Back to School

The kids are back to school already. Dusty started last Monday.

The boys weren't really excited for anything except for their new backpacks. This year Dusty picked Lightning McQueen. I couldn't even get them to wear their new clothes. On day 3, Dusty was back in his holy jeans.

Dusty has moved up to 2nd grade, which means he is now on the black-top with all of the big kids. There are only 5 kids in his class from last year. He doesn't even get to be with his best buddy Josh. But he has a new friend, Zach. And he has a great teacher that we are really excited about. Here he is lined up, all ready to go with all of the items from the school list. What is he going to do with the 96 pencils they requested?

My 3 kiddos.

1st day of Kindergarten

On Thursday Hayden entered the big world of kindergarten.


Again, it's all about the backpack. For Hayden it is Buzz Lightyear!
Me and my 3 kiddos.

Our mode of transportation. I love walking my kids to and from school. I get to know the other students at school and some of their parents.

Hayden was happy to go to class. He reports he has already made some good friends, which I don't doubt. He is like a little magnent when it come to making friends.

And he takes his first steps into the building without me. At this point I turned around and bawled. I'm not sure why, this kid has been getting on the bus to go to preschool for 3 years now. In fact last year in preschool he was gone more every week that he will be for kindergarten. I'm not sure why this day was so emotional for me.

Peek at Kyrie

While the boys have been back at school, Kyrie has been learning something of her own.
She shows every single sign of wanting to be potty trained, except for she cries everytime she is on the throne.
I guess her brother's underware is more fascinating.

I was not looking forward to school starting back up. I love having my kids home. The only thing I was excited about was with school starting, FALL is just around the corner. I CAN'T WAIt! I love the fall. I have a lot of projects I've planned on doing this fall, and it's amazing how much stuff I've been able to do this week with the kids in school. Kyrie fell in love with the fabric for a project and carried it around as her blanket.

She laid this way for about an hour with her newest blanket.

When I turned her blanket into something else, she used the rug as a replacement.

She now has to find her own things to keep herself busy, without her brothers here to entertain. But the minute Hayden gets home, she follows him EVERYWHERE.

Denver Children's Museum

Rewind to a year ago, the boys were just finishing up school and Dusty had big plans for the summer. He wanted to go to the Children's Museuem. That was the one and only thing on his list for summer break. We had a whole summer to get it done, but summer passed by us somehow without us even knowing it was here! We didn't do the one thing Dusty really wanted to do. So again this year, his one thing he said he had to do this summer was go to the Children's Museum. We finally made it - about a week before school started!

Dusty is into firetrucks even more since Dallas let him ride in one. But the one thing Dallas didn't do was let him drive one. No worries, he's had that opportunity now. He was even able to control the lights. And the sirens!

How often do you want to put your kids in a great big bubble? Well at the museum it is possible. You can't really see it, but here the boys are in a bubble.
And here I am trying to squeeze Ky into her own sized bubble, but she popped it instead.
Dusty made a cool helicopter-bank out of someone else's recycled junk.

I think my boys make cute scientists.

and cute doctors.

There wasn't much for Kyrie to do other than be chased by the vampire.

We finally made it, now summer break can be officially over.

Where is my baby?

A few months ago Kyrie started to bring me wipes and a diaper (or sometimes an armful of diapers) when she needed to be changed. She would let me know right after she made a deposit in her diaper. The pediatrician asked me a few Q's at her last check-up and said she would be an easy and early potty-trainer. YEA! She is training herself except for the toilet part. Just again this morning she was downstairs, loaded her diaper, and took it off. She headed upstairs, grabbed a diaper and the wipes, came into the room I was in and was wiping herself, and tried to put on a clean diaper. If only I could get her to sit on the toilet! I don't think it will be too long though. I'm so lucky to have an easy one. She loves to be independent and I love that. She pulls her own clothes out of her dresser and will dress herself, although she needs help with her shirts. She can undress herself, including taking off onesies. She loves to wear everyone else's shoes and walks around with shoes making sure that we all have some on too. She loves to wash her hands in the toilet (she says "wash hands" as they are in the toilet bowl), and put herself in the tub and turn the water on. She helps herself into her highchair, and climbs up to the bathroom counter, sits in the sink, gets her toothbrush, takes the lid off the toothpaste, puts toothpaste onto the toothbrush and brushes her own teeth. And she is only 19 months old! I love that is wanting to be big and she is doing all these things but Where did my baby go? Oh ya, she also wants to swim by herself, she gets mad when we are at the pool, tries to wiggle away and says "down". She is also no longer content to ride in the bike trailer when we go for family bike rides. She wants to be the one riding the bike! I don't have to do as much for her anymore, instead it's time spent watching out for her as she is doing things that are out of her league, like trying to give herself a bath. Oh what fun she is. In a way I wish we could keep her like this forever. But I know everyday brings new words to her vocabulary, and more things she has learned and she continues to grow more and more. I LOVE my baby (and I don't think the word love does justice).

lesson from Hayden

The other day we were headed back home from town and an officer on a motorcycle came out of his hiding spot and pulled a car over. The boys and I were talking about that sneaky copster and then I decided to tell them of the 3 times I have been pulled over. After hearing my stories of breaking the law, Hayden said, "So, you don't know the rules of Jesus. It's in a song, it says Don't Go Astray".

Hayden's surgery

Hayden was born with a meatal stenosis (just a small pee hole) and his pediatrician suggested to us a few years ago that he get it fixed. Everything he told us that would happed has happened but we have just kind of kept it in the back of our minds, until a few weeks ago Chris saw Hayden pee by the road. Chris said we need to get it fixed, that Hayden was squirting out about 20 feet. I got him into the urologist and he said. "Wait until he is in college, he'll be squirting out there 20 yards - he doesn't want to be that college kid". The urologist said after the procedure, pee-ing will be cool with a capital C. Using the potty has never been a pleasurable experience for Hayden (not that it's fun for anyone). He would dance around for hours just to hold it in. Luckily, he hasn't had problems with urinary tract infections or kidney problems. The doc assured us that the procedure needed to be done, if not, there would be big problems down the road. So we got him scheduled in before he joins the world of kindergarten.

Here he is before the little procedure.

Before the boys go to bed the kids and I talk about where we are going to meet in our dreams. We quite often will meet at Chuck E Cheese, the North Pole, the ice cream shop, the zoo, anywhere fun. Lately we agree to hop on our dragons (Toothless and Sparkles) and meet somewhere far away. Sometimes Hayden's dragon is sick so we meet somewhere really close. We told Hayden that he would get to take a little nap and I would meet him in his dreams. I asked him where he wanted to go and he said home. Chris got to go in and stay with him in the OR until he was asleep. He chose skittles flavored gas, and the anethesiologist then rubbed skittles flavored chapstick all over his mask (we had no idea that's how they flavored it). The procedure took about 10 minutes and after being in recovery for 15 minutes, they said we could join him.
And this is how we found him. The nurses were so excited to tell us that this is how he woke up, with a great big cheesy grin. All the other kids were waking up screaming and disorientated and Hayden moved his head to the side, opened his eyes and grinned. They said he was just beaming!

He acted like it was his birthday and got spoiled like it too! He got this speed racer car from my parents, a buzz lightyear from us, and a bouncy ball from Dusty. From the moment we woke up, he acted like nothing ever happened, except for it burns when and after he pees. I can imagine it would hurt, they cut away skin and put in several small stitches. Hayden is a funny kid, he is good at making us laugh and is full of surprises. When the anesthelogist walked in, she asked if he had any allergies and Hayden said, "penicillin". Chris and I both turned and looked at each other in amazement. I then asked him what happens if he has penicillin, and he said "I get a rash". I had no idea he knew that! Last night before going to bed he said. "Mom the doctor said I can't ride my bike or my scooter or go swimming until Sunday. But did he say anything that I can't brush my teeth?". I said, I don't think brushing your teeth will hurt anything, in fact, I'm pretty sure he said you had to brush your teeth. As we were going to bed he wanted to sleep in our room and he said that he shouldn't sleep on the floor where he usually does because he might cuddle up and roll into the vent on the floor, and that might hurt his stitches. So he got to sleep in our bed. What a smart boy!