expanding

This weekend, Jim called and said he was going to come pick up the tiller.  Cody was planning on tilling the garden that day, so we all hung out in the yard to watch.  For the past couple years, Cody has been toying with the notion of expanding our garden.  This year he wasn’t going to because of our whole hoping to move thing.  Well, as Jim said, do it!  If you do, either you’ve got the bigger garden you want, or it’ll make someone buy your house real soon.  Either way it’s a good thing.  So we about doubled it.  And you thought I had a lot of salsa jars last year!

Before

After

Proud Momma

I've been reading so many blogs lately of proud momma's bragging on their kids.  I figured, who am I to buck the trend?  My kids are awesome!

Last night, we ran an errand for a friend, so we were in Ogden and decided to go to dinner at our favorite little Greek place, the Athenian.  We often have the same waitress there.  Sometime during dinner, Finn whispered to me, “our server works very hard and she is very pretty.”  I told him he better tell her that since it would make her day.  So he did, and boy did it ever.  She gave him about 50 hugs, and said he was the nicest young man she had ever met in her life, she brought us all free cookies, she was moments away from crying.  So yeah, I think he made her day.  (I just hope people who are lucky enough to get his compliments don’t think we plant them, because it is totally all him.  He comes up with stuff and is not afraid to tell people.  If he can hold onto that for his whole life, I think it’s going to take him pretty far.  Free cookies today, world domination tomorrow!) 

While I’m bragging, I will also just say that rarely do I meet a person who doesn’t tell me how polite my kid is.  Yes, I will take my part in that, I try really hard to teach my kids good manners.  But Finn especially is just a good kid.  Anytime we go anywhere, Finn always pipes up from the backseat, hey mom & dad, thanks for taking us to the movies, park, store, etc etc.  That makes my heart happy.

Finn has also been doing awesome in kindergarten.  Some things have just begun to click with him.  Like reading.  It is really amazing.  We struggled for a while with it and all of a sudden it’s just like he gets it.  He reads 2 – 3 early readers a night. 

Little miss Burgundy is getting to be so smart.  She knows a lot more school-type stuff than Finn did at this age, just because she has the advantage of having an older brother in school and she  is always interested in what he is learning.  She can count to 15, she can identify the numbers out of order as well, she can identify about 20 letters, and she knows all her colors.  She is so snuggly and lovey and is always giving kisses and hugs, and she loves to dance!  She is very independent and imaginative and I will often find her playing in her dollhouse in her room.  She gets herself dressed, and has quite the fashion sense, I must say!  Most days, better than her mom. 

I have some great kids.    I am one lucky momma.

Best Days

Last Friday was the last school day before we are off for a week of Spring Break. Finn got to have a dress-down day (no uniform), and bring a pillow and stuffed animal since they were having guest readers and watching a movie (the guest readers were the 1st graders reading books to them, cute). The night before, Cody found a little slip of paper Finn had brought home from school and was supposed to fill out. I kept finding it floating it around but never followed through on it. Well, since Cody found it the night before, on the way to school I had Finn fill it out so he could turn it in. It was like a little book report where he had to draw what he liked about the book and rate it. Just one of those, "ok well at least we can say we did it" things.

So, as I'm sitting in the car outside the front of the school, they do their announcements at the end of the day which are also heard outside. They did winners for each grade for something or other, then they did the library drawing and they called Finn's name! I went in to see him get his prize in the office and the lady told me, "oh yeah, he won a library prize, those are the BIG ones!" So he came out with a complete bug package: about 6 different bug books, a ton of rubber bugs, a huge black rubber spider (which i really must remember to take a picture of and send to Sarah), and a bug microscope to observe bugs outside! Cool!

After school, we went to his best friend, Parker's house to play. It was a beautiful day, about 70 degrees, so we got to play outside and they got to drive his power-wheels up and down the huge, long driveway. And, as Finn said, I got to have a playdate with 2 other moms that I really enjoy from his class.

Right after that we went up to grandma and grandpa's for a BBQ dinner with Laci & Ryan. On the way home, Finn told us it had been the best day of his life.