Doyle Superstar!

Oh Max is STILL so proud of this! At his school they run an award program (a few students from each class each month) are chosen to be a Doyle Superstar! The award is given to students who show exemplary citizenship at school -- being extra polite and nice to fellow students, going out of their way to help another student, following all the rules. Max was chosen in the first round of awards!! He was SO excited. They do a little ceremony for the kids who are chosen and they get an award certificate, they get to wear a special necklace for the day and they also get a gift certificate for a MONSTER milkshake at Red Robin.

He was SOOO so proud of getting a Doyle Superstar award. He's such a good good boy at school. He tries so hard to follow all the rules and listen and be kind. We're very proud of him. I wish that Tyler had been able to come to the ceremony with me! I could have gotten much better photos. I had to wrangle Lia by myself after rushing there as fast as I could after a shoot getting a seat all the way in the back and having to work the video camera AND the point and shoot. So... the pictures aren't great. But trust me. He was ADORABLE!!

Obligatory School Photo

Happy Birthday to ME!

I know I know, it's been a ridiculous amount of time since I've updated this blog. SO long in fact I'm sure you've all given up hope of me ever updating again. But just as all hope is about to be lost -- LOOK a POST!! Get ready ya'll. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be updating completely. YES! Updating takes time guys. Lots of time. And if you are me it takes you more than twice as long as normal people because I'm such a perfectionist!! And I have to be thorough. And it doesn't help that I take pictures with my iphone, my point and shoot AND my Canon. It takes time to sort and organize through all that! Then add on top of that, two birthdays, Thanksgiving, the insanely busy holiday shooting season, Christmas, New Years, vacations, the flu and life in general it really does almost become a lost cause. But fear not! I'm updating! SO... trying to stay in chronological order here...


I had a birthday! Yes, #29. It's not all that exciting of a birthday in terms of the year. My last year in my 20s I guess? If I start to think about all the things I wanted to accomplish before I turn 30 I start to get jittery, so we won't even go there.


To celebrate Tyler took me and the kids up to Julian for a bit. But it was rather short lived. The weather was iffy (was it hot? was it humid? was it cold? rainy? I honestly can't remember exactly, it's been too long and I AM 29 now, after all). We ate at a little place that had chicken pie dumplings -- heaven on a plate... with gravy. And then I snapped a few pictures of the kids before Max had a meltdown because his throat hurt (truth be told he was pretty sick for days afterward) and Lia got rock candy in her hair, but not before we had apple pie and ice cream. 


Later that night Tyler and I went out to our favorite little Afghani restaurant but came home pretty early because I was getting sick, too. I'm pretty sure I spent the next week really really ill. Anyway... enjoy the few photos I snapped from that day! I'm remembering it as a good day filled with love and family. Can't go wrong with that, right?

 

 

  

SEE?

I really am 5 feet tall. Shoes off, feet flat on the floor, 5 full feet tall.

Five = GUM

Since the day Max learned what gum was and that gum is fun and it tastes good and that he wanted some, I've told him that he can't have it until he turns five. Well, guess who's five!



Luckily, he's not all that fond of it. He chews it for about 2 minutes and then wants to spit it out.



But he thinks he's all grown up now! And... this photo just cracks me up. He called himself Captain Peacock Feathers.

Random iPhone Happenings

So this isn't from my iPhone but it is a random picture of the kids running in the parking lot. I actually like to call this picture "The Twins" because not even 10 seconds after I snapped this did 3 separate people in a row ask me if they were twins. Really guys??




We had the Baker girls over (I have to say Baker "girls" now because they've added the SWEETEST little boy ever to their family!!) for a few hours one afternoon and had a movie party.




We got 2 new fish. The kids got to pick out one each. It was my attempt at making every day during the last week of Max's summer vacation a day of fun. This day I struggled because we had gone to the Children's Museum in Escondido and it was CLOSED! So we got fish instead! Lia's is named Tiny and Max named his Otto.




Another day of "fun" I tried to plan to the aquarium. This place takes about 20mins total to walk through. So we got happy meals after!






She's just so cuute in these sunglasses!




Who knew? We had to get these for class supplies.




He LOVES babies. He asks me all the time to have more babies -- two at the same time. He LOVES to snuggle new babies and hold them and kiss them. It's really kind of sweet to watch. Lia, on the other hand, does NOT like new babies. Dolls, yes. Babies, NO.




Cute boy on his first day of school!!!

KINDERGARTEN!!

Tyler and I walked our boy into his first day of Kindergarten today. I thought I'd get teary and weepy but I honestly didn't. It was more a sense of relief. Like -- he made it!! I made it!! We got through the first five years and we still all really like each other!! The weather was very strange, too. It was raining! Luckily it stopped right as we were getting to school. But it was the weirdest thing to wake up in San Diego and have it rain on the first day of school. It was also SUPER humid. Like crazy humid!! Max didn't seem to notice, he was just so excited!

His classroom is perfect and supposedly his teacher (Mrs. Tusa -- pronounced Too - shaa) is the best kindergarten teacher at the school. His school is HUGE as far as elementary schools go. There are about 200 kindergarteners and about 800 kids in his school. Crazy!! He has a few friends in his class and I think he was kind of relieved about that.

He LOVES kindergarten!! He was totally ready for us to leave. When he came home he said his favorite part about kindergarten is LEARNING. Not recess. Not snack. But learning.

He has a pretty long day. We get up at 6:30am and have to be out the door at 7:05. School officially starts at 7:40am but the traffic into and out of that place is INSANE. There is NO parking and every single kinder kid has to be walked into the classroom instead of dropped off. Pick up isn't any better. He gets out at 2pm except for Wednesdays which is a minimum day and he gets out at 11:45. Luckily we have a good carpool arrangement worked out with our neighbor so hopefully nap times will stay as intact as possible for Lia!!

He took a peanut butter sandwich today for lunch in his Spiderman lunch box. I put a special note inside with some pictures of us all together. He really liked that. 

I'm excited to go to Back to School Night to learn all the in and outs of his classroom, what he'll be learning this year, etc. This new schedule will definitely take some adjusting but like anything, we'll get used to it. I'm just sooo proud and excited for our Max!