First Grade

Whew! Where, oh where did the summer go?  It seems absurd to me to be starting school on the 13th of August, but that's just what we're doing.  Asher was ready and excited to go to First Grade, which makes it so much easier on a mom to walk away from a new classroom.  I'm so glad he likes school so far (heaven knows he's got a ways to go).  I, on the otherhand, could use some toughening up.  Walking down the hallway, and against my will I might add, tears were welling up in my eyes.  I looked over at Corey(yep, what an awesome dad...he likes to send Asher off on the first day too which Asher just loooooves!), and held up some papers over my face.  He just laughed, and shook his head.  It's the idea of another year passing, and my kids growing bigger, wiser, and closer to not being kids anymore. 

  

This year was easier than last year, though, and it helped a bit knowing what to expect. Asher was just easy going and happy with everything going on.  He requested chocoloate chip pancakes for breakfast, to which I happily agreed. Beck suggested we play a game as soon as we got home, so we did, and I'm so glad I've still got another buddy at home.  I realized after we'd dropped him off that I'd forgotten to put a drink in his lunch, so we had to bring one to him at lunchtime(was that a subconcious slip...just wanting to check in?!  Whoops!).  He didn't mind that we dropped in at all, and it was nice to see he'd already made a few new friends and seemed happy to be there. We're so proud of our new First Grader and excited for the things he'll be learning. It was a great start to a new school year!
P.S.  Lunchbox pick of the year....Transformers!  We went through two lunchboxes last year...don't ask me how...so maybe I should call this lunchbox #1?

Things I'm Loving Right Now...

 1. I love this picture.  I'm not really sure why.  Corey just looks so cool and renegade in it.  His brother made him try on some of his gear at the Fire Station and this was the result. Watch out!

 

 2.  I love my little baseball fan.  He is SO into baseball right now, it cracks me up.  He plays pretend baseball, which entails standing at bat, whacking it out of the park, running bases, and being the announcer, with a New Yorker accent...in the house.  Hilarious.  Corey bought the boys their first baseball cards recently, and Ash just finished his first t-ball season (next year, machine pitch...yikes!).  When we go to Isotopes games, he actually watches the game too, which is more than I can say for myself half the time.  I get so easily distracted by the huge, manicured lawn. It's all about baseball, all the time.

 3.  I love my garden!  It's not fantastic compared to most, but to me it's a little oasis in our desert home.  My onions actually turned into real live, edible onions, which seemed a miracle to me.  I had a small harvest!  Next year I'm determined to make it better, since you definitely learn as you go.  So far we've had lettuce, onions, tomatoes, kale, snap peas, carrots, cilantro, basil, chives, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and a few straggler green chilis.  Most of them were grown from seed, which makes them even more near and dear. 

 4.  I love this wide, toothless grin:)  Even when he's getting in trouble for deliberately whacking his brother, I have a hard time not smiling when I see this boy and all his missing teeth staring back.  It's just plain fun. 

 5.  I love my Olympic score keeper.  Asher ran around making scoreboards all over the house for 3 weeks during the Summer Olympics this year.  Mostly he focused on the USA, Japan and Greece(aka Gres), but from the tallymarks I found on various mediums(chalk board, paper, etc.) the USA was always winning.  He loved the Olympics!

6.  I love my little dresser-upper.  In past weeks, this kid has been known to dress as an elephant, a fireman, and a tricycle riding tiger (in 100 degree weather no less), pretty much anything he can find.  I just love me a kiddo dressed up as a cute, cuddly animal.  He makes the best stuffed animal ever. Just today he was dressed as an elephant, running up the street as I walked someone to their car.  It was hilarious to watch his big ears flouncing as he ran around:)




7. I love my little garden buddy. Beck loves to come out an pick tomatoes, etc. He always notices the little changes in the plants and the flowers blossoming outside, which always surprises me considering he's three. He also likes to kiss the food from the garden after he picks it.  My own little garden gnome, bringing a little luck as he goes.

 8.  I love my little reader.  Ash has been reading for a while now, slowly getting better all the time, but recently he's started reading everything, which is so exciting(for both of us, I think!).  We went to a spray ground a couple of weeks back and I snapped him reading the 'rules'.  Too funny. 

9.  I love my sunflowers.  These ones in particular were a surprise, since we never planted them.  The birds or wind must have spread the seeds last fall from our neighbor's yard. We did plant a few giant ones, and love those too.  After a wicked wind/rain storm earlier in the summer, this plant was knocked completely over, left laying on the ground.   A few days later, I decided to finally go out and throw it away, but I looked outside I realized it was still green and not at all wilting and dead like it should have been.  Not only that, but the top several inches of the plant had picked itself up off the pavement and was once again growing upwards towards the sun.  I was dumbfounded.  It was anchored to the ground by a tiny shred of its once huge stalk, which was completely snapped.  It was a sunflower miracle!  It's will to live amazed me, so I just moved it over a bit and it's growing on it's side now, showing off with lots of bright blooms.  They are a good reminder to me of how life should be lived...and when life knocks you down, you just need to lift yourself up and reach for the Son.

Vegas, Baby!

For years now, people have been plugging to us the importance of couple's trips/getaways, and although it was definitely on the radar, the logistics of it are tricky when you don't have family in town to take your kiddos.  SO, we finally worked it out, and made one happen.  The LRP family reunion was planned, and Corey and I started dreaming of a trip of our own.  I joked with my mom about coming out to help us(okay, I was probably only half joking), and she said, 'let's do it.' She is the real hero in all of this (you'll see why even more in a minute), and was willing and ready to take on a couple of rowdy boys.  So, we bought tickets to Vegas and called it good.  We figured our first time away from the boys for more than 18 or so hours needed to be close-ish to home and only for a few days, so Vegas seemed perfect...full of entertainment without much effort.

We brought my mom home with us after the reunion, and woke up the next morning ready to go.  The first thing Corey said to me was, "I think your mom has a bad cough."  I bolted up in bed, remembering that she'd talked to my sister the night before whose family was being ravaged by a nasty flu bug as they were driving home.  Yep.  You guessed it, she too had the flu.  I was horrified by the idea of leaving the boys with someone who felt awful, and at the thought of my mom having to worry about caring for them when what she really needed was to sleep and get better.  I made a quick trip to the store, and Corey called to see if we could change our travel plans in any way (of course we didn't buy insurance for such a small trip).  No dice, and my mom was insistant that we go.  Of all the luck...our first trip together without kids in 7 years, and my stress about leaving them is compounding by the minute...who leaves their kids with someone who is sick?  Oh, boy. But we finally left and hoped for the best.

One of our sad attempts at a picture of us having lots of fun...we'll have to master these better for our future trips! Or just ask someone else to snap em;)

In the end, my poor, heroic mom was a real champ, and the boys were good while she was down for the count...with a little bit of help from the Wii.  She was feeling much better by the next morning and they had lots of fun while we were gone. 

View of pools from our room.

Corey after our 'Buffet run' at Paris.  We figured we had to hit one buffet just for the experience.  I was happy as a clam with the dessert situation...you know how sometimes you just wish you could have one bite of everything you see? Okay, I might have actually had two, but YUM!

Corey and I loved every second.  It was really nice to just be together and not worry about anything else.  We saw two amazing shows while we were there.  The first was Celine Dion.  The singing and orchestra were fantastic. We also saw a Cirque show...KA.  Amazing.  We seriously loved it.  Those shows never dissapoint...I'd only been to one other one, and that was our first date!  We ate good food, shopped a bunch, hit a museum, swam and laid by the poolside at our hotel (Mandalay Bay), and hit the Shark Reef aquarium there too.  Of course we also shopped for goodies for the boys, and loved talking to them on the phone every day (LOVE facetime for these trips!).  It was good for us, and we are already talking about the next one.  Definitely worth doing, and we'll do it again.  Sad that it took us so long, but better late than never. Love you, Cor!  And thanks again to my amazing mom who made it all possible!

LRP 2012

The Larry R. Pettit Reunion 2012...Yay!  It was so much fun hanging out with ALL of my family.  Amazingly enough, everyone was able to come this year and that made it so, so memorable.  Everyone is busy with kids, family, jobs and school, so coming together for a few days a year is truly a miraculous event.

We picked the spot this year,Durango, so it was sort-of half way for everyone, except that it ended up being a very short trip for us in comparison to everyone else's.  What was supposed to have been a 6 1/2 hour trip turned into something like 10 hours due to car trouble and a caravan that included ten kids ages 5 and under.  Translation: lots of potty breaks, and every time you stop, it took an hour to round everyone up again.  Our drive was so short and easy, I almost felt guilty.

Durango was a beautiful escape from normal life.  It's one of my fave places to hang out, although we've only been a few times.  This time we stayed at an RV park with cabins right on the river, and we woke up to deer right across the river one morning.  So pretty. Our boys went on 'adventures' with Mason(whose cabin was directly next door) every morning...jammies, swords, goggles and all!

The cousins(including my own boys) were in heaven.  They ran around playing and getting dirty, and loved every second of it. Asher was especially in awe of the neweset cousin, Taizley, who is only a couple of months old:)  We talked, ate, talked some more, ate some more, swam with the kids, perused downtown Durango, and took some family pics.  One more day would have been great, but that's just always the case isn't it?  FAMILIES ARE THE BEST!! Can't wait until next year.