The Wonder of Fall

I absolutely love Colton's ability to get lost in the wonderment of little details. I rarely stop and take the time to really appreciate little details that make our lives so rich. Colton on other hand rarely seems to appreciate the rat race of the grown up world. Childhood is a magical time, and I am really blessed to be able to experience it again as Coltons and Ashlins' vision. Let me tell you it seems so much more amazing the second time around.

Pumpkin Patch Memories Card for you :D

Just in time for all the Pumpkin Patch pictures you will be taking! Click on the link below to get the PNG file. If you need any help using the PNG files see the link to the left "my how to blog". Enjoy!

http://www.gigasize.com/get.php/119660/hallocarda.png

here is a quick example of what I did with it :D



Feel free to post a link to your plays so I can take a peek at them too.

Card Crazy

Yes honestly I have been a bit obsessed with making cards - here is an assortment :D

just a few more cards...

I might be addicted :0









is the next two I couldn't decide on a horizontal or vertical card.

its beginning to look a lot like....

dare I say it???

Christmas!

I was having fun making some Christmas cards to use with pictures. What do you think so far? I am thinking learning as I go along is a good thing right.

morning battles...

How can a six year old girl cause so much upset in the morning? Since she doesn't really want to go to school and she is making sure that we realize it. She is not happy with what she gets offered for breakfast. Fine, give it 15 minutes and we get over that hurdle, at least she eats right. So then lets move on to getting dressed for school.

NOT fun.

This is the hard part.

She decides that she likes NOTHING in her drawers. Not one pair of pants that she is willing to wear. How can a six year old girl be so stubborn and obstinate about putting pants on that she has worn plenty of times before???? And heaven forbid I ask her to wear a skirt when it is chilly out! Not a fun way to start the day - every morning. One of these times it really will come down to sending her to school in her jammies I am sure. I have even tried to get her clothes set out the night before. That was great until it came time to actually get dressed. Then once again there was something wrong with the outfit.

I know that she doesn't really want to go to school, for whatever reason. She also knows that no matter what I will be sending her, I just wish that it was not such a struggle every morning! I was so not prepared for this - she did so well at kindergarten and loved going. I had no concept that we would have any issues at all about Gade 1. But we do.

I feel very sad that she doesn't like school. She just started Grade 1 so she has so many years to go! I hope that we can figure things out and she starts enjoying her time there, and soon!!

The Beauty of Fall

Every once in a while Ashlin is so willing and happy for me to take her pictures. Amazing how much she liked this red branch that she found on our walk today. I think she is a Fall girl, loving all the colors. I can tell you though that both her and Colton absolutely hated the cacti we ran into. They had long spines that went through the bottoms of their shoes. (and can you believe I didn't take a picture lol)

Nothing like an hour nature walk to help the kids have a good sleep :D

My paper mache egg....

well what do you know, it was big enough to fit a baby! I had some serious doubts that it was too big and/or too little. I kept trying to remember my tummy when I was pregnant, and I kept telling myself I could NOT have been that big. (For the record I was not that bog because both of my babies lodged against my spine, I am sure of it!)

I was so happy to have a mommy who was cool with me putting her new sweetie into an egg :D I do believe the hardest part was making the egg. This sweet little girl just slept through the whole thing, she seemed to really like it. I do suppose it was nice and cozy, do you think she was dreaming she was back in the womb?

ok it is picture day .....

are you ready?

Just a few of my new favs from over the weekend!




















Hope I don't scare you but I have a ton more pics that I love still......

contemplation

Doesn't he look much older than a tender four year old boy. He acts it too. He looks so serious here, so lost in thought.

Don't let the still picture of one split second fool you though. He can MOVE, and he can move fast!

Out of about 30 pictures I took hardly any are in focus because he could not stop moving and bouncing around. All this with no sugar lol.

I really do need to practice indoor shooting more, I am just running out of things to bribe him with.

tuesday morning....

is there a song about Tuesday morning? Or does only Monday get its own song?

It is now almost 11:00 AM and I am ready for a nap! Sadly I need to go and pick Colton up from Preschool in a few minutes so that won't be happening lol. The teacher is going to start giving Colton "homework" from a kindergarten workbook that I brought up for him. This way I am hoping that he will learn, and also he will stay occupied with that while I do Ashlin's homework with her. Right now I have Colton doing Ashlin's homework with us and it is not working! They are a prime example of sibling rivalry at its finest I tell ya. So anyways now Colton will be getting homeowrk of his own, and hopefully he will learn from it too.

The good news is Ashlin seems to be settling into school now. ALthough reading is a chore for her and a fight for me to get her to do it. She knows that when she can read a book that I chose that she will get a kitten. But that little goal is not helping because she wants to read a book and get a HORSE! ACK, can you say NOT! Talk about going for the gold hey. I wish I could get her a horse but it is not happening anytime soon lol.

It is COLD here, so I had to buy a new cardigan :D Baby blue (I actually bypassed the pink one) and all cable knit. And even though I do not use it very often it has a nice hood too. I love my cardigan! Maybe even one day I will take a picture ;)

so I am loving the new banner!

from the ultra talented Nicole!

I might be able to scrapbook but my banner skills, for lack of better word, SUCK!

Didn't Nicole do a FAB job :D I love that she used one of my flower pics, and then the way she went from grey to color - totally fits everything this blog is about.

Nicole thank you so much! I keep looking at it and I am so thrilled.

Mr Sandbox...

So what kinda of career do you think Colton could have? Do they have well paying jobs for men who like to play with dirt?

I know everyone grows up and we move on from childish things, but seriously I can not imagine a time when Colton will not be playing in the sand.

He gravitates to it like nothing else. Oftentimes he is not making anything like sand castles or roads, but rather he is just delighting in the feeling of it in his hands. He likes to watch it flow as he dumps it. And he must like the weight it gives him since he often stuffs handfuls of it into his pant pockets. (A big joy at laundrytime!)

Case in point:

Happy Saturday!

ps - brace yourself for a "few" kid pics to be up tomorrow ;)

school woes

When Ashlin started school I didn't really think there would be any issues or prolems. She did so well in Kindergarten, althought they really didn't learn anything, that I just thought grade one would be wonderful for her.

Not so.

She does NOT like it. Mornings are tense around here, and I have to force her to get dressed and out the door. She is definitely nervous about learning to read. But that aside she misses her friends. When they did the classroom child placements she was completely cut off from all of her kindergarten friends. They broke up the children into two different grade one classes, and she is in a class of almost all boys. That is a huge part of the problem. And even worse is that there are five boys that have quite noticeable behaviour issues. The teacher spends more time trying to get them listening and settled than she does teaching. Ashlin is in grade one and so far the only sheets she has brought home have been drawing straight lines - horizontal and vertical. Like hello! She learned to do that when she was three.

I am very upset at the lack of what school should be.

I have been talking to the principal, requesting (or rather demanding) that she be put into the other class. And of course the principal says that they do not do that, and anyways that other class is at full capacity. I am so lost as to the best action to do. I actually like and respect the teacher that Ashlin has now. The problem is that she is a strict teacher who gets results, so they assign her almost all of the children needing more discipline. And then they need to fill up the class so they stick a few other kids in there. And Ashlin is one of those other kids. She is overshadowed by kids acting out, and I am worried that she is being affected more than the school realizes. I just feel so sad that Ashlin is not having a wonderful school experience (so far).

Little Red Riding Hood?

Ok so I had to bribe her to put the dress on, and then I had to bride her more to brush her hair - again. By the time we were all ready to take picture it was almost dark, so I had fun trying to get my exposures right. (Big sigh here!)

But once we got settled and I told her she could do whatever she liked we were fine. She RAN! So I have a lot of blurry action pictures. I did get a few that I like though :D

Mr Pumpkin

or otherwise known as the post that should be titled - I am not a Martha!

Something crafty is in the air, I am loving this cooler weather :D

Ashlin and I made Mr Pumpkin last night. It was a joint effort. She cut out the pieces, I used my machine to sew, she stuffed and he 'rested' overnight. And then today we both did the face. Ashlin is so proud of him (and she should be!) and he even went to show and tell today!.

here he is - Mr. Preschool!

Yup he is SO excited! He was up early, and got dressed all by himself. Then he started harrassing me to go, and we still had an hour to go. That was so hard on both of us. He even was happy to let me take pictures, as long as I didn't ask him to stand still lol


He ate all his snack, painted a few pictures, played in the sand and just enjoyed himself. I am still upset that he is not eligible to go to Kindergarten since he is so ready.

and then there is Ashlin. Ready to go - she loves school. UNTIL you bring up learning. She has a huge issue with learning to read. Her teacher even called today since Ashlin was so sad in school. And her problem was she was sad because she doesn't want to learn to read. I am lost on this issue.

I don't want to learn to read.

Just how do I answer that? Ashlin was so excited to go to school, and she still is. There is one problem though.

She doesn't want to learn to read.

I do not know if it is because she doesn't know how or if there is another reason. But I don't kow how to answer her when she tells me that. I try and encourage her and emphasize how important it is. And the teacher she has is a real hard nose teacher and is expecting her students to be able to read soon. I am happy that this teacher values reading, as I do, but I just feel bad that Ashlin is feeling the pressure.

I never had a problem reading, it just came easy to me. Colton is getting it already too. Ashlin seems to have a problem with it. She is just not grasping it. I am sure if I was her I would be a bit worried too.

In the meantime I feel lost since I really don't know what more to do to help her. I have even told her that once she learns to read she will be allowed to play on the computer more and it is not much of a goal for her. She just really could care less about reading and that is her downfall. If she is not interested she will not try.

Any ideas?

At the Fair!

There was only to bouncy rooms but my kids were happy enough to feed the horses, pet the goats and eat ice cream treats. I took over 200 pictures in less than three hours. I need to start scrapping bigtime!!!