SIX!

Time's gotten away from me and my blog again.  hmm.  I seem to go in spurts and I have certainly not been in a blogging sort of mood recently apparently.  Sorry. 

There's a lot I have missed blogging about this summer ... Destin in May and again over Labor Day didn't make the blog.  An awesome week long OBX 4th of July trip didn't make the blog.  Neither did a trip to Laura's new place in Tampa along with a visit to Disney.  But we did them all!  And they were all a blast!  There's plenty of pictures on my picasa page to remember all the good times.  And hey a picture's worth a thousand words, right?! 

But I really do want to blog about my first born, my only son, my Bug-Man, my kindergartner, my Little Man, my Bud, my SIX year old!  I've attempted and saved a few drafts without luck.  I think between Ryan being in kindergarten [how did that happen?!  I still miss him and tear up at the bus stop in the mornings!], and Chloe growing up so fast [as much as we are done and as hard as the baby stage is, it's still weird knowing we're moving on from this phase.  I need some friends or sibs to have some babies so I can live vicariously.  it's fun to love on babies and then give them back.], I'm all out of whack.  It's hard on this Mama sometimes, this growing up stuff.  It's crazy how much I love them and how I just want to hold them and hug them and keep them my babies forever!  But alas, I can't, so time to focus on all the exciting things that do come with age.  And speaking of age, back to Ryan's SIXth birthday.  [Did you like how I tied that back around?  It wasn't even entirely intentional.].

Ryan's birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so we celebrated at school on Friday.  The girls and I surprised him by being mystery reader for his class and bringing in a new book, Danny and the Dinosaur's Birthday Party.  When I searched for birthday and dinosaur, this book kept coming up.  Danny and the Dinosaur is special to us since Grandma has an old copy of the book and loves to read it to them.  So this book was perfect, even more so when I realized that Danny turns six in the book.  It was fun to bring in a new book to read to the class.  I also had little dinosaur figures that we gave to all Ryan's classmates.  He was soo sweet, he even pulled out a couple for his teacher and parapro.  After the reading, we stayed and ate lunch in the cafeteria with Ryan.  Unknown to us, our new neighbors Georgia and family were also there, so that was fun.  [and hey, we had a photographer :)].  We also sat across from Benjamin's family.  Abby and Benjamin have been in preschool together both years.  When we sat down, Benjamin saw us first and was so excited, "there's Abby from my preschool!"  Small world.  Or a bubble, depends on how you look at it.  And since it was Friday, Ryan had ice cream with his lunch, yumm!  I also brought a couple of dinosaur cookies to celebrate. 

 

Saturday morning we had a soccer game.  I must say I was pretty distracted this game.  Lots of family in town!  It was great having Grandma, Auntie Sarah, Uncle Christian, Maxim, Uncle Jason, and Amber cheering our Dragons on.  But Ryan wasn't distracted; he won the medal for the day's value: paying attention.  Yup, Coach's kid won the medal on week two :)  He had a great game and the assistant really wanted to give it to him when he heard it was Ryan's birthday weekend.  Coleson had pretty much decided on another kid, but when the game ended and they asked if anyone remembered the value, Ryan was the only one.  No favoritism there, seems like he really did deserve it!  Great job, Buddy!  Ryan loves soccer.  He has great energy and is always right there in the game hustling, hustling. 

 

After the game it was party time!!  We packed up and headed towards the birthday party playground.  This is the fourth year we've partied there, but hey, it's a perfect place!  We had a dinosaur birthday banner and dinosaur tracks for the sidewalk.  We colored and cut lots of footprints between the sidewalk decor and the goodie bags.  The weather was perfect.  All the kids seemed to have lots of fun running and playing and eating pizza.  We had dinosaur cupcakes and dinosaur cookies.  As always, the merry go round was a huge hit with the little people.  Thanks to everyone who turned out to celebrate our little man! 

Off to the corn maze after the party.  While we always end up exhausted after a long day, the corn maze has turned into a fun tradition.  The big three cousins led the way [why do we always answer the questions wrong?!].  The corn was awesome this year, super tall and green, there are a few benefits to all the rain this summer!  The kids were so cute holding hands.  Poor Maxim was in the middle and would get pulled from side to side whenever we hit a fork in the road and Ryan & Abby would disagree about which way to go.  Chloe did great in the Snugli and enjoyed laughing as the others would run by.  We also checked out the corn crib and horse tire swings and jumpy pillows.  And then back to Nana's for a big family dinner.  Thanks Jim for a delicious meal and hosting all of us!  Presents and cake and celebrating Auntie Sarah too.  Sorry you have to share your special day with Ryan!  [well not your actual day, but the celebrations.].  Happy birthday too, Auntie Sarah :)

Sunday morning, birthday morning!  It was Pajama Day on Upstreet at church.  It sounds like they had lots of fun and played lots of cool sleepover games.  On our way home, we stopped at QT for birthday snacks. Ryan picked out gummy worms, Abby Skittles, Daddy coffee, and Mommy & Daddy shared donut holes.  More presents back home with Mommy and Daddy.  Grandma and Grandpa came over with more too and ate lunch and cupcakes with us.  We then enjoyed some downtime while Ryan built and built and built with his Legos.  We bought him one of those plastic storage things with three drawers and moved the lego table up to his room.  He's really enjoyed organizing all his Legos and building lots of fun creations.  We had a family dinner at IHOP to celebrate the birthday boy.  The kids love pancakes for dinner and we love that kids eat free. 

On Monday Ryan came home with a happy birthday hat from school.  I couldn't get anything else out of him about that though, I don't think they really did much more to celebrate.  But since he had the hat on, the busdriver had everyone sing to him on the way home.  Our busdriver is awesome!  Monday afternoon Ryan had his six year checkup.  As the nurse said, he's a square: 45lbs and 45ins.  Right on average in both categories.  Which means they are still predicating 5'10", 160lbs.  It'll be interesting to see if that's accurate or if he has one of those crazy high school growth spurts.  Everything looked great at the checkup.  He had his iron checked, blood pressure, hearing & vision, a flu mist.  All sorts of things, but no shots, yay!  The girls and I all got flu shots though; Chloe did great, Abby not such a big fan.  On a whim, we drove into Alpharetta after the appointment.  We were almost there anyways, and I knew Coleson would be a little late that night.  While we were driving to the appointment, Grandpa had called to tell us there were some scarecrows up.  We had a great time wandering around downtown Alpharetta checking them out.  There were lots and lots of them on every street light and corner and wherever they could lean them.  Ryan liked the Lego man of course.  We saw an astronaut and Abby was ecstatic.  She's been all about astronauts recently.  She really wants to be one when she grows up, pretty cool in my opinion!  Of course she also wants Chloe and I to be astronauts with her.  She has big dreams, but she's still my Mama's girl and I like that. 

What a day, what a week, what a celebration.  I love you, love you, love you Mr. Ryan Hazen!  I just can't wrap my brain around you being six already.  You're so amazing and smart and independent and handsome and sweet and caring.  You're an amazing big brother and your sisters both adore you.  I'm so proud of you and the fine young man you are growing into.  Even if I do miss you terribly while you are off conquering the world, or at least kindergarten :)  Happy, happy sixth birthday Buddy!!

good things to say

Abby's teacher, Ms. Dorothea, put her in the car today after preschool.  She had such nice things to say about our Abs!!  She said Abby is doing great at preschool, she is very sweet, she is a wonderful teamplayer, and she's very bright.  Yay!!  That'll make a Mama super proud!!

Abby also had plenty of interesting things to say on the way home.  Apparently Brandon is line leader this week, but he wasn't here today so Lauren got to do it.  I asked if she knew where Brandon was and I was rewarded with a good five minutes of "or maayybe's."  A couple noteworthy ones:

Or maybe his belly had a tummyache [my personal favorite]
Or maybe he had to go to the doctor or to the dentist
Or maybe he went to the grocery store
Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe. 

In other words, she didn't have any idea why Brandon wasn't there :)

Gotta run, just a quick post while all this was fresh.  According to Abby: "my belly is telling me it's hungry", so lunchtime it is.

here I am, I love you

Chloe has taken to crawling over to someone and then sitting herself up so that she is pretty much on top of them.  Super cute!  She started doing it to Ryan awhile ago when he'd get home from school.  If she was awake [she's normally napping], she'd slither right over to him and then sit up.  It was as if she was trying to get in his lap.  Both the girls really miss Ryan when he's gone [who am I kidding, I miss him too!!]. 

 

interruption:

"I miss Brother when he's at school.  When's it time to go pick Brother up?  Let's go pick Brother up."

Abby is in my lap while I'm writing this.  She can't read.  I'm not talking out loud as I type.  She just announced exactly what I was writing when she had no way possible to know what I was writing.  Point proven, we miss Ryan.

 

Back to my story:

She continues to crawl to her sibs and here's the girls today:

 

 

Chloe crawled right on over there, put herself in a sitting position, and wiggled around to get just right.  In Abby's words: "Our backs are leaning on each other. That was funny."  Too bad it's a blurry camera phone picture.  But you still get the idea.  Look at the joyous smiles on both my girls.  Love, love, love my babies!! 

squeeky clean

Yesterday afternoon we washed the cars.  Abby wore her bathing suit and had a great time.  She was so cute helping wash the car with lots of soap and sponges.  But the best was when she was scrubbing the front grills and told me: "I'm brushing the car's teeth!" 

Chloe the crawler

Chloe started crawling on Wednesday.  Just like that.  She was wearing a dress and I thought maybe it was hard to slither on her belly with the dress for some reason.  But she was still crawling yesterday and now today.  Belly up, hands and knees, a real crawl.  Now if only she would considering this whole standing up and walking thing :)  She is getting closer though I suppose.  She will pull up and balance on her knees; she just doesn't have much interest in using her legs.  But you know what?  That's probably just as well.  I am sure when there are three of them running in three different directions I will miss being able to carry Chlo! 

where does she come up with this stuff?! :)

We were sidewalk chalking one afternoon last week.  A small piece of Abby's chalk broke off and she threw it into the grass:  "I throwed that out there so the ants could eat it for their lunch."  Mmm, tasty!!

Abby Chase, Three Year Old

Abby started preschool yesterday.  She goes T, W, Th this year.  Her teachers are Ms. Dorothea and Ms. Terry.  She has a few friends from last year: Lyla, Virgil, and Benjamin.  No Max though, bummer, but we still get to see him a lot around the neighborhood and we may carpool some.  She did great at preschool!  She picked out her red Easter dress to wear and was super excited to have Chloe match her.  Since it was the first day, Chloe and I walked her in to her classroom.  She looked around, gave me a hug, and then asked if she could go play with the dollhouse.  Just like that she was gone!  No tears, no looking back.  Mommy cried a little on the way home :)  Preschool itself wasn't too emotional, I think it was just the culmination of everything.  Having two babies gone and in different places is a little weird.  I loved when they were at preschool together.  They didn't see each other all that much, but it was a wonderful feeling when they would say they saw each other and waved.  And I do know that at least once they took Abby to see Ryan when she was upset about something.  Loved that!  Anyways...

Picking up Abby in afternoon carline was a bit crazy.  The first week with beginner parents is always rough :)  She had lots of fun on her first day.  She played in the gym with balls.  She did a picture of day and night for the first day of Creation.  We had snack duty this first week, so she was excited about that.  She helped me shop and we picked out all her favorites: bananas, cheese, goldfish, and vanilla wafers.  This also meant that she was line leader which has gone straight to her head!  This afternoon when we were going to the playroom, I got fussed at for not following her and I had to go back and walk in again  :) 

Nana offered to take her to school this morning.  When she woke up, I asked Abby if she still wanted to go with Nana.  She said "yes, Nana can take me, but I want you to pick me up Mommy.  That's a good idea." super cute smile with a thumbs up.  She's going to do just fine in preschool.  She'll probably run that school by the time she's in the fours class next year.  Have a great year my Sweet Abs!

bored or brilliant?

I am hoping that the first couple of weeks of kindergarten are more of a review and a chance for the teacher to assess the abilities of the class.  I think Ryan might be bored.  He must finish his worksheets in record time because this is what the backs of them come home looking like: 

He's not a huge fan of naptime, so thanks to Nana's suggestion, last Monday he spent naptime thinking of a story.  When he came home, I helped him write it.  And by that I mean, I literally wrote what he told me to write.  I had nothing to do with the creativity or storyline [alright confession, slight story alteration, he wanted koala bears orignally but I couldn't even begin to draw one.  he then suggested penguins, not that I drew them all that well either].  He came home knowing exactly what his story was.  He even knew how many pages he wanted.  He would only recite the story to me one word at a time; I couldn't have swayed him even if I wanted to!  I did help outline a couple penguins and whatnot, but again only exactly what he told me to do.  And I'm sure you can't tell on here, but the doctor's name is Dr. Melons, it says so on his hat.  And oops, I misspelled penguin, that's all me.  The rest is all him, even the thought bubble [I didn't know he knew what those were]:

 

Helen

The theme for this summer has been rain, rain, rain.  And cool, cool, cool.  Now don't get me wrong, this weather would be great... if it was November!  But c'mon, for real?!  It's mid-August for crying out loud!!  I bet I could count on one hand how many times this summer it hit 90 degrees.  And we only slip 'n slided maybe four times.  This past weekend, AUG 17th and 18th, not Nov, not March, but August the high was 70.  That set a record low high.  We turned the air off on Friday and opened the windows and the temperature in the house dropped several degrees.  Fall weather is great, I just wish we could have had summer first!  Alrighty, alrighty, off my soap box now.  maybe.

So on Saturday we had a family adventure day.  We decided on Helen since that's been on my bucket list of sorts for awhile now.  [It's not really a bucket list per say, I just have a list of nearby places I'd love to go or things I'd love to do.  Like the UGA game we went to in April.]  Coleson and I used to love Helen, and we went there a million times pre kids.  And even once when Ryan was little and spent a weekend with my parents.  Believe it or not though, the kids had never been.  We ate a picnic lunch and then went to Anna Ruby Falls.  Now keep in mind three or four weeks ago I picked a hike for us.  It was a long drive, a long hike, and we got rained on.  Pouring rain.  Fortunately we were able to squish into a rock wall and really didn't get that wet.  But we did have to turn around before we got to the waterfall.  It really was a great adventure though; I had a wonderful time.  Ryan however has asked to not go hiking in the rain again.  Thus I was a little afraid of how announcing another hike would go over.  Anna Ruby Falls seemed safe enough.  And fortunately the kids seemed to have forgotten about hiking in the rain and were very excited.  It's a super short trail and therefore we actually made it to the waterfall this time.  The kids all did great and loved it.  They did seem a little confused by the paved sidewalk, and Ryan asked to keep going when we got to the waterfall so quickly.  I love that my kids know what real hiking is!  The waterfall was beautiful and it was a fun little hike.

After our hike, we headed into Helen.  The car said 64 degrees.  It was chilly!  I hiked in jeans and a sweatshirt, in addition to the bodyheat of wearing Chloe.  And it was drizzling a little.  But we still had fun wandering, and hey, Ryan enjoyed wearing his raincoat.  He also loved watching the handful of crazies that were tubing the river.  You couldn't have paid me money to get in that water when it was 64 and drizzling.  We stopped for fudge and ants on a stick pretzels.  Unfortunately the rain was getting heavier, so we snapped a quick picture of the kids for proof of our visit, and then we ran to the car.  We had thought about staying through dinner, but just didn't have it in us to hang around in the rain.  So we drove a ways before dining at El Rio in downtown Dawsonville.  Love that place!  I used to eat there when I worked at the bank, and that's where the fajita nachos that we all know and love originated.  Always a fun stop if we can work it in; it's not exactly convenient these days. 

While the weather wasn't ideal, it was still a great day.  With our busy schedules and kindergarten, we love our Saturdays!  I really don't care what we do, as long as we do it together [cheesy! but true!].  The crazier the day, the better the memories :) 

random Girls stuff

*Chloe ate a scrambled egg for breakfast this morning!  I am so excited!  Third time's the charm in regards to eggs; R&A still won't touch them.  Way to go Chloe!

*Abby misses Ryan like crazy when he's at school.  When she sees the bus coming over the hill in the afternoon, she goes crazy.  She'll jump up and down while shouting, "Brother! Brother!"  Quite possibly the sweetest thing ever.

*Chloe drinks her milk out of a sippy cup now.  Not her first choice of course, but she's getting the hang of it.  This morning she sat in my lap, held the cup all by herself, and drank it all at one time, awesome!!  We're still working up to that consistently, I tend to have to help and nudge her along, but she's getting much better. 

*Abby met her teachers yesterday, Ms. Dorothea and Ms. Terry.  She did great at open house and was really excited about it.  She knew two kids already, Virgil and Lyla.  Hopefully she'll be as excited on Tuesday morning as she is now!  She'll be in the three-day threes class- Tues, Wed, Thurs from nine to noon.