the rest of the gang will go in December when it's much cooler outside. We have some pictures attached of us at Kennedy Space Center and anyone who knows Hunter, will know that he HAD to become an astronaut today. The rest of the kids posed behind wooden suits, Hunter had to have a suit...he really wants to be an astronaut now...much better than being Spider Man I guess, at least he could possibly be paid for this job. Until my next post.....

Almost back in action...

Okay, it's been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened which is why I haven't had time to post...not to mention I haven't really had an internet connection either. Anyway, we went to closing on our new house in FL on Monday, 7/31 so we're official FL residents now. Thuesday, 8/1 the movers came to VA to pick up all our stuff and trust me when I say we had a lot of stuff. Even though we really did a good job going through and getting rid of a ton of things, it still took 6 professional movers 6.5 hours to load everything into a truck! They had estimated that our things wouldn't arrive until about Sunday so Matthew, Hunter, mom and I joined Carol, Garrett, my Sis, Kenzie and Keegan at the beach for the weekend. We had a great time there, the weather was perfect...however, there was a slight jellyfish problem. Of course Keegan had to get stung not 5 minutes after we got to the beach but we were thankful if any kid had to get stung that it was him because he's quite the tough guy...didn't even cry! The lifeguard took good care of him by spraying regular kitchen vinegar on his foot and he was fine after that. Who knew that vinegar cures a jellyfish sting?! Anyway, there were about 1,000 stings in one day at just the 3 lifeguard posts and so the news was there doing a big special...we have nothing better to talk about than the attack of jellyfish. Ha! Then at one point there was a guy swimming pretty far out in the ocean and the lifeguard kept blowing her whistle and waving her flag and he started swimming in but she kept doing it and then she looked at me calmly and said "there's a shark so I don't know why they aren't getting out of the water"!!!!! I freaked out and started yelling "shark, get out" so then everyone responded. Sis and the kids were in the water too and they moved very fast...we all thought she was blowing the whistle at the guy swimming out way too far...I can't believe she was so calm. Turns out that it was a 5 foot shark coming in right about knee deep and that happens to be the beach where everyone get attacked by sharks....now I see why, no sense of urgency to get people out of the ocean. In my opinion when you see a shark you don't just stand and wave a flag calmly, you wave it like a freak and yell shark! Anyway, our stuff arrived Saturday instead so I missed watching those poor guys carry all our stuff into our new house in the 100 degree temps...Sean said he knows they had to have lost about 10 pounds each because it was so hot...and he wanted to do all this moving ourselves, we'd probably still be loading a truck in VA. Ha! Anyway, we're all moved in and still unpacking so we hope to put the last box out in the trash by the end of the weekend. We'll be sending out notices with our new address and phone number soon but we still have our old cell phone numbers so if you need to come visit before you get our new address just call us on the cells and we'll have your guest room ready and waiting! Until my next post...