Family Blog

Hi Friends-Please make sure to check out our new family blog- Love Makes A Family- linked on the left sidebar. I am mostly updating that blog now but feel free to browse Collin or Tyler's story anytime!

My baby is a Kindergartener!

Well, it's official, my baby is growing up!Today was his first day of full day Kindergarten! We have been talking about it forever and the day has finally come! I agonized over the decision of where to send him to school and I'm hoping it was the right one. You would think we were picking a college! 

He hasn't seemed nervous at all. I even asked him if he was nervous and he said "not at all mama, I'm excited"! He and I have been discussing the "morning routine" in hopes of avoiding conflict so we all know what to expect. We have to get up much earlier than either of us is used to so it's a shock to us both!

I hardly slept all night. I think I was more nervous than he was! I kept dreaming that we were late and I was screaming and yelling at Collin to get ready and he just stood at the back sliding glass door looking outside and laughing! I was awake long before the 6am alarm. He requested Nutella crepes with strawberries for his first day of school breakfast. So I got to work on that. When 6:30am arrived it was time to wake the sleepyhead!

At first, I didn't think he was going to get up or he would wake up in a bad mood and the morning would be a nightmare-I'm a very positive thinker huh?? He was a little sleepy but he came downstairs and sat at the table. It took him a bit to wake up and a good 30 minutes to eat breakfast so we may have to adjust that part of the schedule.

 

Next, it was time to make his bed, brush his teeth, do his hair and get dressed. All done with no complaints. It seemed he got more and more excited as time passed. Daddy came home to come with us for drop off and Noni tagged along too.

We took the standard first day of school photos out front. He looks so stinking cute in his uniform. That is what made me want to cry-but I didn't!

 Then it was time to go! Tyler was kind enough to stay asleep until it was just about time to leave so we had a peaceful, Collin focused morning! And we were off! Collin picked out his backpack-baseball of course-but the Oakland Athletics? Not sure why that team but it's what he wanted. I think the backpack is bigger than he is!

Typically it takes about 10-12 minutes to drive to the school. I drove almost the same route 4 days a week last year for preschool...but not at 7:40AM. Holy mother of traffic! My nightmare was coming true. There was no way we would make it on time. Traffic was backed up forever!

So I drove completely beating myself up for being a worthless mother who can't even get her kid to school on time on the first day! Needless to say there was a little bobbin' and weavin' going on to expedite our arrival. We were one of the last ones there but it wasn't as bad as I had thought. The kids were just going around the corner as we pulled up and we got to walk him to his classroom. I can get more pictures with his class later. I still feel bad but not AS bad!

He walked right in like he owned the place and never looked back! He told me before we got there that I didn't need to walk him into the classroom ;o(  I did get a kiss goodbye though!

So, on to a new chapter in life! It makes me really happy that he is so excited for school. I hope he always keeps that excitement. And, I hope this is the right school for him. I think it is and I think this is the start of lifelong friendships for Collin and for us.

Tball Pics

NEW FAMILY BLOG

It is hard to keep up one blog, let alone keep up three so I have decided to make a family blog. Collin and Tyler's blogs will still be here but the up to date on what is going on with us will be on the family blog.

Check out our new family blog love-makes-a-family.blogspot.com

Thanks for keeping up with us!!

Easter fun

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Brostache fun

Collin finally got around to trying in the mustaches he got for Christmas. Too funny! I think he's going to be an actor! Lol!!









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The Dentist

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Look Who's 5!!

Party Prep...Collin is currently OBSESSED with Mario aka Super Mario Brothers. I am going to thank his beautiful cousin Kenzie for introducing him-lol! So needless to say he wanted a Mario party-of course he told me this after I had hired a magician and sent out a "magic"invitation. Not to worry! Mama loves planning birthday parties and what you want is what you get (if possible-lol).

We decided this year in an effort to save money that we would have the party at home. I found a magician that would pretty much run the party so the kids would be occupied the whole time and hopefully not tear the place down! I guess I didn't realize that his list of friends had expanded to such a large number! He has been in preschool technically for 3 years but this is the first year that he has really become attached to his school friends. So attached that he wanted to invite the entire class!! I tried to talk him into just the boys but the idea of not inviting the girls was unacceptable to Collin =*) I tried to limit it to just his "best" friends but that ended up being close to the entire list. So with his class and our playgroup that was the guest list and way more than I had anticipated in our little house. But, we will make it work!

Since we had the magician all we needed to worry about was food, cake and decorations. I decided to keep it to light snacks on the food because we wouldn't have room for everyone to eat. Eating cake would be fun enough with 30+ little crumb crunchers!

This year was very different because we now have 2 birthdays within 10 days of eachother so January was party central at our house! I was crazy busy so I had to let go of a couple of things, one being the cake. I had a bunch of fabulous ideas, but had to settle on the "shortcut" since party time snuck up on me! On top of that my favorite cake maker was on vacation so it was up to me to make the magic happen! FYI...next year I will be party planning around Dianne's vacation schedule!

I ended up ordering a cake from Giant Eagle with very specific instructions. It always scares me to put my trust in someone I don't even know to come through! I know, I know, it's just a cake but to me it is the centerpiece of the party. So, I would pick it up the day of the party and add my own special touches. Fingers crossed. I was going to make the cupcakes look like the Mario mushrooms but also cheated on those. I had Sams Club make those because I knew they had the bright primary colors of icing that I wanted. That would be a good start and I could take care of the rest. I found a printable online of a cupcake wrapper that looked like the eyes for the mushroom and I bought white candy melts to make the dots. 

I found super cute mushroom favor bags online that were homemade and I thought very original. I probably could have made them myself but why waste the hours when I can pay someone else to do it!

I decided to put a kool aid play doh kit , ring pop, candy buttons, mario gummies and mario stickers in each bag. Collin helped put the play doh kits together and helped to fill the bags. 

Guess who's back!!

Life gets in the way, what can I say? Our house seems like it has become ten times busier with the addition of Tyler to the family. The fact that he doesn't like to sleep probably doesn't help much. So, sorry we haven't posted much! So once again it is catch up time...

Here are the boys dressed in all their favorite football gear. Unfortunately, it seems they bring bad juju every time they "gear up" for game day...or maybe their favorite teams just suck??? I don't know. Either way I think they are super cute!

November...the month in review

Fall Fun!

                                            We had fun playing in the leaves.

                                

                                          This is where you will find the boys every Sunday during football season.

                                                  

                                             We had fun playing with Lexi and Ella.

                 

                                                We enjoyed Thanksgiving with family.

The boys!

Great Wolf Lodge 2011

We joined the Northeast Ohio Guatemalan Adoptive Families group again this year at the Great Wolf Lodge in Sandusky. This year we took Brylie and Kahlen with us so the adults (Wyatt and I) were greatly outnumbered by the little ones.

The crazy cousins!

                                           Collin's favorite part-wrestling his "best buddy" Logan.

                                                          Floating on the lazy river

                     

                                                              Hot Tub fun!

Time to go home...bye bye Great Wolf Lodge! See you next year!

So Proud!

Okay-I'm not fooling myself into thinking that all the kids don't get letters from their teachers but I was so proud when I read this letter from Collin's preschool teachers. They are always telling me what a sweet boy he is. Even the teachers from his Lunch Bunch and Enrichment classes make a point to let me know that he is such a "sweet boy", and he is! I am so happy that he loves school! One of the parents joked the other day that he is a future President because he is always greeting everyone and very social-LOL! He always says hello and goodbye to all of his classmates and calls them by their names, it's actually quite funny. He even hugs some of them-lol! I sure hope he keeps his love of learning and school throughout the years!

School Pictures

School pictures finally arrived and look at that goofy smile!

The BEARS Preschool class-2011

                                   We also were able to have one taken with Tyler. I have a feeling we won't have a picture where both of them are smiling for a while-LOL!



Top Shot

Collin is in love with the show Top Shot. He gets to sleep in bed with Daddy on Tuesday nights because they watch the show together.If you don't know what the show is it is a shooting competition where the contestants compete for the title of "Top Shot".

I'm not sure how he got hooked on this show but if I had to venture a guess I would say Pops had something to do with it. I'm sure it breaks Pops heart that his first grandson is showing and interest in anything that has to do with a gun. Pops is kind of a gun fanatic and someday he will be a great teacher for his little protege.

In the mean time Collin is happy "playing" Top Shot. He even announces the competitions! He shoots the target with his imaginary finger gun.

 May sound strange but the kid doesn't have any toy guns. I have some sort of aversion to him playing with guns. I want him to learn how to properly handle and respect a gun and playing with them as toys doesn't really facilitate that. I also have a very strong aversion of guns being pointed at people, especially me, it really freaks me out, toy or not. Now that I have written this I am sure that Santa will load Collin up with toy guns this Christmas. Luckily, I'm pretty sure Uncle B doesn't read this blog because he is always looking for a way to repay me for all of the toys I bought his kids that said "some assembly required" and a couple of times that I may have returned his kids with a sugar buzz.

One of the Top Shot challenges was to throw a hatchet.

I'm sure you can imagine what is going on here. If you are wondering about the brostache-he and daddy decided to dress up as Mario and Luigi (mustache and all) to play Mario baseball-FREAKS! The costumes came off but the mustache stayed.

Now the game is to see how many marks he can put on the beam in the middle of the room. God help me and my house!!

Kids say the funniest things

The other night Collin was in bed with Wyatt and I came in and got in bed with them. Collin immediately scooted over and snuggled up with me. Wyatt asked him why he always wants to snuggle with Mama and Collin replied "because your hard daddy and mama is soft and squishy"!! I'm trying to accept it as a compliment and not get too much of a complex!

How do you make...

It seems lately Collin's favorite thing to do is to ask "how do you make" pretty much anything he can think of. Last night I was on the computer and he started. It started out pretty generic, how do you make cheese, how do you make pencils, then out of left field..."how do you make babies"???? OMG! As I waited for the next question to roll out, hoping he would just keep going like he usually does all I got was...crickets, crickets, crickets. Uh, not quite ready for that talk yet, he's only 4!!! So, I gave a short hopefully age appropriate answer and FINALLY..."how do you make carrots"? Whew-I could only imagine what could have come next!LOL!!

Where's Collin?

Funny Story

Collin had to take a family picture in to preschool because they were talking about "family" the first week of school. The pictures will hang on the wall in their classroom all year. We didn't have a recent picture with all of the family together since Tyler came home so we scrambled around to get Alexis and Peyton over to the house to take a picture.

Pops was going to be the photographer and all we were missing was Peyton. Wyatt called, no answer, he texted, he replied-on the way!! We waited some more...and some more...and some more. It was starting to get dark so we had to get snappin'. Everyone was really disappointed that Peyton would be missing from the family picture. We really wanted Collin to have his favorite big brother in the picture when he showed off his family that week. What to do???

Collin insisted of keeping one of Peyton's old, and I mean old, baseball statuettes in his room. I ran inside and got the statuette off the shelf and gave him to Collin to hold so Peyton could be in the picture. The funniest part about the whole thing was that Collin started talking to it like it was really Peyton-I'll hold you like this Peyton, is that okay Peyton, do you like this one Peyton-HILARIOUS! And the picture will be one he will remember I'm sure! You may be seeing this on our Christmas card this year!!LOL!~