| September 12, 2007 |
| A New Phase of Life |
I know you've all stopped reading this site, believing that I abandoned it long ago. And I pretty much had, but I'm resurrecting it to document a momentous couple of days.
Yesterday, Jordan started kindergarten. And today, Katie started preschool.
Despite the stereotypes and media portrayals of those first days, my kids entered this new phase of their lives without a tear, without a backwards glance, in fact, without even a goodbye (little snots).
For Jordan's easy transition, I give a lot of credit to his school and teacher. Last week each of the students in Jordan's class attended a fifteen minute individual interview. The interview gave the teacher a chance to subtly assess each child. The best part though was it gave Jordan a non-threatening chance to see where he would be going to school, allowed him to meet his teacher and learn about the routines. When he arrived at school yesterday, he knew where to line up, what to do when he got into the classroom and could concentrate on the most important thing... making new friends. Yesterday only half of the class attended and he's already made two friends, Logan & Alexander. He's already got a girl he really likes (but can't remember her name... I hope that's not a foreshadowing of the future). Today he'll meet the rest of his class (15 students in all) and I can't wait to hear about the new friends he made today. I'm so excited for him and for all of the new things he'll learn and the adventures he'll have.
For Katie's easy transition, I again have to give the credit to the school & teacher. Katie's preschool is the same one Jordan attended for two years. So she has two years of walking Jordan to preschool and wanting to stay and play. Two years of Jordan talking about the fun things he did. Plus, the wonderful teacher, offered a summer camp each of the last two summers. This camp was two weeks of 1/2 days where both Jordan & Kaitlyn attended. What a great way to transition Katie in, to be able to attend school with her big brother showing her the ropes. So, today when Katie walked to preschool with Mellicent & I, she was practically skipping. She was so excited and there wasn't a hint of nerves. She already knew a couple of the kids from summer camp and was off playing with them before we could even get out the door. The teacher had to make her stop and wave at us as we left.
Here's a pic of them from this morning (notice that Katie's already to go and Jordan's barely dressed)...
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posted by Krista @ 9:34 AM   |
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| January 20, 2007 |
| Happy Birthday Jordan!! |
Jordan turned FIVE today!! Can you believe it?!?
As usual he was spoiled rotten. We gave him his presents from us this morning before anyone arrived. He got Lego, Lego and more Lego... oh and a shelving unit to store the Lego. He's been building these amazing, intricate little space ships and robots. Now we lose him up there for hours on end. Around lunch time the usual suspects arrived (minus Grandma Noreen, Grandpa Larry and Uncle Mike as Grandma had a class and Uncle Mike had to work). We had hot dogs and cake and enjoyed Jordan's enthusiasm for presents. Oh and spring rolls! We had wonderful, delicious spring rolls (Thank you Mellicent for making them for us!!).
Jordan got a lot of wonderful presents from his grandparents and great grandparents, but the gift that will stand out in my mind for a long time is the gifts from his uncles Ty & Ian. Ty bought him a MINI BIKE!! He bought it and fixed it up for Jordan, which was sweet, except that it's a MINI BIKE!!!!! It can go up to 80 KM/H !!!! He's FIVE!!! Ian was the slightly more sensible of the two and bought Jordan a proper helmet for the bike (but that's still aiding and abetting and if he gets hurt I'm coming after both of you!!).
Jordan also got a giant dump truck and digger, though I think Katie enjoyed it more than Jordan as he spent at least an hour driving her around the house in it (check out the pics). |
| posted by Krista @ 7:24 PM |
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| January 01, 2007 |
| Happy New Year!! |
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!
As usual, my kids were spoiled rotten!! They had a wonderful Christmas!
It started on Christmas Eve with Little Grandma, Papa, Great Grandma & Great Grandad, Uncle Drew and Ronnie coming over for their traditional Christmas Eve festivities. We had a lovely time. Jordan was all about getting a present, it didn't even seem to matter what was in the present. Kaitlyn was the opposite. I had to take every single item out of the package so that she could play with each one and we had to encourage her to open another present.
Mellicent, her boyfriend Kevin and bestfriend Tin Tin joined us for Christmas morning and were sweet enough to bring us a Christmas morning feast. The present mayham continued. Midmorning Grandma Jo, Grandpa Skip, Uncle Ty, Uncle Ian and Michelle stopped by to see us. They only brought a few presents (the rest stayed at their house to be opened Boxing Day).
In the afternoon, Grandma Noreen, Grandpa Larry, Uncle Mike and Great Auntie Gay came for Christmas dinner. It was really nice to have my Mom and Auntie Gay there as they helped with the dinner prep and the feast was a surprisingly relaxed affair. Dinner was great and the kids were spoiled even more. Thanks so much Uncle Mike for the remote controlled MOUSE!! and the Rubix cube is a torture device (I will get even).
Boxing Day was a little more relaxed. I tried to get a sleep in, but Ty kept calling every 15 minutes. I think he was anxious for us to bring the kids over. To give you an idea just how spoiled my kids were, they have more garbage generated from their presents than most kids got in presents.
I'm posting some pics to the flickr thingy, so make sure you check them out!!
P.S. Jordan actually stayed up to ring in the new year with us. He's napping right now :-) |
| posted by Krista @ 3:07 PM |
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| December 02, 2006 |
| Christmas Tree is Up! |
| Today the kids and I decorated the house for Christmas. As you can see by the pics (see the flickr thingy on the side), the kids helped with the decorating of the tree. They decorate the same way they play soccer, in clumps. It was a lot of fun and the house is a disaster, but I don't care. I'm off to make hot chocolate and play with the beasts!! |
| posted by Krista @ 6:05 PM |
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| November 26, 2006 |
| Snow Day |
| So last night when the snow first started falling, we realized that we hadn't outfitted the kids for winter yet. So off we went to the store and got the gear. We had a blast playing in the snow. Katie especially liked playing with our snowman (though it looks more like a snow pile) and Jordan was mixing stuff (yeah, I don't know what he was doing either). On the side board of this site I've added a link to our flickr account (essentially an online photo album) so that you can peruse pics of our kids at your leisure. There's also pictures from Mexico. I'll add more pictures as I have some time (the final project of my courses is due Tuesday). |
| posted by Krista @ 8:42 PM |
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| November 20, 2006 |
| We're Back!! |
After a very long day and night of travelling (our flight was delayed 6 hours), we're back in the land of never ending rain. I haven't gone to sleep yet as we didn't get home until 5:30 am and knew the kids would be up soon. We could have slept in Richmond for a bit, but I was anxious to get home to my babies.
Our trip was wonderful! Beautiful beaches, amazing mayan ruins, friendly people, hot sun and lots of relaxing. The resort we stayed at was huge. We were there for 3 days before we even went to the other 3 lobbies and even then we never did see the whole resort. We did two tours: the Coba ruins and Xel-Ha/Tulum.
The Coba temple was amazing. It was 128 steps high (very steep steps too) and believe it or not, I climbed to the top. Of course, about half way up I remembered that I'm afraid of heights. Not a good time to make that realization. Oh well, there wasn't much I could do, but go to the top and then come back down. After the ruins, we went to this amazing sinkhole for a cool down swim. There were stalagtighs/mights that were like 9 million years old. Our guide Jorge, was great and was of Mayan decent. We visited a Mayan village which was pretty neat. I thought it would be uncomfortable wandering through peoples homes, but in their culture, they would have been insulted had we not visited. It was very interesting.
Xel-Ha was pretty cool too, sort of an ecological theme park. There's snorkling, a floating village and drifting down the river in inner tubes. We spent most of the day there and it wasn't nearly enough time. We went as part of the tour, but if we were to go again, we'd just take a cab and do it ourselves. Had our picture taken with parrots and got a little drunk. Almost missed our bus due to a lovely nap in a hammock.
After Xel-Ha our bus took us to the Tulum ruins. Coba was neat with it's huge temple, but Tulum was facinating as it was a trading port city with lighthouses, a temple and palaces. The ruins themselves were worth seeing, but our guide was horrendous, rude and lecturing. He almost ruined the whole tour.
We also took a cab to the Akumul beach for a brief appearance on a webcam there for the entertainment of friends back home. Felt pretty self-conscious, but was fun to do anyway. After ward we went to Playa del Carmen for some shopping. Lots of stores and everyone is trying to convince you to visit their store. Bought some fun stuff. |
| posted by Krista @ 8:42 PM |
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| November 04, 2006 |
| Oops |
I didn't realize how long it's been since I've updated this blog. Sorry everyone!
Let see, what's been happening...
Halloween was great. Jordan was a dinosaur and Katie was a zebra. Very cute. Daddy took the out trick or treating and they had a lot of fun and got some great loot.
 
We went to the pumpkin patch as part of field trip with Jordan's preschool. It was Katie's and Mellicent's first trip to a pumpkin patch and was a lot of fun.
Jordan has been taking riding lessons and is doing really well. Here's a video of him trotting...
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Scott and I head to Mexico on Friday morning! We're very very excited. Grandma Jo is going to stay with the kids. We'll be gone for a week.
We're staying here: Gran Bahia Principe Tulum
Katie got her first official haircut today. Someone trimmed her bangs for her and it wasn't pretty, so we took her to the hair salon. Sandi was wonderful and did a great job. Katie wasn't too sure at first, but loved the sparkles Sandi put in at the end.
I'll try to post some pictures to go along with this post later tonight. |
| posted by Krista @ 3:22 PM |
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