Brayden's in Kindergarten!

Where does the time go?  It seems like only yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital and now here he is starting kindergarten!  He's been extremely excited about starting kindergarten.  He was accepted into the dual language kindergarten class so he has two classrooms and two teachers.  He will rotate every other day between each class. There are two kindergarten classes like this.  They have half English speaking children and half Spanish speaking in each class.  The idea is to immerse one another into each language so they might do better learning from each other.  Then on one day he goes to his first class and it's all taught in English and then he goes to the second class the next day and it's completely done in Spanish.  He's very excited about this.  I'm excited because he's very smart (not just saying that because I'm his mom) and was worried about him being bored.  We even considered starting him in first grade.  However, this seemed like the perfect solution.  He really had been wanting to learn Spanish and it's a way to challenge him while keeping him in his appropriate grade.

Anyway, here's his first day.  I stole some ideas got inspiration from some other blogs and things I had seen online to make his day super special so here it goes:

Started with a special breakfast of pancakes and sausage.  "K" for Kindergarten!

 

After breakfast I had him write his name on a piece of paper so we could remember exactly how he wrote his name on his first day of kindergarten.  We'll see how it changes!

The special 1st Day lunch I made him in his new super awesome bento lunch box.  Ham and cheese "pencil" sandwich, pretzel "crayons", "marker" cheese stick, apple slices, carrots and ranch, and a rolo (from Daddy).

Walking to school.

Brayden and Daddy outside his class.  I took a picture with him too but my eyes were closed and it just looked terrible.

His new teacher, Mrs. Peterson.  She is his "homeroom" teacher that will be his English speaking class.  

When he got home he had a giant chocolate chip cookie waiting for him!  

Summer Wrap Up

Well, as it does every year summer vacation flew by way too quickly.  Usually it ends for us the very first week in August when Kent has to return to work, but this year we officially have  a kindergartener in the house!  More on that in another post.  Since Kent is so busy with athletics during the school year we cram as much as we can into the two short months of summer vacation.  Here's what we did:

First up is a trip to Oklahoma (one of two). Every year we make sure we are up at Kent's parents on June 15th to visit Nash's gravesite on his birthday.  We visit every time we go but make a point to be there on this particular day.   We always stop at Grandpa and Grandma's house and stay a night to break up the trip.

Sharing a popsicle with Grandpa.

Wish this one wasn't so blurry.  She thought that was so much fun.

Hangin' out in the pool.

Then it was off to Nana and Granddad's house.  

Of course the first order of business was to explore the backyard.

  

                                                               And no summer day is complete without an ice cream cone of course!

Smelling flowers with Nana.

Nana and Granddad got the kid's a blow up pool to play in and at first all Masyn could do was drink the water!

On his belly he goes!

And of course sister see, sister do.

After conquering the belly she had to try going down on her back.  It didn't go exactly as planned!

Then there's just plain old running through the sprinkler fun!

After that we came back to Texas for a week.  We could have stayed up in OK but we needed to check on our garden since we had spent so much time getting it ready.

What was ripe lasted about 2.2 seconds until Brayden and Masyn discovered them!

Tomatoes!

This is from a plant that was supposed to have been cucumbers.  That ain't no cucumber!  Turns out cantaloupe.  Probably the last time I buy plants on CraigsList!

Then it was back to OK just for a day so we could pick up Uncle Jake and head off to Idaho to visit Grammy, Opa, Uncle Kyle, and Aunt Rachel.  

 We walked along the Boise River one morning (Brayden had to show off his hair!)

Masyn was less than impressed.

Had to include it because it makes me laugh.  We gave the kids hot dogs (I think) but Masyn crawled over to the table, stole a rib off the plate, took a big bite, and she loved it!  My little carnivore!

Pool fun with Uncle Kyle and Aunt Rachel.

Jake, Kent, and I also went whitewater rafting but I don't have pictures yet since I couldn't take any.  Waiting on my disc from the rafting company.  I'll post those when I get them.  After Idaho it was back to OK for a day to drop off Jake, spend a night, then load up in the MV (mini van people!) to head to the NATA annual meeting in St. Louis.  We ended up needing to bring Mojo so we had to find somewhere that would accept pets so we ended up camping.  We got a cabin in at a KOA in Illinois just 15 minutes from downtown St. Louis.  Worked out great.  It was my first time ever to stay at a KOA and I will say it was so much nicer than I thought it would be.  We'll definitely do it again.  Warning:  I forgot my camera in OK so pictures aren't that great.

Our cabin.

Brayden's favorite part was the jumping pillow!

And what camping trip would be complete without S'mores!  

I took the kids to the St. Louis Zoo while Kent went to the convention.  Best part?  Admission is free!  You do have to pay for a few attractions but it's very reasonable and you can buy a wristband to get into everything which is what we did.  Here are some faves from the zoo.

He got to touch a stingray...so cool!  They also had people stationed in different parts of the zoo share some cool stuff which he loved!                                                                  

But his favorite part was the animal tracks throughout the zoo.  He is his father's son!

Masyn loved the train.

And of course it was the hottest day of the year, record breaking, for St. Louis the day we went, but they found a sprinkler to play in for a little bit.

Finally we ended up back in Oklahoma.  This time to stay at Grandpa and Grandma's house for a week.  Not just to crash for a night between our other adventures.  

Brayden opened a lemonade stand for the 4th of July.  My dad's house is right across from the park that they have all the festivities and along the parade route so it was perfect!  The kid made over $100....at a lemonade stand!!  He was so proud.  He's going to take half of the money he made and buy toys for Toys for Tots when Christmas comes around.

Lacy and Jeremy came over with their kiddos to play.  Masyn and Reagan fought over the water, but made up later.

Then everyone got popsicles before going to find a spot to watch the fireworks.

I had to include these because my dad put up this goal and it entertained the guys for quite some time.  I won't disclose the height at which it was set though!

So there you have it.  Our jam packed summer.  We also went bowling, pool parties with friends, the park, and we finally took Brayden to Hawaiian Falls (I forgot my camera though!).  It's my favorite time of the year because we get Kent for two solid months.  The end is always the worst part though because we lose him when he goes back to work.  It's a hard adjustment having Daddy all day everyday then him returning to work some days not seeing him at all.  Oh well, how many days until Thanksgiving?