First day of 1st and 4th Grade

Here's pictures to remember this first day of the 2013-2014 school year. 

Let the record show that 99.9% of their outfits are their personal choices.  I took a step back, gave advice, and then let them do what they wanted....it was SO HARD TO DO!  But, they are getting older and WAY more opinionated about how they look and this was not a battle I chose to fight!  They did look super cute.  This was the first year that I did not have a single shred of nervousness.  Let's just be honest; I was just anxious to get some quiet time.  Plus I am very confident in our girls school and they both love school so no worries all around.  It was kind of awkward walking each of them into their classroom.  They are both at this place where they still want our reassurance and proximity when they are a little nervous, but you can also tell they don't want to seem babyish so they aren't quite sure how to act with us when their peers are around.   Either way they loved the first day and both have decided to continue on tomorrow. ;)  And now for their traditional 1st day interview:
1st and 4th grade interview from Emma Montandon on Vimeo.

Twas the day before school

Twas the day before school,
And all through my house,
Everyone was sad,
Except me and my spouse.

The children were prepped,
With new clothes to wear,
Pencils all sharpened,
New do's for their hair.

We started in June,
with a list so grandeur,
Of all kinds of things,
For our group of four. (and sometimes daddy ;)

Day after day,
We tried new escapades,
Fishing, and swimming, and
fresh lemonade.

But now it is time,
Say goodbye to the heat,
School's back in session,
For parents, what a treat!

Last Week of Summer: Friday

So we come to the end of this last week of summer...and at this point our sanity is barely hanging on.  We are counting hours at this point...the noise is ear-splitting.  The humor is all potty related.  The fighting is infectious.  The crying is hourly.  Let the school year commence!!!!!!!!!!  But as children will force you to do....The show must go on...and so it has.

I started the day with an 8am photo shoot, attempting to beat the heat since an almost 2 month old was involved....it was so humid that I completely soaked the shirt I was wearing.  After I got home, we packed up the kids and headed to Austin to explore every square inch of Toys R Us.  The kids were beyond excited!!!  We wanted to do a little Christmas window shopping to get ideas as well as get ideas for Ava's upcoming birthday.  And ideas, we did get! 

Grandparents, here's what Levi wants and it's only $349.99.  What a steal!

 Afterwards Shawn treated me and him to lunch at Central Market, which we'd never been to before.  (He packed the kids lunch from home....such a smart guy!)  I got the Greek burger and tried a new meat...lamb. It was great!  Shawn got the Tacos Carnitas which was absolutely delicious too! 

Next we toured the store as if we were tourist from another country.  This picture is ALL chocolate....every kind you can imagine!

 Then it was time to head home for naptime.  During Levi's nap, the girls headed to their hair appointments and this is what we came home with!  Shorter than the last time and they both love it!

Now.....what to do tomorrow?....it's a madhouse around here.

Last week of Summer: Thursday

Today we started with a healthy yummy activity that also happened to be on our summer list.  We made homemade smoothies...for the first time ever.  Merciful heavens I could drink that every morning!  I felt like I was having a dessert to drink!

Making smoothies can be a messy ordeal!

Thumbs up from 1st child!

Now for the "picky" one....

Thumbs up from the second one!!

And one no thank you for naked boy. LOL

Here's my recipe....and I'd take out the oats next time...we added and subtracted based on what we had on hand and what flavors we really liked, but this was the base recipe we went from. 

 

So after that, I took the kids to run errands all morning...all over the place.  Our first stop was CVS for me to buy a huge bag of Skittles.  I came out to the car and showed them the candy and had their attention right away.  I told them that I'd be given 2-3 Skittles to each child for good behavior while driving to each store as well as Skittles for good behavior in the store.  And guess what....they were wonderful and it was the best and smartest $1.50 I've spent in a long time!

 

This evening we headed to meet the teacher at the girls school.  Glad to have it over with.  It's a weird and anxious time for the girls and their teachers and friends they haven't seen all summer, and I'll be glad when we are about 2 weeks into school and back on our nice little schedule.  So after the meet the teacher, I wanted to take the kids to do a back to school photoshoot so off we went.  I think this is my favorite pictures I've taken of my kids.  It helped that the girls were really into it and loved being part of it.  Here's a few of the pictures I took.  The rest are on facebook because there were way too many to put on the blog.  Love love love how these turned out!

 Yeah for 4th grade!!!  This year she has two teachers, one for math and science and one for english.  This is her homeroom/math and science teacher.

 

We really didn't realize that the girls shirts would match their grade color.  lol!

 

 And here's a few photos from the Back to School Photoshoot.

Last Week of Summer: Wednesday

Today we went hunting rocks on part of the river in hopes that we'd find just the right rocks to become our pets.  Before we got to our destination I saw these stairs and thought they'd make a fun backdrop for an impromptu picture of my kiddos.

 

Levi wasn't interested in hunting rocks at all.  But he was very interested in throwing them!

Girls couldn't stop themselves from getting in the water!

Then it was back to the house to begin the painting process.  Levi painted exactly one rock and then said he wanted to be done.  But he sure was proud of that one rock.

The finished products.  I loved making these and so did the girls!  And we have plenty left should we get bored....

Row 1: mine  Row 2: Elle's  Row 3: Ava's and she did lots of Monster's Inc characters, and Row 4: Levi's

Last Week of Summer: Tuesday

We started today with a trip to the movies.  On Tuesdays, they've been showing older movies for 50 cents a person along with popcorn and a drink for $3.50.  So for a grand total of $5.50 all my kids got popcorn and a few shared sips, and got to watch Puss N Boots!  Then this afternoon, we met up with our friend from church, John, who had just bought a party barge and was ready to get out on the lake....and we were more than happy to give him a reason!  We had such a wonderful time.  We headed out about 5:15 and didn't come in until the sun was setting.  The sunset tonight was really something to see and we couldn't have asked for a better time.

Something you don't want to hear when you're out on the lake with not a shred of anything you could possibly use as toilet paper..."I need to poop.  Really really bad."  So we beach the boat in a cove that really isn't meant to put a boat in and Shawn treks up a little ways with Levi...spending at least 5 minutes trying to help him concentrate....to no avail.  Well at least we didn't have to deal with how to wipe.  Lovely.

What a great way to end a wonderful day!

The Last Week of Summer: Monday

Yesterday, Shawn and I had planned to take our kids on a very fast roadtrip to the beach, like we did back at spring break, leaving around 5:30-6 in the morning and driving home late late late that night.  We also planned this back right after camp, before we'd done the trip to Moore and been burned out on all travel...with kids.  So we revised the plans with the kids none the wiser and headed to a waterpark all of 20 minutes away...one of the best decisions we've made all month!  It was a great little waterpark and I could have spent all day long in the lazy river...man I love those things. 

 

 

 

Hitching a ride back to the car

Fishin and a little Target Practice

We headed to Craig's house Saturday to do some fishing and BB gun shooting.  First we stopped at the gas station for a bag of live minnows and a box of night crawlers.  Everyone was super excited since we hadn't made it out to Craig's all summer to fish!  Once we got there, to give the kids incentive to fish, I told them that you had to catch a fish to get a cupcake I'd made, back at home.  Elle and Levi quickly snagged a fish and then poor Ava tried and tried and tried.  Everyone was kind of getting antsy to leave and I looked at Shawn and said, "She has to catch a fish....we can't leave till she does!!!"  And really it wasn't about cupcakes anymore...Ava kept saying "Why don't the fish like me?" It's not personal Ava. lol  We had a great time and finally she did catch a fish!  Those cupcakes sure were good.  :)