This morning we were driving in the car (as we always are when the good stories take place). Ava got on the topic of Chinese. We can’t exactly remember how this occurred, but she was going on about Chinese (we had Chinese for dinner last night). She was going on and on and within the context of the conversation we explained to her that we call food from China “Chinese” and that the language spoken in China is “Chinese”. Addie was in the backseat and heard the entire conversation but didn’t really say anything.

Fast forward to tonight, we are snuggling with the girls and Ava says “I can speak Chinese”. Addie looked over and said “I can speak Bob Evans’.

I swear to god, I can’t make this stuff up if somebody paid me too.

This morning the girls were looking through picture albums and they started fighting over it (which is typical these days). Addie climbed up on the computer chair, looked down at her sister, and said (in an extremely mean voice while pointing animatedly at Ava):

You’re a doodie head.

That.is.awesome. Sometimes, I have no idea what goes through their heads but I fully blame Josh (somehow this is his fault).

Today, we were out for a lovely walk with the kids. It was gorgeous now that the weather is cooling off. While we were out walking, a gentleman ran past us and we happened to catch him in a background picture. He was wearing this:

As he ran past us (and Josh was taking a picture of me and we caught him in the background), Addie speaks up and says

“Why that man in his underwear?”

I love the innocence of childhood. That being said, would it have hurt him to put a pair of actual underwear on?

Today my baby turns 3. How this happened, I don’t know. Apparently the time vortex sped up and swept away a few years. My colic ridden screaming thing (yes, I called her that) has turned into a beautiful, defiant, talking, and in some instances, still screaming thing. Today, she turns 3. She will tell you she is 5, but we are working on this. Today was her birthday but tomorrow is her party.  We did give her one of her presents though which was a stuffed iDog that plays her iPod (yes she has an iPod, its an old one that we bought from a friend for cheap).

Since her party is tomorrow we decided to clean the house. That included the outside. Since I was out there I decided to pull up our rock barrier between the flower bed and the grass. You ever have one of those moments where you know your getting yourself into something that you should probably just walk away from? This was one of those moments. As I walked to that first one, I should have just taken my shoes off and gone back inside. I got most of them pulled up and then I got to the fourth rock from the end. I pulled it up and HOLY ANT SWARM there was an ant farm underneath. The ants came pouring out and there were millions of them. I did what any rational female would do, I ran as fast as I could to the garage while squeaking. I grabbed the ant killer, ran back and started spraying. Those ants received a pesticide bath so thorough that you could eat off of them. Well, if they weren’t ants and weren’t covered in potentially toxic chemicals. You get my meaning.  I also may have stomped really hard and crashed their city.

I’m a terrible person. I killed an ant civilization on my baby’s 3rd birthday. Celebrating life while delivering a toxic blow. I guess on a positive note, I haven’t seen any ants inside today. Wonder why that is?

Ava had her first day of her first year of Kindergarten today. Without getting to involved in the back story, Ava has a late birthday and misses the cut-off for Kindergarten. She is four turning five this year. Due to this, we decided to enroll her in the Kindergarten at her day care center to provide a little bit more learning and a little bit more structure to prepare her for “real” Kindergarten next year. While there is a chance she won’t have to repeat Kindergarten (meaning she will test into 1st grade in academics and we feel her maturity level is strong enough to go to 1st grade), it is more likely that she will have to repeat. We have basically approached this as though this is a year of Advanced Pre-K to prepare her for next year.

There are some changes to her schedule and atmosphere. The class is more structured and she is only in her “classroom” between 8:30 AM and 3:00 PM. Before and after she goes to the School Age Room where it is essentially a free for all and the kids can choose what they want to play with. The room has a Foosball table, a Wii/TV, DVD’s, art projects, books, toys, puzzles, and a few other things I can’t think of right now. She LOVES it. The other large change is that she no longer gets a nap time or rest period. We are dealing with the effects at home and soon hope to see her transition.

So, to her first day. In her words: “It was fun and I had a good day”. All that prep and worry for that one little statement. The better story to blog would have been a few days ago when we were talking about school and homework and in an excited voice she yelled “I LOVE Homework”. Alas, I did not get that on video tape and will not be able to remind her in 10 years of how much she was truly looking forward to the homework experience.

Upon arrival to pick her up today, she ran us (ok, she ran. Josh and I walked slowly behind) to her kindergarten room to show us her spot. Yes, she has assigned seats now. She proceeded to give her daddy (I was reading a paper from the teacher and semi paying attention) a full tour of the small classroom from the new rules that she had to sign in agreement to the birthday board. She then pulled out her Homework. That’s right….homework on the first day. She is required to read (and since she can’t read that means I have to read or at least assist her with browsing) a book every night and write the title of it on this little sheet that I then have to initial. I also had to fill out a paper. Yes, I had more homework than she did.

We got home and I had her sit at the table (nothing wrong with starting good habits early right?) and we worked on “reading” the book together. I do admit, she’s a pretty good reader. The book was about farm animals and would have a picture of a cow and the book would read “A cow is at the farm”. When we first started she was saying “A cow whiz at a farm”. So, she wasn’t too far off. I was pretty impressed and we worked on sounding out the words she was getting and she was able to read (memorize) the book to her daddy a few minutes later. Success!

Overall, she had a great day. I think I had a harder time with it. It was a struggle to admit that my little first born baby that we brought home is her own person and going off to school. She’s a lot more independent than she used to be and is learning so much. I don’t know what it is about that first day of Kindergarten, but we are through that milestone. I guess my milestone is even though I thought for sure I would burst into tears a few times today, I made it without crying (and subsequently freaking out my coworkers). So, to my baby girl, congrats on having a fabulous first day of school. Here is hoping we have many many many more just like it.

Now, for all of you that would love to see my girl on her first day, here you go! She picked this outfit out by herself (oh yeah, the prep look is her. I would have gone for emo). I helped with her hair, but she asked to leave it down and curly. She’s her own girl.

On the way to school this morning (at 8 AM), Ava spoke up from the backseat and in a very curious tone stated:

How do babies get inside the Mommy’s tummy?

After exchanging a few glances at Josh and going through a myriad of quick thoughts (something like “oh holy hell, she wants to know this now, well i could explain it very technically, or I could just hum and pretend that I didn’t hear the question. Wait, better yet, if I give Josh the look, he will take over. Crap, he didn’t get my telepathic message maybe I’ll try again, oh wait now I’ve stalled and I haven’t even come up with a good answer, what the hell, perhaps if I just say love that will work”) I responded with “It takes a mommy, a daddy, and love”.

She replied back, “Yes, but how?”

Again, scrambling (something along the lines of “crap the kid is inquisitive, can’t she just be happy with my generic non informing answer. I’m going with my standard here”) I responded with “I’ll tell you when your older”.

Ava said “OK” and I thought that thank goodness that crisis was averted!

Then tonight when we got home, I turned on the TV and the last person watching it had left the TV on Animal Planet. The show that was on was called “Raw Nature” and the immediate picture was that of two Zebra’s, one on top of the other ones back. OMG – too much in one day!

Today I was playing on the computer and Ava was watching what I was doing. I scrolled to the calendar for swim lessons so I could see when they were and how much they were. Ava looks over and says:

“What in the HELL is that?”

Meanwhile, Addie has been a non stop grump since she woke up from her nap. What in the hell…….

Tomorrow Ava is taking a field trip to the Zoo with her school. She’s SO EXCITED. Today, she was talking to her teachers about what she wanted to see. The thing that is most important for Ava to see:

Camanapees (Ka.man.a.pees)

Her teachers were baffled. When she told me, I was baffled. Her daddy got it right away. How did Ava explain to us what these were? She said “they are the really big fish”.

You got it, Camanapees are Manatees. She also states that there is no way they are called “sea cows” because they don’t moo. The kid has a point.

Tonight we were watching TV and an image of a sky diver came on.

Ava: Mommy, I am never ever I mean NEVER going to jump out of a plane. That is scary.

Addie: My want to.

Ava: But Addie, it is really high.

*laughing at the fact that my kids personalities never fail – the timid sensitive and the fiery pistol*

You may notice that we have added a new link to the above categories.

In order to make it easier for family members to locate our wish list website, we have migrated the wish list into our blog. When you click on the link above, it will allow you to view and purchase the items without actually going to the external website anymore.

We hope you like it as much as we do. We have password protected this link (along with the photos and videos) to maintain privacy. If you would like access to any of these links, please let me know and I’ll be happy to send it to you!