School

I think I'm going to have to let MC start writing her own blog. She loves writing stories and her spelling is getting better and better every day. Here is her own account of 1st grade....

Despite her lack of enthusiasm for math, she is doing quite well, learning to add and subtract. And she is spot on with her 'love, love, love' of reading and writing and she is doing great at that too. We are so thankful that she likes school so much thanks to her fabulous teachers and friends.


Nate is loving school too. He's learning all about letters and numbers and really enjoys book club each morning. Book club is when the children bring a book from home each morning and share with their classmates their favorite parts. He has fantastic teachers and is doing all kinds of fun things with great friends. Here is one of his works from letter F week...

Pumpkins and Halloween

We had lots of pumpkin fun this halloween season. The church at Nate's school had a pumpkin patch so he got to visit almost daily to jump in the bounce house. We also had the chance to enjoy a trip to a pumpkin patch in Georgia. Pumpkin patches make for beautiful fall pictures so check them out....

This shot was taken at the pumpkin patch at Nate's school. I got to walk over with his class and watch them pick out small pumpkins. It was lots of fun.

Aunt Kim had the fun idea to visit this pumpkin patch in GA and found it online for us. Thanks Aunt Kim!

I just love this one of the two angels. It's always great to catch those angelic moments. They each got to pick out a pumpkin. (We never got around to carving them until the week after Halloween seeing as how the carver in our family was out of town on a whirlwind of interviews that week. But they didn't seem to mind.)

Hanging with Uncle Britton even though he has on a bulldogs t-shirt.

Quinn wasn't in the mood for pictures but I had to include one of her anyway. She's too cute even when she's not looking at the camera. And we had lots of fun with her and Payton over the weekend. Family fun at Grammy and PopPop's is always special.

Halloween was a packed day for us. Both MariCagle and Nate had costume parades and parties at school. (I only got to go to Nate's parade since I was working that day, hence more pictures of the son this time.) They both looked fantastic in their 'Pirates of the Carribean' costumes...Nate as Captain Jack Sparrow and MariCagle as Elizabeth the Emperess. After school, we headed to Nana and Pa's for a weekend of baby showers to help Aunt Stacy and Uncle Jim prepare for James. It was a great weekend!

Nate was in full character throughout the parade shouting 'Argh!' and 'Where's that treasure?' It was quite amusing and a testament to his far-reaching imagination.

Here is another angelic moment as they waited to trick-or-treat at Nana and Pa's house. They got to knock a few times to trick-or-treat for aunts too. And needless to say this wasn't the typical stop with one or two pieces of candy, rather the entire basket between the two of them!



Not directly related to Halloween, but part of the weekend fun included baby showers for MC and I. And Nate got to hang out with Pa for much of the weekend. I got some cute pictures at the showers, but not so many of Nate and Pa. But Nate had all sorts of fun at the park, Burger King, Walmart, movies, and fishing. And that was just in one weekend! As always we had lots of fun at Nana and Pa's.

October

So it's looking like a post a month is about all I can handle these days. Hope that's enough to satisfy everyone! :) October has been fun...we've even had a little fall-like weather which isn't necessarily a given in our neck of the woods. MariCagle and Nate continue to enjoy soccer and violin. Soccer seasons are winding down so I'm not sure what we'll do with all our extra time!

Brandon has been traveling a great deal in October and will be into November as the job search is in full swing. We're rooting for him and are very excited anticipating where we might move come summer. We will certainly keep you posted as the search narrows in on that special place!

Enjoy these pictures and short videos of violin and soccer action...

Here's a nice brother/sister shot before one of MC's games.

Here Nate celebrates a goal. You can just sense his excitement. Now if only that had been during the game instead of during warm-ups. :)

I think what I like most about this soccer clip is MC's pose at the end of the video. :) Here she's playing defender (no true goalie at this level, but one player stays behind near the goal). They rotate in and out at different positions with 4 players in at a time. It is a real learning experience! MC's team won only one game according to the score, however, she truly took the coach's words to heart..."If you had fun, then you are a winner." By that standard, she won every game!

Nate is a beginning violinist but he enjoys practicing, especially when MariCagle plays along with him. Here they are playing 'Pop Goes the Weasel.' We fully expect Nate's parts to lengthen over time but he's having fun with even the smallest part.

MariCagle played in a concert the week of Halloween for beginning musicians. This piece is called 'Andantino.'

September

Needless to say things have been a little busy since school started hence my severe lack of posts. Sorry. The month of September has been a whirlwind. Nate and I started our school years. Nate is loving school five mornings a week. He has made lots of new friends and loves his two teachers. My class is going well too. I love my co-teacher and we have a great group of two year olds. Nate and MC both have been busy with soccer, violin and swim lessons. Thankfully swim lessons are over (just a month long session). They enjoyed them and continue to love swimming but it was just too much for me. Soccer has been a blast. We're especially thrilled that MC has taken to it. She hasn't really cared too much for t-ball in the past, but soccer is a hit. And it is great to get back to violin lessons. MariCagle loves learning new pieces and Nate is actually taking to it very well. (Yes, we started him on lessons this year too.) Here are a few shots from soccer practice and one of our renaissance girl practicing violin before her soccer game.

Oh and MC turned 6 in September too. She had a wonderful time celebrating it both at Nana and Pa's and Grammy and PopPop's homes. We had two great teddy bear parties and she loved every single one of her gifts. Thank you everyone for coming and spoiling her rotten. Here are a few shots of the many good times we had over her birthday weekend...

Teddy bears, Teddy bears!

Teddy Bear Tea Party - Thank you Aunt Terri!

Decorating teddy bear cookies

Teddy bear birthday cakes.


Hopefully the next post won't be too far behind this one. I'm hoping to get the kids doing their violin duet - "Pop Goes the Weasel." Something to look forward to...

First Day of First Grade

Rise and Shine!
MariCagle definitely rose and shone this morning. Oh, the look on her face when she realized today was the day. After Open House yesterday, she couldn't contain herself. "What if I can't wait until tomorrow, Mommy?" I only hope she'll get out of bed so quickly the remainder of the year.

She was up and dressed in her adorable uniform before I could get breakfast ready. We had a special first day of school breakfast. Special in that I actually cooked breakfast compared to the usual cereal and yogurt or instant oatmeal. I told her not to get used to this, and she quickly noted that she was already used to it.

Ready to go. She was all set to go 15 minutes early! Again, I hope that this enthusiasm lasts. This is her 'dress' uniform for days when they have prayer services and mass. But given MariCagle's affinity for dresses, I think she'll be wearing the jumper ensemble most days.

This is outside her building. Nate was feeling a little neglected and needed to get in on the pictures. I think he's going to miss having his sister around to play with, especially these early weeks when he doesn't have school himself yet.

At the classroom door...can you see what I mean? That boy loves his sister so much. MariCagle is excited about her new teacher and new classroom, especially after getting to meet and see them yesterday at Open House. There are several of her friends from last year in her class. That coupled with the fact that the teacher's assistant in her class is a mom of a friend from last year who went on all the field trips with them, and you can see why she felt right at home.

She walked right in and took her seat. This marks the first year she hasn't cried at drop-off the first week or two of school. She just waved goodbye, eager to start the day.

The Natester doesn't start school until after Labor Day, so he settled with 'working' on the computer when we got home. He loves the Playhouse Disney website.

So we're off and running on a new school year. I have to tell you that it is a day of mixed emotions for me. On the one hand, I'm very excited for MariCagle as she starts a new year. It really is such an exciting time for her, and we've tried to celebrate it for her. But there is such an uneasiness in the separation on the first day as I realize just how quickly she's growing up. And despite the fact that in my mind I know she's in great hands, I just can't help but worry about her out there without me! If I can make it to pick-up this afternoon, I'll be golden. In the meantime, my thoughts are all over the place! Happy first day of school!

'Sleeping' Babies

Call it imagination or a fantastic stall tactic, whatever it was, it was running rampant in Nate last night. I wish I had video of him sharing these 'stories' with me as he called me into his bedroom after bedtime every 2 minutes. With each visit, there was something new outside his window...two jolly roger flags, 'I think it's the Pirates of the Carribean - but only the good guys;' pixie dust...'hmm, I think it might be Tinkerbell and the Sleeping Beauty good fairies and Peter Pan too;' Larry and Bob (Veggietales)...'bringing me all the things I like for breakfast, cookies and cookie crisp that you eat with milk;' and I could go on and on. I was very frustrated with each call back to his room, but with each tale I found it impossible not to laugh. Then to add to the humor of the night as I went to check on him before checking in myself, this is what I found...
He was stuffed inside his pillow case. When I asked him why this morning, he had a perfectly reasonable answer...'It felt like a sleeping bag.'

I never know what I'm going to find when I go in there to check on him. This is from the other night...
I didn't have to ask him about this one. I knew right away he was trying to be like his Daddy, sleeping without his shirt on. Speaking of Brandon, everyone please keep him in your prayers. He's working crazy hours (even crazier than usual) trying to get this dissertation ready for his first conference in October. He's been up all hours for over 7 weeks now. Things are going well, but it's pretty intense. Thanks!

And lastly, I just had a then and now of my baby who starts first grade this week! Please indulge me...she has grown so much. It's overwhelming.

At two years old, not too long after our move here.

The other night, just because I am feeling pretty nostalgic this week. Sorry for the blurriness.

July Swim Lessons

Here we are in August and I've finally got a July post for you...
We actually spent most of July at home. We visited the library for books and movies, had a couple playdates, took swimming lessons and just played at home. The kids favorite games these days are Barbies/pirates (they seemed to have melded the two likes into one game), coloring and 'practicing' for school (MC has been working on addition and subtraction and Nate has been working on his letters and shapes.), nerf shooting, and the timeless classic, 'house.' The two of them have endless imaginations so I can hardly keep up.

I mentioned we took swimming lessons in July and they both made tremendous progress. You can tell just how much based on these before and after video clips.

This is day one for MariCagle. She picked up the crawl stroke quickly but she was having trouble getting the timing right on the breathing.


This is MariCagle at the end of her two weeks of lessons. She's got the timing down and does the crawl with the best of them. She also began learning the back stroke. But her favorite thing she learned was to go down to the bottom of the pool to retrieve toys. Check it out...






Nate started lessons with no desire to put his face in the water at all; he was even hesitant to blow bubbles with just his mouth in the water. You can see from this first day footage that he is quite the charmer talking incessantly with his teachers and wrapping those arms around their neck. But by the end of the week he had become quite comfortable in the water. He was highly motivated thanks to the strong desire to complete his previously mentioned collection of KungFu Panda figurines. Brandon found the much coveted Po (the Panda himself) as well as the bad guy, Tai Lung, on ebay and ordered them for the kids. We told Nate he could have them as long as he listened to his teachers and tried all of the things they asked him to try. I couldn't believe how it worked. He was willing to do anything they asked and as a result overcame his fear of the water. See for yourself...


I think he made the biggest improvements. He just loves swimming now, just like his big sister. Now my biggest worry is his lack of fear in the water! I guess a mother is never satisfied! :)

They both got ribbons for completing the lessons. They were very proud swimmers!

Coming up....the start of First Grade and Pre-K and MariCagle's 6th birthday!!