At the asemble

I whent to a asemble there was a lot of kids I whent to the front becas I got a writing aword!

I have a wigle tooth

I can not wate to put it under my pilow.I like to wigle my tooth a lot.

Blanket pull

I have a picture from my childhood of my Big Sister Carol pulling me around on a towel or a blanket. So, I had to snap this one!

Tea for Three

Rehearsing

Halloween is coming up, so the kids are practicing their best scary faces!

Perfect position

These pictures were taken when they went to the bouncy house with friends Josh and Luke. I admit that it's possible that Kenzie has become over-photographed. She seems to have perfect sense of when the camera is just about to click, regardless of what she's doing. She can be in the middle of, well, going down a bouncy slide, and is still able to lock her gaze with the camera in time for the snap.

No shining star

I walked in the house and Kenzie immediately showed me her daily report. Instead of a star, her teacher had written words: "Kenzie had a VERY difficult time being a good partner today."

I was immediately glad that she had showed me and wanted to stay open minded and hear her entire story without judgement. It became more difficult as the story progressed. It went something like this...

"We did stations today. Everybody got a partner. Maggie was my partner. At the first station she wanted to go first, but I told her 'no.' She told Miss B that I wasn't letting her go first.

Then, at the next station she wanted to go first again. I didn't let her so she went and told Miss B again. She came over and told me to share.

So, we went to the third station. AGAIN, she wanted to go first and again I told her no! [Incredulously] She told Miss B AGAIN that I wouldn't share. And Miss B came over to talk to me again. Every time she got more fierce and stressed!

So, the fourth time when Miss B came over she told Maggie that she could just join a different team. So I started crying. Then Maggie told Miss B that she didn't want to go to a different station, that she still wanted to play with me.

So I let her go first."

Kenzie wrote a sorry note to Maggie and claims that they're now friends. Although I'm not sure I am always getting both sides of the story.

Where's the bear?

I think I forgot to mention that Cindy and Mason actually saw The Bear (or a close cousin) a couple of blocks from our house. Mason was so excited and loves to talk about it.

(A neighbor saw a cougar in Our Yard a couple of weeks ago, but we're not so excited to talk about that.)

This morning he showed off his tattoo that we got at Salmon Days, saying that it reminded him of the bear he saw. Cindy asked him where he thought the bear was now. He said, "I think it's hibernating."

So I asked him, "what would you say if he was sleeping under our house?"

He paused and then very seriously replied, "I think I'd say...you go first."

Fish for a grade

On the car ride home yesterday I was looking at Kenzie's school work. She's doing great. Every day she's getting "a star" for her behavior. She also got a perfect score on her math test. I was telling her how fabulous she's doing.

That reminded her of something.

She said, "oh, Mom, I was wondering...what reward do I get if I get all stars?"

Not really needing to ask I said, "What do you mean?"

She told me "Well, a friend in class is getting a fish from her parents if she gets all stars. I'm just wondering what I'll get."

I explained to her that she gets to be proud that she did her best work, learn a lot (and that's the point) and know that we're equally proud. I talked about the fact that we don't pay for grades, but always expect her to do her best. She was buying none of it. I reminded her that she gets lots of privileges and rewards every day because she's so fantastic and we love her so much...but we don't believe in bribing. My message was still not sinking in so I asked her, "if I were to offer to get you a fish, would that mean that you would try harder?"

Sensing a trap she replied with her most stern face, "No. Mom. Listen. I was just wondering what my reward would be."

Still trying to get her to see the inherent wisdom in this...and failing miserably...I said, "how does it feel when you get all stars? Aren't you proud of yourself?"

"I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Taking the training wheel off

We had such a great day on Sunday hanging out in the yard on possibly our last nice weekend day of the year. We just hung out and played with everything that was either a ball or had a wheel (bikes, scooters, basketball, baseball, etc). Then, for even more fun we decided to take one of the training wheels off of Mason's bike. He did pretty well, but ended up leaning left quite a bit.

Starbucks deposit

Here are Kenzie and Mason's buds Josh and Luke.

Because you asked for the full story of Kenzie puking into the Starbucks bucket...this was the "before" picture and the cause. One too many pictures with the wax teeth: "hold it, just one more, Luke's not looking" or "Mason didn't have his teeth in." We had to push it, she couldn't hold it.

Luckily they had a 2 gallon bucket near the espresso bar.

Return of the uvula

Kenzie used to talk about her uvula a lot. (Maybe it's because she has such a sensitive gag reflux...as she demonstrated just yesterday by puking into Starbuck's "sale" bucket...but that's another story.) I thought it appropriate to show this picture where Mason proudly displays his.

Super Hero

At Mason's birthday party last weekend we had a Spiderman pinata. After all the kids had a few turns whacking, we cut Mason loose. He was a wild man, eventually crushing the skull and severing the torso of Spiderman. That poor superhero was defenseless against that plastic bat (as was Jackie who kept trying to keep the rest of the kids out of the way).

I'm thinking it was a good thing that Cindy wasn't able to find the aluminum bat that I sent her searching for.