The annual excitement

Yesterday was the day....K got his annual shiny envelope from the North Pole. This year's envelope had the normal letter from Santa but also contained a picture of Santa with one of the reindeer and a note from Rudolph (with a hoof print for a signature). Apparently reindeer have to practice special take offs and landings where the soil is sandier so they have been getting ready to visit our area. We also learned that they like to much on the tops of sea oats. 

Adventures in Elfing 1-6

It's that time of year....Sneaky Pete is back...

Ks choice

K wanted me to take this picture...."because it's so pretty" were his words. Unfortunately, this picture isn't as pretty as the real thing....but you get the point. :)

Long

Today we drove home from our water park trip. It felt like we were in the car FOREVER! 

The day started with Cracker Barrel (yum!) and then we headed out. Along the way, we made a few pit stops. We stopped off to check out Elon, my first college, and wow!! It has grown! I mean, mind officially blown! It has definitely made its way from a college to a university in the last 15 years! We also stopped at the outlet mall for a little back to school shopping. I think we hit up a discount store (target, walmart, etc) in every county on the way back looking for a pencil box that wasn't pink. Finally we found the pencil box but crayons and #2 pencils were hard to come by. Dommie and Poppo saved the day with those items so we picked then up on our way through NB. It was dinner time in Kinston though so we stopped at Kings. I have lived that place for so long! It was a plus that K rode the pig. 

Big day...

We had a big day yesterday! I didn't have my camera of phone with me at all for most of the day so unfortunately I didn't get many pictures. 

We started the day at the hotel's continental breakfast and then headed to the water park. It was a pretty big park (Wet N Wild at Emerald Pointe). K had been looking at the map the whole week prior and had planned out what he wanted to do. Needless to say, he got cold feet after the first slide but all in all I think the kids had fun!

Once it was pretty clear that there wasn't much left that they wanted to do, we headed back and they spent some time in the hotel pool. 

We wanted to keep the fun going to after dinner we went bowling and rode in bumper cars. There had been a special request for hot doughnuts and a Krispy Kreme magically appeared on the way back to the hotel. We went in which was nice because we got to watch them being made! 

Can you believe that trash can picture?! What?!?!

At the end of the day, it didn't take long for K to pass out. He even slept until 9:30! 

Ninja time

This is my resident ninja. 

The Title

So...you know the title of this blog. It helps that I'm going through pictures on my phone.

This was our July 4th view. There was a very colorful sky that night!

The list

We got the school supply list for school this year. It is so hard to believe it is 2 weeks away. It looks like mostly normal things...all but one. Any idea which one I think is a little strange? 

TWENTY glue sticks? Really? Are they going to be gluing each other together? Is this a school of the arts? Twenty? I thought first grade was where they started doing more writing and reading....and maybe less coloring and art (except for art class). Maybe it's FOR the art class. Maybe I'm out of touch with the reality of what is elementary school. I know full well that we (parents/families) provide supplies for the classrom, not our own child (in general) but TWENTYglue sticks per kid? Strange...

Carnival Day

Each day at K's camp the day has a special thing planned. Sometimes it's a field trip, sometimes it is a snack to make...but today was the long awaited Carnival Day. The kids have been looking forward to this all summer. The owners grilled hot dogs and had all the fixins. There were lots of fair style games where they earned tickets for prizes.  There was a cake walk (minus the cake) but with other treats, and there was a face painter.  K was pretty happy with his guitar and "Rocky" the penguin. I asked him how Rocky got that name and he wrinkled his eyebrow like I should have known and said "because he's in a band". Well of course he is. You can't really tell from the picture but Rocky does have a rainbow mohawk. K was most impressed with his tattoo (it is pretty cool). He said he picked it because I like snakes now. For the record, I do not like snakes, but I did visit a serpentarium where I saw a bunch of snakes without freaking out. Apparently that means I 'like' them now. 

Here's the rocker...

And Rocky...

And the tattoo.

The menu

In an effort to make our mornings run a little better, I've been putting my thinking cap on for ways to combat the rush (stress) of getting out the door. Over the weekend while I was planning meals,I had an idea to make daily (morning) 'menus' so that K could pick out his breakfast the night before. In turn, I could plan my morning better, gauge time to get it done and feel better about his breakfasts. I was not liking the 'grab-n-go' technique or the hurry up and gulp it down that had been the norm for the last few weeks. The menu thing also goes back to a few months ago when K wanted to have a restaurant in our house. Anyway, the menus seem to be helping our mornings a little...plus he seems to really like that every day is a little different. I'm all for a little novelty.

This was Monday...

It surprised me that he picked so much. A normal breakfast last week was a yogurt (maybe 2) or a banana, or something like that. I figured he'd pick one or two things from the list. Monday he started off with a bang wanting 3 of the 4 menu items. 

I guess next up I'll notice a growth spurt!

He was pretty excited. :)

VBS Lookalikes

K had a great time at VBS. His favorite part seemed to be this little table where they mashed up oats (or something like that). 

When I walked in one night I couldn't figure out which child K was and had a minor heart skipping moment. It is easier to differentiate in the picture since he is turned but when I first walked in to pick him up, the only way I could tell the two blonde boys apart was by their shoes. It caught me off guard at first becuase I really could not tell which one was K!

 

Growing!

I took a picture of K a day or two ago and realized how much he has grown. The left picture was taken in November. The right picture was taken this week. Granted, that is an eight month difference but look at the position of his shoulders and elbows in these two pictures!  I think they may have been taken at a slightly different angle but it was pretty close.

In other news, our decomposed pumpkin (from Halloween that we forgot about while it turned into a pumpkin plant in the side yard) is growing a pumpkin! 

VBS...finally!

This week is Vacation Bible School at the church where K went to day care and then pre-K....you know, before becoming the big kid that he is now!  Last year was his first year going to Vacation Bible School and he had so much fun that he has talked about it at different points throughout the year.  He really has been looking forward to it and seems to be enjoying it this year just as much as he did last year. Yesterday morning when I told him it was the first day he did a little fist/elbow pump and said 'Yes! I've been waiting for this ALL year!' 

Here's a picture from tonight before things got started. Also tonight, he made a staff that he was pretty proud of!

It's about time!

I make it a point to check out my friend's blog just about every day. It has turned out to be part of my morning routine. A few days ago I was giving her a hard time about it not being updated after, I don't know, 2 days maybe. She answered back with, "Too bad I can't get into that routine with my friend". You know I think about doing an update on here pretty often…but as usual, things get busy and time gets away from me. Today I was looking back at some of my old posts and realized how neat it was to see things documented. I even found the date of a dr appt that K had that they don't seem to have on record! Who knew I'd find it here?! So here I am, at least for a week or so (until I fall off the blog wagon) posting updates.

I have not been feeling well for the last few days so we've been taking a kind of easy. Yesterday we went to the movies with some friends but that was about it. Today started out kind of slow but this afternoon we ventured out to the aquarium. 

Afterwards we hit McD's for a drink...

...and then spent some time at the beach. K loves being in the water and I was hoping some salt air would help out my lungs....b/c you know, the beach fixes everything! 😉