Surprise!!

We had the awesome opportunity to fly back home for Micah's mom's 50th Birthday. AJ, Micah's brother told us that he was planning a surprise party for Sandy's birthday, and wanted to fly us home to be apart of it. Lucky for us, we were able to make it work with our schedules! Let the scheming begin :) We wanted this to be a special surprise for everyone, and had the chance to surprise my Mom and sister first. I knew I needed some help pulling this off so that my sister Hilary and her husband Daryl would be in attendance, so I enlisted the help of my Dad. He told everyone that he had a "Big Announcement" to make and they were having a family dinner. (Everyone thought he was going to announce his retirement-wouldn't that have been great...) So this was going to ensure that Hilary and Daryl would be there when we arrived that evening. Dad had informed me that Hilary was planning on leaving to go out of state with Daryl's family for the rest of the weekend...so I called up Daryl to let him in on our surprise as well. Again, fate was on our side, and he was able to plan around us so they would stay for our visit, while keeping it a secret from Hilary. And as you will see on the video below...they had NO CLUE!! :) hehehe

Almost there! In the limo from the airport...

I loved seeing the looks on their faces when we just walked right on in!
Sorry it's a little shaky, I was laughing and crying and hugging-so it was hard to keep it steady...

Papa did a great job helping us pull this off :)

I think Grammy was in a slight state of shock for most of the evening.

Hilary went back home after dinner and grabbed an overnight bag and the dogs and came back to spend the night :) It was AWESOME! And Devin couldn't have been happier having the dogs to play with.

I think he looks like a teacher in front of a class in this picture.

Chase me! Chase me!!

MOM! He's trying to take it from me!

I love you Grammy!

I loved that Dad was able to have Gigi over for dinner too. She was so confused as to what all the commotion was about when we first arrived (she wasn't facing the door we came in). It was wonderful that we got to spend some time with her too!

So after Gigi went home, and the rest of us stayed up late talking, we got up and had a wonderful breakfast made lovingly by my family. We got things packed up and ready to go so we could head out and surprise Sandy next.

But first, what visit to Grammy's house would be complete without getting beautified?? And boy did we desperately need it!

That is just Devin's hair!

And yes....all of Aiden's.
Grammy, you need to come out every 4-6 weeks to keep us looking good!! :) Thank you for all you did for us in such a short period of time.

Stay tuned for the next round of surprises :)

Random

I was going through some of Micah's pictures from his cell phone and wanted to post a few. It's been awhile since I've posted, and have some catching up to do, but here's a little bit for now.

This is Aiden protecting Devin from falling off the mulch. I miss having a house and a lawn. I don't miss having to take care of it, but we definitely miss our space.

This was the resident party the first week we moved out here. Here is Micah's class.
Dave, Stephanie, Geoff, Kristen (with baby in belly...who is now a few months old)! and Micah.

And then the spouses.
Dave, Stephanie (both single) Alexandra (Peds fellow) and Geoff, Kristen and Dave, Liz and Micah.

Devin has discovered how fun it is to ride on Micah's shoulders and he assumes this position almost immediately. It's hilarious and we laugh every time when he does it :) Here we are enjoying a day in SF.

Homework

Aiden is completely loving Kindergarten! He is so excited to go to school every day. I was playing around with him one morning before school and we were having so much fun. I jokingly said that he wasn't going to go to school anymore and he was going to stay at home with me. He immediately broke down in tears (he's just like his Mommy and can cry on demand) and said that he wanted to go to school! I told him that I missed him too much ;) and he said "Don't worry Mommy, I'll always come back". Awww! I of course reassured him that I was only kidding and that he was going to school, but it really made me happy that he was truly loving his class.
So now that he is a big boy Kindergartner, he has...HOMEWORK! And so it begins. haha :) His teacher is going to send home a homework packet every week that has to be turned in by the end of the week. We can do it on our own time, but she suggests that we do a little bit each day. This week he has to read or be read to for 10 minutes every day (that will be on going through the school year of course), wright his name 5 times, practice writing big C and little c, and draw a picture of what he likes to do and write a sentence about it. So here we go! We did his names today and I told him that he is going to be "Just like Daddy" doing homework every night. I was thrilled that Micah was home early today (!) and we got to show Daddy the work he did. So they had a little "study" time together at their desks.

Devin is helping me supervise.

Good Job Aiden, keep it up!

Yes, our condo is that small that we couldn't fit the big desk in, so Micah does all of his work at the little ones that we could fit.

Haha...just kidding ;) Just thought it would make for a cute photo op. Our office is on the small side compared to what we had at home, but is in dire need of cleaning and filing (I have been avoiding that...need to get on that soon). So we set up shop in the boys' closet for the homework pictures.

School Days

So yeah. I have a Kindergartner now. How did this happen?!? It's crazy because I was having a hard time deciding what to do with him this year because if we were still at home, he would not have made the cut off for Kindergarten, but I felt he might have been ready. When we moved, I found out he made the cut off here, so it was a no brainer...he was going to Kindergarten! And I didn't have to worry about making the whole day/half day decision, because it's only half day. Unfortunately he had to be overflowed to another school, and that meant he would have to ride a bus...dun dun duuuunn! My baby...on a bus??!! Oy! That was hard enough, but then I discovered he was assigned to the afternoon class and only last week was told he would be eating lunch at school. Lunch??!! At school??!! AAAAHHHHH!!! I'm going to lose it. I'm really going to lose it. I was TOTALLY fine enrolling him in Kindergarten, that was no problem for me. I was not going to be that mom who stands outside the classroom weeping her eyes out because her baby was going to school. We've done preschool now for 2 years, so I am excited for him to learn and make new friends. But now that you've thrown a bus and lunch into the equation...I'm going to become that weeping mom. ugh!
Well, I actually did pretty good. I only got teary eyed on the phone with my mom and sister this morning when they were asking how I was holding up before we left to catch the bus. Well, now that you asked...!! I was great at the bus stop, but again felt the waterworks coming on as the bus pulled away. I was able to hold it in because I didn't want to upset Devin, but it was hard. I resisted the urge to follow the bus, and just told myself it was going to be ok. I truly think the only reason I was fine with it was because it was a small bus and it was only the Kindergartners on it, so that made me feel more at ease.
So here is a little journey of our baby graduating from preschool and his first day of Kindergarten.

We were asked not to use a flash since we were in a church, so these aren't the best pictures...

Kiki and Grammy came out to celebrate too :)

Yeah, we always have a difficult time trying to get a good family photo.

KINDERGARTEN!
We had the opportunity to go to Aiden's school and meet his teacher and see his classroom yesterday before the first day of school.

In front of his cubby :)

Art center

Calender center
It's a pretty big classroom. There are 3 different Kindergarten classes, and about 28 kids in each divided into AM and PM classes. He has a very diverse class; well lets face it, this state is pretty diverse! I remember fearing he would be one of 3 or 4 "Aidens" in his class before, and I don't think we have that issue at all! (I asked him what his new friends' names were, and he couldn't tell me!)

I got this idea from Laura to make a "You Are Special" plate to let the kids use on big important days...and today was a pretty big day! :)

Very excited :)

Oh this is hard to see...I can picture him going off to college now. It's like a commercial, but it's real life.

The bus.

Not sure what is going on in that head of his, but I did keep missing his "smile" taking the picture.

So grown up...

Now this is a picture when we went to pick him up. I'm glad I could get a picture of him on the bus.

Devin was soooo happy to see his brother again. He asked me a couple of times where Aiden was, and where did he go. It kind of made me ache for him that he was missing his brother, but we still had fun, and I'm looking forward to having "just us" time now.

Aiden said he had a fun day and was excited to go back tomorrow...so that's great :) The main thing I got from him was that he made a Happy monster, not a scary monster, and he gave him claws. And he was excited to get a surprise from his teacher in his backpack. All in all, I'm excited for him and so happy he is going. But missing my baby all the same...there's no turning back now!!
Found this in his bag...so here is the Happy Monster with claws :)

How did this happen?

How did this happen? How did we go from this sweet, handsome, and innocent little baby to...

Graduating Preschool, to...

First day of Kindergarten??

More to come...

helpers

I'm not going to lie, today was a rough day with the boys. They weren't totally awful in church, in fact they have come such a long way since we've moved. But I'm being really strict with them to keep the good behavior up, and they were scolded quite a bit this morning. Aiden made us a little late because he was goofing off with his seat belt. And Devin was pretty much the Devinator all day. They have been very whiny and demanding, and talking back. Devin has told me "NO!" so much these last few days-I feel like I'm on my wits end at times. A lot of the times I think this blog reflects on many of our happy times, as it should; but we are also human, and my boys are boys. They aren't all smiles and giggles. They drive me nuts too (and my neighbors below as many of you know).
So after having such a hard day, all I wanted to do was send them to bed for the rest of the night. But, we got out and went to the park, had a great dinner, popped some cookies in the oven, and played hard (since I knew our neighbor was gone as we ran into her leaving when we came back from the park) until Micah was called back to the hospital. I looked through some of my photos trying to decide what to post about when I came across some pictures my mom took that have the kids cleaning. And it made me think about some of the wonderful qualities my precious boys posses...like the desire to help. They really do love to help (most of the time) and often are asking me if they can "help" too. They love putting the clothes in the laundry, and stirring the pot of mac n cheese. They LOVE doing the toilets, and often I find the Devinator "cleaning" them without my supervision. Yesterday Aiden saw me mopping and practically begged me to let him help. I don't want to ever overlook these things, especially as they get older-because I know it doesn't always stay this way!! But really, it's been good for me to take a step back and reflect on what wonderful children I do have. They are pretty well behaved for the most part, they love us unconditionally, and have the sweetest dispositions. So many people here have commented on just how friendly they are...and they're right. I have some great kids.

Making noodles with Kiki-I'm sure they're better at it than I am!!

Cleaning up all the flour, and everything else that ends up on the floor. I think they swept for like 10 minutes!

Vacuuming at Grammy's house. Now this doesn't surprise me one bit considering the long list of chores she always had for me and my sisters! :) But I know Aiden does love to vacuum-like his Mommy. Not sure why, but that is my favorite chore to do.

Not to be outdone, Devin is wiping the tray. She taught him how to wipe the table when he was just able to pull himself up. It was cute to see :)

So thank you Lord for my wonderful boys, and that they continue to be such willing helpers for years to come!