Dinner Conversation with McIver

Remember a few weeks ago when I told you that I had come up with some 'conversation starters' in an effort to keep the kids at the table longer than just to gobble up some food (or refuse to eat it) and ask to be excused? Well, here's another sample of a conversation that I had with McIver last week.

Question: If you could be a super hero, what would your super power be?
Mac: Cool moves.

Question: If you could buy anything at all, what would you buy?
Mac: rabbit, caterpillar, butterfly, ladybug and turtle

Question: If you could build anything, what would you build?
Mac: A toy shell, you can puch a button and it opens and you can put all your tools in it.

Question: If you could live with another family, who would you pick?
Mac: Pop, Nanoo, Grandma Janet and Cacoo

Olivia's End of the Year Party

Olivia's Class Party was lots of fun yesterday. The children decorated bucket hats and tiles to take home. They had a special snack of ice cream with sprinkles. Mrs. Hoyos handed out summer goody bags with mind-teaser games, globe balls, new pencils and more.

Olivia, Tomer, Shannon & Reagan Olivia showing off her hat.
O with Mrs. Hoyos
A tasty treat at the Marbe Slab - what better way to celebrate the end of school and start of summer!?

McIver insisted on wearing his cowboy boots to the party despite the 90 degree temps.

Mac spent most of the party building all sorts of roller coasters and tunnels with Mrs. Hoyos' blocks.

Olivia's Awards Day

Olivia is super excited to be 'graduating' from Kindergarten. She has had a great year, but it is so hard to believe it's already over. Awards Day was last week, but I was not able to attend b/c it was my last day of school at Westbury. One of the mom's from her class took these pictures for me. Thanks, Jean!

Daddy, don't wake me up!

The other day we were talking to McIver about why it takes him so long to wake up in the morning...

McIver: Dad, you just can't wake me up anymore when I'm sleeping.

Will: Why not?

McIver: Well, when I'm watching a movie in my dreams, you have to let me finish it.

Will: How many movies do you watch when you're sleeping?

McIver: 50 million

Circus Of Dreams Ballet Recital

Olivia with part of her dance class in the dressing room before the recital

Olivia with 2 friends from her school
Olivia,post-recital, with her roses from Daddy & McIver.

Me: Is there anything you want to say on our blog about your dance recital?

Olivia: It was awesome! Mommy's sister likes to dance on stage, too.

Memorial Day with the Stricklins

We spent part of Memorial Day with the Stricklins. Of course, everyone had a ball. Gay and I took the kids to the side of the house, away from the dads, to help them make Fathers' Day gifts. Each child made a stepping stone and decorated it to his/her liking. Olivia and Abigail were very deliberate about their designs. McIver and Sam - not so much. Sam just put in as many stones/marbles as he could fit. McIver made a design that resembles the letter D, but I'm not sure that was intentional. Olivia says it was.

Olivia & Abby getting organized.

McIver spreading out the Quikrete in his pie plate.
Olivia loved riding Sam's BigWheel around the cul-de-sac. I remember coveting my friend's BigWheel when I was little. I had one at Grandma Myrtle's house, but I longed for one with a brake so I could screech down the driveway (it seemed so steep when I was 5!).
Is he a cutie or what!?
Check out these lookers! Don slaved over a hot grill to make the most delicious brisket. We enjoyed our picnic supper, and a nice breeze, outside.
Chalk it up for another fun time with the Stricklins!

Ballet Dress Rehearsal & 1st Sleep-over

Yesterday was a big day: Olivia's dress rehearsal for the ballet recital was last night. She was super-excited to have me gel her hair and get it all slicked back in a bun . . . and, of course, the make-up was a special treat.



She rode with Mae, her friend from preschool, who has been taking ballet classes with her all year. Lana, Mae's mom, and I wanted the girls to have an activity together so we'd be sure to keep in touch now that the girls go to different schools. Here they are in their costumes...

When Lana and Mae dropped Olivia off at home, the girls ran off to play. We ended up ordering pizza, calling Mae's dad to join us and hanging out late into the night. And, Mae spent the night! It was our first sleep-over without the other kid's parents. (The Stricklins spent the night a few weeks ago, but since they were all here, it doesn't really count as the first sleep-over.) Anyway, the girls fell asleep in O's room while Lana was still here which made it easier on Mae, I think. They've been up and playing quietly for a little while and now Will is in the kitchen with them making pancakes. So fun!
This is Olivia's breakfast menu. Translation: poptart, biscuit, chocolate milk, orange juice, eggs, pancakes, waffles, toast, regular milk and cereal. Gotta love the phonetic spelling!

Four Things

I got this email from my friend Katie and thought it would be fun to answer on my blog. I've seen lots of other bloggers do things like this, too. I'm not nearly as professional and deliberate with my blog, but this looked like fun.

Four, Four, Four, Four...

A) Four places I go to regularly: Target, the gym (that's more of a goal now that school's out than it is a reality, although I have been 3 times this week already), Olivia's school, Randall's

B) Four people that e-mail me regularly: Gay, Eric, Kim Sterling and Debi Church (sadly, the last 3 are church campaign-related)

C) Four of my favorite places to eat: Lupe's, Prego's, Los Tios, Ruggles

D) Four places I would rather be right now: headed to Big Canoe to see the YaYas, en route to Macon/Myrtle Beach, the pool, the beach

E) Four TV shows I watch over and over: Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters, King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond

Lunch with Olivia

McIver has never been able to join me for lunch at Kolter with Olivia so we thought it would be fun to go today. We also thought it would be fun to surprise her with ChicFilA. Her class eats lunch at 10:30 so we were glad that ChicFilA starts serving lunch food so early.

It's so hard to believe that this school year is almost over for Olivia. She has grown up so much since last August. She loves school now, has tons of friends and really is so independent. I can't believe my baby girl is going to be in 1st grade soon!

McIver felt like such a big kid sitting at the table with all the kindergarteners. He even got a slushy from the cafeteria line with Olivia.

Parish Picnic - Cat Spring, TX

Palmer's Senior Warden and his family invited our entire parish to their family ranch for the afternoon yesterday. Olivia, McIver and I joined about 100 other Palmers at Yellow Creek Ranch for a Parish Picnic, complete with (beef) barbecue and all the fixins', a Hummer ride, water gun fight, croquet and more. The weather was perfect and everyone really seemed to be enjoying themselves.


It was next to impossible to keep the kids out of the pool, but we did manage to keep them (mostly) dry. The rockwall at one end of the pool was just too tempting. I caught McIver on it early in the day but was able to convince him that he would not want to get caught up there again.

Check out this ride! The kids were all clamoring for a ride on top, although the inside was pretty cool, too. Eric took us for a ride around the ranch to see the cows. I think we even saw a hawk (or 4). It was a very bumpy ride, but the kids all kept going back for more.
Let the battle begin! Water guns were everywhere. The kids were stuck with the little ones while 2 dads had Super Soakers to get everyone wet. Too bad for them that the kids teamed up and started filling up water bottles and using the hose against them. By the end of the 30 minute war, everyone was SOAKED! It was fun to watch until I became a human shield.
Olivia looked like she had jumped in the pool by the time the war was over.
It was a great day - and we hope to visit the ranch again soon!

Texas ABC Garden

Olivia's school has a Texas ABC Garden - there is a plant for each letter of the alphabet. Last fall, the children made letters out of sticks collected from around the school. Yesterday, we helped them make stepping stones using the stick letters to be placed by each plant whose name begins with that letter.

We brought the kids out a few at a time to put their letters in the stepping stone. They also included a leaf from the plant with the corresponding letter. I realize that a true mommy-blogger may have actually figured out which plant her child used, but this mom was busy mixing concrete and trying to keep track of all the kids. At least I got a few pictures!

Olivia was especially excited that she made the Letter M stone.

She also liked that she was able to do one of the extra letters.

McIver LOVES going to Mrs. Hoyos' class to play with her 'big kid' toys. He even gets a special visitor sticker and feels like a big boy when he's allowed go to the hall bathroom with a few boys from Olivia's class as his chaperones.

Gymnastics Award Ceremony

McIver joined the Thursday afternoon gymnastics class with Coach Steve and his helpers Coach Mark and Coach Rachel. He LOVED it! Thursdays have always been the easiest days to wake him up this year b/c he looks forward to Pizza Day and Gymnastics. Coach Steve told them about the Awards Ceremony last week and McIver has been looking forward to it ever since.

I'm still not sure that every kid on every team should get a medal just for playing a sport so that their self-esteem isn't ruined. I played on the losing-est softball team in the history of Macon - seriously, we had to stop playing games on many occasions b/c the other team was beating us so badly. We didn't need a medal or trophy to make us feel better - we were just glad to be able to play and always, always had fun. However, I am justifying McIver's medal since he wasn't really on a team, and didn't really compete against anyone, and b/c he hasn't taken the medal off for the last 24 hours!

Here's McIver on the podium waiting for the gold medal.

Here he is with Coach Steve and Coach Rachel

(she's also a cheerleader for the Texans -

see how McIver is leaning in to her and grinning from ear to ear!?)

Final children's choir performance

Last night was the last performance for the children's choirs at Palmer until the fall. We have loved being part of the choir this year. Ms. Courtney trains the children in traditional choir music. She wants them to have fun, but they also listen to the words they are singing and focus on the connection between scripture and music. As far as the kids are concerned, Ms. Courtney is a rock star - they all love her.

Olivia is on the far right in the middle row next to the guy in the white robe.

McIver with some Cherub Choir buddies waiting for the group picture to be taken. I love seeing McIver in his white collar. He was very proud of his Choir Cross - it has his name carved on it and each child receives a ribbon for each year of choir participation.
I lucked out that Olivia was standing right behind McIver. How cute are they!?

Spring Program at WMDS

We had the Spring Program at our school last night. McIver's class, the Ladybugs, sang with my Rabbit class. They sang The Ants Go Marching and The Grand Old Duke of York. McIver did a great job - here he is on ant number 1 stopping to suck his thumb.

At the end of the evening, we were given McIver's 'diploma' and a folder full of shapes at that McIver cut out. Believe me, it is not as easy as it seems to cut out shapes, especially the smaller ones. I have been part of many-a-meltdown with some of the kids in my class who are not able to get the scissors to move the way they want them to. So, this display is worth sharing.
(FYI: According to McIver, the pink shape at the bottom left is a 'bridge.')

Argh!

McIver insisted on wearing his pirate costume (complete with cowboy boots) to pick Olivia up from school yesterday - which also meant that he wore it to her ballet studio. He loved all the attention and the chance to try out his pirate lingo on anyone who spoke to him: Land ho; Ahoy, matey; Shiver me timbers, and whatever else he could say with a pirate accent. Check out his pirate scowl...

Cinco de Mayo

We got a call from Olivia's school on Friday reminding us that today would be Cinco de Mayo. Since Kolter is a language magnet, students were allowed to wear some sort of Mexican clothing to school (as opposed to the uniform). I was happy to have an excuse to find a dress with the beautiful Mexican embroidery on it.



If you are interested in the history of Cinco de Mayo (and why Americans also celebrate it), go to the following website:
http://www.vivacincodemayo.org/history.htm
Go enjoy an ice cold Corona with lime!

Opening Day at the Pool

The pool opened today! It was a perfect day to be there - we saw so many people that we knew and had a great time getting back in the water. Well, the kids did - you couldn't pay me enough to get in that water - way, way too cold!

How do you know I love you?

I just fussed at McIver and dragged him out of the bathtub b/c he was splashing water everywhere and throwing toys. As I got him dressed, I apologized and told him that I love him.

Me: How do you know I love you?
McIver (gently placing his hand on my heart): Because your heart is beating.

Truer words were never spoken. I assured him that as long as my heart is beating, I WILL love him and Olivia both.