Ryan's last day of School

Today is Ryan's last day of kindergarten.  My neighbor, Lori, was talking about how sad she was that it was Ava's last day today.  Oddly, I don't feel sad at all.  I'm ready for summer!  I'm excited that Ryan progressed so much in kindergarten and I'm looking forward to continue to watch him grow and mature.  (and honestly, I'm glad to not be paying $275/month for kindergarten anymore - ha!)

But seriously, Ryan certainly did have a great year!  Both of his teacher conferences went really well and we always got reports that he was well behaved.  His reading level really took off the second half of the year and he's proud of himself that he can figure out most words.

And, as certainly evidenced by his pictures, he has grown a TON this year.  He's wearing size 6/7 clothes which Reid is JUST growing out of.  He's 49 inches tall (Reid is 52.5) and weighs around 52 pounds (3 pounds less than Reid).  He is solid muscle (especially his chest) and is still full of energy.  Ryan does NOTHING at half speed.  If you tell him to go get something, he runs there.  If it's time for bed, he jumps into his bed.  He is slow to wake up in the mornings but once he gets going, he goes full speed until it's time to go to bed.

I'm so proud of Ryan and the boy he has grown into.  Just thinking about how much he has changed and matured over the last year makes me smile.

A sure sign of summer break... SHORT hair and later bedtimes

I'm trying to get back into a rhythm of blogging so I can keep this more updated.

1. The boys got hair cuts last night.  They were ROTTEN with a capital R at the salon.  I don't know if it was exhaustion (field day, Reid soccer practice, 7:30 appt that turned into 8:00) or what but even Reid was slap stick silly.  Mom was running out of patience.  Ross went first and then dad came and got him and took him home for bath and bed. By the time we got home and Reid & Ryan showered it was a 9:15 bedtime.  Luckily I think things are pretty much winding down at school.

We went quite a bit shorter for summer... and of course the older two boys got their faux hawks that lasted the whole 15 minute car ride home before I made them wash their hair in the shower.

Yep, the boys are out of school NEXT week.  Ryan is done on Wednesday and Reid is done with a half day on Thursday.  Ross' last day at daycare is next Friday.  I've got a neighbor kid watching Reid and Ryan on Thursday and then I'm taking a vacation day on Friday and hoping to do something fun with them for the start of summer - no real plans yet.  FOUR day weekend for Memorial Weekend and then our summer nanny starts on Tuesday.  We've got a new girl and so far I think she's going to be great!

The summer schedule is starting to get jammed pack so I think it's going to fly by.  The boys have got the reading program at the library, Reid has a World War I and World War II class at JCCC, all three have swimming lessons, Reid & Ryan are taking a summer camp at the hockey rink (Ryan is just doing to off ice work), Reid and Ryan will both go to an Outdoor Education Laboratory camp at the end of summer and then we've got our family vacation from July 3 - 13.  A few days in Hannibal followed by a week in Branson.

So stay tuned... I love summer and I think this one is going to be great!

Field Day 2013

I've been very lucky to be able to work from home the majority of the last year.  I used the blow dryer on my hair today (although I'm still wearing a tank top and shorts) and looked better than I do most days.  Unfortunately, the boys (all three of them) will be home with a nanny this summer and I'm heading back into the office (at least for a while) to give them their space.

Nothing special but it's better than I usually look - HA!

Anyway, today I was able to sneak away from my home office to watch some of the boys' stations at their field day and then go back and watch the dunk tank as well.  Our field day is very well organized. There is a master schedule with 15 minute rotations through multiple stations that are operated and ran by the 5th grade class.  5th grade helpers are also assigned to each classroom to move them from station to station along with the class teachers.  Our PE teacher, counselor, and principal rotate through all of the stations overseeing the day.  I'm always amazed at how smoothly our school can put on an event.  Love our boys' elementary school!

I was able to see Ryan play one pin bowling and gold rush.  I watched Reid do some wacky game throwing and catching long polls as well as one pin bowling.  It was unseasonably warm here (especially given the lack of warm we've had lately) and the boys were hot, tired, and sweaty!

Ryan playing "Gold Rush"  They ran up a hill to a bucket full of sand and dug for rocks that were spray painted gold. Once they found one, they ran down the hill, placed it in a frisbee and the next person on their team went.

At the end of field day, our whole school sits on the lawn and watches as two dunk tanks (K-2 and 3-5) are operated.  Kids that reached a certain pledge level during our Lion Stampede fundraiser earn the right to either 'be dunked' or 'dunk a willing teacher'.  Ryan chose to dunk a teacher and dunked Mr O. Reid chose to be dunked.  Before the dunking began, Mr O (our principal) pulled two gotchas out of his box. [Lots of side notes today - but gotcha's are slips that kids get when they are caught doing something good.  They can put them in the gotcha box or save them to 'buy' things]  Reid's name was pulled out second and he also got to dunk our school janitor, Jose.

Reid must have "been" dunked right while Ryan was doing the dunking as I missed him.  But here are the shots from both of them doing their dunking.

Ryan dunking Mr. O

Reid dunking Jose, the day janitor

Ryan has 5 days of school left and Reid has 5.5 left.  Unbelievable that summer is almost here but I'm certainly ready for the easy mornings of just heading out the door and leaving breakfast, getting dressed and around, etc to the nanny.  I'm not sure I'm ready for the late bedtimes as that means I'll be getting to bed later too but I love that in the summer we spend most of our evening outside playing.

Mother's Day 2013

Once upon a time I would wake up each Mother's Day and run the Mother's Day 5K.  I didn't do it last year and I didn't really consider running it this year.  They don't allow boys to run it and it's really a family affair so it doesn't seem right to go by myself.

Typically my favorite Mother's Day breakfast is Toaster Strudels.  They are horrible for you and I save them for this one and only day every year.  However, this year I'm doing the Advocare 24 day challenge and they are on the restricted list.  That's okay.  They are purchased and in my freezer and we will have a make up date sometime this summer :)

So, this sounds like a miserable Mother's Day, right... no favorite breakfast, no running?  It was far from it!  I slept in until 8am.  I actually heard Ross get up around 6:30, woke up around 7, and then dozed off and on and laid in bed until my requested breakfast in bed time of 8am.  Russ stuck to my 24 day challenge rules and made me wheat toast with natural peanut butter, strawberries, and pineapple (and only water to drink).  And the boys were happy to help me eat it.

Perfectly made to fit within plan!

After I ate breakfast, we did a bunch of just hanging out and getting around slowly... RELAXING.  I had been scrapbooking the night before with my friend, Suzanne and stayed up until almost 11pm - Gasp!  That's really late for me these days.  Eventually we decided we'd have to make some lunch plans and find something to do.  Some moms like the time away from their kids on Mother's Day... we tend to make it more of a family day.  We celebrate the fact that I have these fabulous monkeys that made me a mom.

Yep, I'll take a day with my boys outdoors any day!

Russ had the great idea to go geo caching out at the Arboretum.  We hadn't been out there since family pictures like 6 years ago.  We stopped at the grocery store and picked up some lunchables for the kids and salads and fruit for Russ and I.  (no mexican, no fish tacos... but the salads were still pretty good).  We went into the Arboretum and found a picnic table and had a nice picnic lunch followed by some geo caching and hiking. I wore my Garmin to see how much distance we covered and we walked over 2.5 miles and were there for almost three hours.  We even spotted a group of like 6 deer while finding one cache and got within 20 feet of them. Not a bad afternoon.

Silly Russ! I was walking behind him on the trails and he took the photo including me so we joked around that I was photo bombing him.

So, of course, the boys got on a 'photo bomb' kick

I don't even know... they were having fun.

3 years apart... I give it one year tops until the picture is turned around and Ryan is bigger and picking on Reid!

We came home after geo-caching and Ross was asleep within 30 seconds of sitting down on the couch.  We enjoyed the quiet, did some relaxing and playing on our computers and ended the night watching the season finale of Survivor as a family.

I think 2.5 miles is a long way for a guy whose legs are only 10 inches long :)

We decided during a Survivor commercial break that the lower hairy back of Ross' is called his 'butt-stache'

And although we did decide to celebrate Mother's Day with "our" little family, we did think about our own mothers as well.  Russ and I are both blessed to have fabulous mothers that love us and understand  our spending time creating our own memories.  Hoping to get to see both of them in the next month.  Happy Mother's Day Mom & Linda... Thanks for all that you do for us!!

3rd grade music program

So, life might be a little crazy busy right now and the poor blog is getting neglected. Russ reminded me last night that it had been a LONG time since I'd done any kind of an update.  I also needed to upload a picture from Reid's 3rd grade program so I thought I'd do it here.

Our elementary school does music program's every other year - 1st, 3rd and 5th. Given that each of my children are three school years apart I will now have a music program to attend for the next SIX years but never more than one a year (yep, math nerd!).

Last night was Reid's 3rd grade program.  It was titled "Get in the Game" and was all songs about sports and a PE class at school.  It was cute and kept your attention for the short 40 minutes that it was. I've really tried to stop getting a babysitter for every little event that we have now that Ross is getting older so we took Ryan and Ross with us.  Ryan played games on his phone throughout the program (he'd already seen the 2:00 matinee at school) and Ross was really into it.  He loved clapping after each song and really listened well.  I'm glad we saved the $20 - $30 and took them with us.

The lighting made it very hard to get a good picture.  Reid's in the front row in an all white karate uniform (left of the girl in the blue softball tank top).  It was nice that they were to wear any kind of sport outfit they wanted so no special outfit had to be bought :)

Reid had one speaking part and did pretty well at it.  We had coached him at dinner to slow down and speak clearly.  Most of the kids spoke so fast you couldn't understand what they said but Reid's line was pretty clear.

It wouldn't be a great music program without a treat (and school fundraiser) at Orange Leaf afterwards. In great McDowell fashion we made an exit plan (Russ took the little two to the van while I snagged Reid from the meetup spot) and we were the 2nd car out of the parking lot and to Orange Leaf, beating the crowds and keeping our sanity.

Project Life 2013

I'm posting these mostly for Courtney, Catherine and Suzanne to see so the pictures aren't great.  I tried to get natural light so the pictures in the plastics looked ok but I didn't get close enough... plus they didn't rotate the right way when I uploaded them (why can't blogger get a little more advanced already) and I'm being lazy tonight.  BUT... I have FIVE weeks completely done in my album and I'm partway done with 6 and 7.  Can you believe it?  And in case you aren't keeping track, last week was week 8 so I'm basically current - that's pretty current for me.

Week 1 Spread:

Close up of left and right side:

I love the week in review card!!  I'm going to have a lot of extra 4x6 from the PL kit but the week in review card really helps to eliminate the need to journal a lot.  And see those vertical pictures on a colored 4x6 inserted witha  frame... my friend Suzanne taught me how to do that and it really got me back into motion on project life.

I should have used a different divider since these all ended up being instagram pictures but I didn't realize it until I'd put them all on 4x6's.  Plus, I like to keep my main pages Design A and just use the other designs for inserts.

 Week 2 Spread:

I started getting adventurous with my photoshop Elements here and added some text to a couple of photos.

The left middle tag was just one I had in my old scrapbooking stuff - love to use any of it when I get the chance and the color went well.

 Week 3 Spread:

Ok, MAYBE I'll come back and fix these pictures tomorrow or sometime - this one is upside down... geesh!

Left side - mostly pictures but the upper right hand pic I added a close up picture as an insert on a full picture.  It was the day all of my new PL kit came in!  The "eek" letters were also a use from old supplies - score! 

Right side.. nothing special - some text on a photo and an iPhone screen shot

Week 3 also had an insert!  It was fun - all dedicated to Reid's hockey weekend in Cedar Rapids, IA

Back Side of insert

 Week 4 Spread:

Upside down again - ridiculous.

Left side

Right Side.  Only thing special is I took a 4x6 photo of my new mac and divided it between two 3x4 slots - I like that look when people do it and I liked how it turned out.

 Week 5 Spread:

Left Side - no big tricks to point out.

Same tricks... 4x6 picture of bath on bottom and insert of my 'spa' face.  The left card has some rub on letters that 'yummy' but they were too light so I think shaded around them with a colored pencil - it looks pretty good up close.

A weekend without dad

Well, it's Friday night and another weekend is upon us but I thought I'd fill you in on our weekend LAST weekend.  We had a great weekend.  Russ and Reid left early Saturday morning for a hockey tournament and a hotel stay in Springdale, AR.  After 5 games (going 3-2), Reid's team brought home the first place trophy.  They had a great weekend:

Yeah, I think he likes trophies :)

But, since I was here with the little two - I thought I'd blog on OUR weekend. My back was really hurting Saturday morning from my Friday workout so I did what any sane person would do.  I mopped our kitchen floor on my hands and knees.

Area under the kitchen table - double improved!

Ross dressed himself and was pretty proud of his outfit choice

Later that day it kept seizing up and really hurting so I did three very slow miles on the treadmill to see if it would loosen up and it did some.  The boys played with their claw machine (ate candy) while I was on the treadmill and we just hung out and played.  That evening one of Russ' friends stayed with us as he was in town visiting another friend in the hospital.

Sunday morning I woke up and ran 10 very hilly miles (thankfully with very few problems).  The hills definitely took their toll on me.  I showered and said goodbye to Russ' friend.  I ended up laying on my bed reading a book for OVER an hour while the boys played nerf guns.  They were VERY good and playing so well together.  I ended up taking them out for yogurt and to the library to get books (and let them take our neighbor friend with us too).

This was some obstacle game.  They climbed over my bed, onto the bench and jumped off shooting baskets. 

I think the little two are thinking "what the heck, that kids crazy"

Nope, Ross idolizes Ryan... now he wants to be just like him

The pretty much wiped Ross out.  He fell asleep around 4:30 and I let him sleep for about 45 minutes before waking him up so he'd still go to bed that night.  He did and Russ and Reid got home around 9:30pm.  It was the best, most relaxing weekend.  I didn't accomplish a lot - I had grand plans of organizing before my back started hurting... but I'm glad I took the down time while I had it.