September 19th - Luke learns to ride bike w/out training wheels!

YEAH! Luke was so determined to learn to ride his bike this weekend w/out training wheels! Grandad is the pro at teaching all the kids and he has another successful rider! Luke was such a sport, he fell a number of times and would get back up and say "I'm okay, let's do it again!" -- that's my tough guy! And Parker was a great cheerleader for her brother!

Granlyn and Grandad came in town for the weekend and we had so much fun! Parker was so proud to show them her reading -- she is doing so well and getting very smart :)

Painting Faces

I had to get this picture because at the end of the summer, the neighbor kids LOVED to paint their faces -- well, as you can see Luke decided to paint his entire body - so fun! Needless to say, we immediately jumped in the bath and thank goodness they make markers that are "washable" nowadays!

Parker and Luke in their "fort"

Here they are! Doing one of their favorite things -- building a fort with our pillows. I wish life stayed this simple! :)

Our Dogs

Here are our precious little dachsunds -- on the left is Callie (girl) and Jingle (Bell) is on the right. The kids were reading books to Jingle and made a pallet for him to lay on. Sweet Callie likes to be wherever Mom is and preferrably in my lap!

Just Proud Parents - again

Luke, Luke, Luke -- well, he has been in school a few weeks now and he is quite the socialite! He rides in a carpool with 2 other boys and often they talk about "boy" stuff in the car on the way to and fro.





Ms. Gretchen is his new teacher and was scared that Luke was going to hurt himself on the playground the first day of school (which is the typical reaction of someone who has never seen him on the playground!). But said how cute and fun his personality was and she could see why he was the most requested kid to be in class with.





After insisting that there weren't any girls in his new class, he finally fessed up and said that he did think one of them was "kinda cute" -- her name is Mia. Mia is the cutest little girl. Chris went to the school and surprised Luke the other day on the playground and he was performing for all 5 girls on top of a tractor (and he says there aren't any girls). I'm afraid I have my work cut out for me during those teenage years!



Luke always keeps us laughing.

Just Proud Parents

There is no picture with this post, just proud parents that like to share their kids stuff!



Tonight was Back to School night at Clayton Elementary -- I was so excited to hear about what Parker was learnin although, I do know a lot of what goes on because EVERYDAY after school she races to put her backpack up, shoes up, changes clothes (of coarse) and then goes straight to her "classroom" to teach -- sometimes I stand by the door to hear her :) and most of the time, if not all the time, I am the student. Her teachers are so nice and they speak so kindly to the kids. I found out tonight that they don't use a "behavior chart" like they did in Kinder because they feel it put the kids on display that continually get in trouble -- and when I thought about it, I knew everyday in Kinder who had the dreaded "clip change" and who just "doesn't know how to behave at school". Instead, her new teachers use all positive reinforcement and only focus on the good and not the bad -- yeah! I love it!



We got to look through her journal and what she had been writing about every day and I had to share a few...

1) My Mom and Dad are crazy. -- I'm assuming in a good way :)

2) My home is a safe place to be.

3) I have a Mom, Dad, bruvr (aka brother) and 2 sets of grandparents. I love my family.

4) My Mom was sick and then my Dad got sick, I think my Mom got my Dad sick.



I am so enjoying them and thank God that he entrusted me with his precious gifts.

Parkers New Bike

It's official! We bought Parker a new bike on Friday because her knees were up to the handle bars of the other one -- we are going to start riding to school! Yeah!

Look at her cute little attitude with her hand in the pic -- oh, and I wish they had baskets like that when I was young. She can carry all sorts of stuff in there.

Brownie Ceremony

Parker is officially a Brownie! They do a cute little ceremony to welcome them from Daisy's to Brownies and then it's to Girl Scouts from there. She didn't want me clapping or taking pics of the actual ceremony so here is a picture of the "hand squeeze" they do at the end of each meeting after singing "Make New Friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold".

Granlyn, I remember you being the Brownie troop leader when I did this and I volunteered to help with selling cookies - whew hew!

Luke's new Gymnastics Class

Luke started a new gym class this week and he is really loving it! He is the only kid in the class and the instructor said that he was "so strong and coordinated" for his age! Of coarse, I beamed just like it was the first time I had heard it :) He got to do rings, parallel bars, trampoline, pit and spring board all in one day -- you think he would need a good nap afterwards but not so!