Turning ten

This weekend marked a huge milestone in our home.

Kylie turned ten. 

 

Her actual birthday was on Saturday and she requested that I take her to her favorite restaurant. I told the waiter that it was her birthday so he and the other wait staff brought out a dessert for her and sang. And then much to her shock put a spoonful of whipped cream on her face. The look on her face was priceless.

Afterward we went and shopped a little (I might or might not have bought myself a little sumthin-sumthin). Since my husband works Saturdays we waited until Sunday to do the whole cake/ice cream/presents thing.

 

 Kylie has the little stuffed dog Coconut from American girl and she just adores it so naturally that was what she wanted on her cake.

Cake made by granny

Since she didn't ask for anything for her birthday I was a little stumped on what to get her. Judging by the look on her face I think I might have done okay.

Afterwards we spent the rest of the afternoon playing with new toys and then went bike riding through the neighborhood. 

I think year ten is going to be a great one.

Keeping the tooth fairy busy

Yesterday morning when I sent the girls off to school I crossed my fingers that Audrey and Sophie would lose a tooth while they were gone. Yeah, go ahead call me a crappy mom. That's okay, I totally agree with you if you do. You see I hate dealing with loose teeth. It grosses me out big time and I always make my husband be the one to pull the teeth around here. The bad thing about that is is he's rarely home to do it. He works 13+ hours a day and when he gets home at night Audrey and Sophie are already asleep. Anyway, when they left yesterday morning they both had a tooth dangling and I just knew they would fall out during lunch. Nope, didn't happen. I thought surely it would fall out during dinner, but that didn't happen either. I knew at this point that I had to do something otherwise they would end up coming out during the night and they would swallow them in their sleep (trust me this happens. Kylie did it about 3 or 4 times when she was younger.) I took a tissue and wrapped it around my finger and told Audrey to bite down on it. She did and her tooth came right out. One down, one to go. I tried the same thing with Sophie. The little stinker bite down alright. She bite down on the wrong side of her mouth and nearly took my finger off! She ended up panicking and I told her we would deal with it in the morning and I sent her to bed. Around 9:00 my husband came in from work and I guess Sophie heard him. She jumped out of bed to show him her loose tooth and the next thing I knew she was showing me the tooth in her hand. Thank God!

By the way, she is wearing the same nighty Audrey wore when she lost her first tooth. It cracked me up when I was looking at the pictures and realized that.

After her tooth was pulled she went right to bed and fell asleep. The tooth fairy then sat down and composed a "so you've lost your first tooth letter" for Sophie and gathered up some money for the little snaggle tooth girls. Then the real fun began. Here's just a reminder of the kind of bed the girls share:

How lucky we are that the tooth fairy can fly right? I mean, I would sure hate to be the one to try to smuggle not one, but two teeth out from under those pillows way up there without waking up two little girls. I mean, call me crazy but that sounds like it might be a little hard to do. Luckily all went well and this morning I had two very excited little girls.


My lame attempt to get a picture of the snaggle tooth kids.

 I still can't  believe that not only did my youngest start kindergarten last week, but she lost her first tooth too. Hopefully now that she's got this milestone behind her she'll slow down a little and let me enjoy having her be little just a bit longer. Something tells me that's probably not going to happen though.

First day of school

Well I knew it was coming, I just didn't realize it would be here so soon. The day that we go from this:

To this:

Even though autumn doesn't start until September it looks like our summer is officially over. The girls began their first day of school today. I was very good and did not cry (yet) and they all left with happy smiles on their faces.

2nd grade



4th grade



kindergarten

They all three got out of bed this morning without any protest (yes, I know by the end of the week they'll all be whining about waking up), ate breakfast, got dressed and then they all had to sit down and watch Curious George. Watching Curious George has become a bit of a school morning routine around here.

Then it was time to load up and head out the door.

But I had to take a few more pictures first. Obviously.

Yes, even at the bus stop.

And now I am experiencing the strangest thing ever. Silence. A sound that I have not heard in my house in almost ten years. Right now it's a bit unnerving, but I'm sure that in the days, weeks and months to come I'll come to look forward to this time. For now though it just feels strange and wrong.

And so it begins.........

This week was kind of bittersweet for me. On Monday I took Sophie to school to sign her up for the bridges program. The bridges program is something our school has set up to for kindergarteners to help prepare them for the transition to school. We found out that she will be having the same teacher that Audrey had last year for first grade. She and Audrey thought this was completely hilarious. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday she went to school for half a day (our kindergarten is full day here) to get a taste of how things would be.

I snapped a picture of her before she left on Monday and all I can say is "Wow!" I cannot get over how much she has grown. She and Audrey now wear the same size in everything except shoes. As excited as I am to see her growing up I am having a really hard time dealing with it. I can't believe this is my baby! She did really well (and so did I. No tears. I swear) and had a great time. She was actually upset when she found out that she has to wait two more weeks for school to officially begin. Personally I'm kind of hoping the next two weeks go by very slowly.

And they're off!

When I was a kid a zillion years ago the coolest thing in the world to do was ride a bike. My brothers and I would ride our bikes up and down the street, have bike races, and bike over to our friends homes all the time. One of my most vivid memories of Christmas was the year I turned seven and Santa bought new bikes for my brothers and me. Mine was a yellow and white huffy bike with the big banana seat and I thought I was hot stuff. I loved that bike and it was my most prized possession until I finally outgrew it. 
I suppose I just always assumed that my kids would feel the same way about riding a bike that I did. I was wrong. A couple years ago my mom asked me if it was okay if she and my dad bought the girls their first bike for Christmas. Umm, heck yeah you can! Riding over to their house on Christmas day I was so excited because I couldn't wait to see the excitement on the kids faces. Well they were excited all right, but not quite as much as I thought they would be. When we finally got the bikes home (all of which had stabilizers because my kids had no clue how to ride) they just kind of sat around in the back yard. Occasionally the girls would get on them and ride, but to them it just wasn't that big a deal. To say I was disappointed in their lack of enthusiasm would be putting it lightly. I kept trying to get them to learn how to ride without the stabilizers, but they would blow me off everytime I brought it up so eventually I stopped trying. 
To me it just seemed odd a 5, 7, and 9 year old not knowing how to ride a bike, but I kept telling myself that times have changed, just get over it. Well a few weeks ago something weird happened. We were in the backyard and Audrey asked us to remove her stabilizers. My husband took them off and for about two and a half weeks she would practice riding her bike on the back porch. I have absolutely no patience when it comes to teaching my children how to do things so umm, I was really no help. I would sit on the glider and look up occasionally and offer encouragement. Then last week when I glanced up to say something to her I realized "holy crap she's riding!" and for Audrey that was that. She started riding up and down the street and has been having the time of her life. 
A few days ago Sophie got on Audrey's bike (hers still had stabilizers on it) and decided that she was going to learn too. Would you believe that little monkey messed around until she got it? All on her own in about an hour. 
Meanwhile Kylie would kind of glance over at her sisters and not say anything. Everytime I would ask her if she wanted to try she would tell me that no, she had better things to do so I didn't push it. Then yesterday while the girls were at school my husband decided that he would take the stabilizers off Kylie's bike. I just knew that she was going to have a fit when she discovered what he did. So yesterday when the girls came home from school and asked to go outside I told them to have at it. A few minutes later I hear "Hey, what happened to my bike?!" Then Audrey and Sophie offer to teach their big sister how to ride. Naturally this was too much for my girl. She snapped at them "NO!!" and started to practice on the driveway. And apparently that's all it took because within twenty minutes I had three little girls riding their bikes all over the place. I think this year I'm going to ask Santa to bring me a bike so I can join them.

A bittersweet moment

A few days ago I did something that I had been dreading for quite some time. I preregistered Sophie for kindergarten. Don't get me wrong I'm very excited for her to start school and she is too, but I'm just having a hard time dealing with it. She's really looking forward to all the fun arts and crafts projects, learning to read and most importantly making some friends. I'm looking forward to all those things as well, but well she's my baby. This wasn't supposed to happen for a really, really long time.
When I registered Kylie for kindergarten I was super excited. Sure, I knew I was going to miss having her at home, but I knew that I had Audrey and Sophie at home. I remember being so shocked at how much she changed during that first year. Some changes were wonderful, but some not so great. I remember being absolutely shocked when my sweet little girl decided that she hated all things character like her once beloved Disney princesses. And the eye rolls. I thought I was going to die the first time I saw her do that. Sadly, I see it more and more the older she gets.
When I registered Audrey I was excited but seeing how much Kylie changed once she started school I was a little nervous. I dreaded seeing her do the same thing and of course I kept reminding myself that I still had Sophie at home. I ended up being pleasantly surprised. School actually seemed to help her with her shyness a lot. She's come out of her shell a lot and even calls her classmates on the phone from time to time. She does have a little bit of the attitude, but not too bad. She doesn't do the eyes rolls (yet), but she is really good at the long drawn out mooooommmm thing.
Sophie of course already knows all the little attitude things since she has big sisters.  I think for me it's extra hard this time around because I know that this is it. There are no more babies at home to take care of. There is no one to keep me company during the day. I won't have a little shopping buddy or someone to play dolls with or do puzzles with. And as much as I complain about all the dumb shows that come on television during the day (Calliou, Dirt Girl anyone?) I'm going to miss hearing all the themes songs and seeing the smile on her face whenever Curious George comes on. So if you guys notice I'm posting a little less these days you'll know why. I'm trying to soak up each and every last minute with my preschooler.

Happy Birthday Audrey!

Happy birthday Audrey Grace

1 year

 

 

2 years

3 years

4 years

5 years

6 years

7 years

Love you more than chocolate cake!

Happy birthday Kylie!

My "baby" is nine today. 

1 year

2 years

3 years

4 years

5 years

6 years

7 years

8 years

 9 years old

Happy birthday Kylie, we love you!

Happy birthday Sophie

It's so hard to believe that it's been five years already!