Preschool Fall Festival

Last night was the Fall Festival at the kid's preschool.  The kids get to wear their Halloween costumes and the parents get to see the classrooms and watch the kids do a couple of songs.  Luckily, the two classes were staggered so we could take turns in each class.  It was a little crazy with so many kids and siblings and parents all in one place, but Anna and Jack had a blast!

Jack and Maddie were class leaders during circle time.

Ready to sing!

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands!

Jack and his friend Hudson, the dalmation.

Anna and Ellen trying to pick up pumpkin seeds with a straw.

All the kids were going crazy and
we looked over and found Anna like this.
Such a little reader!

Anna and her classmates.

Pumpkin Carving

Sunday afternoon, we had the Dash Collins clan over for pumpkin carving and for the chance to get photos of Jack and Caroline in their costumes together.  So fun!!

Jack, what does a lion say?

RoooooaaaaaR!

Miss Sassy Pants in her elephant costume.

Let the carving commence!

Anna and Jack with their jack-o-lanterns.
My attempt at Elmo didn't turn out quite like I planned,
but it was still cute.

Caroline and her daddy's fantastic monogrammed pumpkin.

We tried to get Anna to dress up as a zookeeper to tame this elephant and lion, but she said, "There's no such thing as a Barbie zookeeper!"  (She is planning on being Barbie for Halloween.)  I bet we could probably find a zookeeper Barbie somewhere in history!

Anna is Reading!!!!

It's official, folks!  Anna is reading!!!  

We are so very proud of her.  Over the past couple of months, she has progressed from the short books in Jack's room to now pulling book after book off of her shelves and reading them.  Initially, she would get so upset if she didn't know a word, but after lots of explanation about sounding words out and always adding new words to her vocabulary (even when she gets to be big like Mommy and Daddy), she is finally getting it down.  She wants to read all the time and even when we're busy, she will sit and spell the words out that she doesn't know so that we can help her from afar.  I am so excited for her and for all the places that reading will take her.  It is such an important life skill that will take her so far.  You go, Anna!!

UNC Finally Beats State!!

I was torn last week about what to do...Carolina was playing State in Chapel Hill but Anna had a soccer game and a birthday party that she didn't want to miss.  I had finally resigned myself to that fact that I was staying back with the kids.  Greg and Michelle were SUPER SWEET and offered to keep the kiddos so that I could go to the game with Will.  Man, am I glad I took them up on their offer!!  Carolina came back and won the game on a last minute 78-yard kick-off return!!  Go Gio Bernard!!  Like we said when the game was over, that is the very reason people keep going to football games, to hopefully witness a game like that.  It was incredible!!

Sorry to all the State fans out there, especially my remote-throwing father.;)  Go Heels!!

Finally....Jack and His Teachers

Since Jack has now gotten comfortable with school and that fact that "Mommy always comes back", I was finally able to get a photo of him with Miss Michelle and Miss Susan when I picked him up the other day.  He was much more worried about being separated from his tractor!!!  It warms my heart that he loves school so much and gets excited when it's his day to go to school, too.  A big thank you goes to his sweet teachers!!

Old Creek...New Creek

The weather has been perfect lately--highs in the 70s with lows in the 40s and 50s at night.  We have had lots of fun playing outside in the afternoons.  Last weekend, we had to get outside and enjoy it so we decided to take a family trek down to the creek.  There is a pretty decent size creek adjacent to our neighborhood that takes about three rock-steps to cross, but might be 18 inches deep at the highest point.  I love taking the kids down there to play and listen to the water trickling through the rocks.  We even took Murphy down to the creek with us this day.  We all had a blast!!  When we reached the big rock down the creek, Will suggested we take a picture.  How cute?!!

We are going to miss this creek when we move to our new house, but will have a slightly smaller one right in our back yard!!  I hope Anna and Jack have lots of fun days and memories playing in our new creek!

Random Photos

Here are some photos of random events that were too good to toss but didn't necessarily warrant a single post...Enjoy!

A tailgate picnic on a gorgeous day outside the new house.

Being silly with Aunt Sarah and Aunt Michelle

Anna at Taylor's gymnastics birthday party.

Nannie is teaching Anna how to sew and
I'm so glad she's learning this almost-lost art.

Fun at Sarah and Jason's: chillaxin and ...

...trying on old costumes!

Watch out Rory McIlroy...
Jack is getting pretty good with a golf club!

Anna Has Her Mama's Ears

I inherited the less-than-awesome hearing traits from my dad's side of the family.  My dad needed hearing aids as a teenager, but didn't get them until he was in his twenties.  Almost his whole side of the family has (or needs) hearing aids.  Luckily for me, I only inherited the low-tone loss, which has meant that besides sitting closer to the front in classes at school and having to pay a little closer attention to lower, usually male, voices, I haven't had to wear hearing aids.  And fortunately, my hearing hasn't changed much at all since they discovered it when I was seven years old.
So, enter present day, and now the docs have discovered that our precious Anna has her mama's ears.  After battling with some ear infections around 4 years old and doing some subsequent hearing screenings, her pediatrician referred her to an ENT and we received the diagnosis--her audiogram and mine look almost identical.  At first, both my dad and I were pretty upset that we had passed this on to her.  After some time to digest it, though, we both came to the conclusion that in the grand scheme of things, this was not the worst thing in the world.  We didn't pass on some heart defect or horrible chronic disease.  Hopefully, she will only have to adjust herself in minor ways as I did.  Even if she does have to get hearing aids eventually, they are so advanced now that you cannot see them at all and some you can even swim in!!  We will cross that bridge when we come to it.
When I looked at her in the sound booth when she had her repeat screening a couple of weeks ago, all of those memories of doing those silly "raise your hand when you hear the beep" tests came flooding back to me in serious dejavu fashion.  Anna, my precious girl, I am so, so sorry that you will have to deal with this hearing loss like I did.  I hope that you take it in stride and never feel that it is a hindrance for you.  I pray to God constantly that your hearing will remain stable like mine has and never worsens.  On the brighter side, I guess we can just look forward to yelling at each other as we both get older!!:)  I love you, sweet girl.  Mommy

Pumpkin Patch Photos 2012

October 2011

What a difference a year makes!!

Anna's Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Sophie, Ellen, Bella, Anna, and Sidney

Audrey and Anna

Bella, Audrey, and Anna

All the girls...where did the boys go??

On the wagon

Bee-prise!

Somewhere along the line, the Collins family stopped using "peek-a-boo" and adopted "pee-pie" instead.  I'm sure Will would immediately claim that it was his crazy mother-in-law's doing. ;)  It may be, I'm not really sure.  It may be slightly easier for them to say or just easier to repeat over and over and over and over.  So, for Jack and Anna, we played "pee-pie" instead of "peek-a-boo".  And then Anna taught Jack how to jump out from behind a door or from inside the pantry and yell "Surprise!".  This quickly became Jack's favorite all-time game, except he morphed the "pee-pie" and "surprise" together into "bee-prise".  It is the cutest thing ever!!  Here is some photographic evidence of "bee-prise" in action:

Are you ready, Mama?

Where is Jack?

Bee...

PRISE!!!

Jack's Funny Words

Jack's vocabulary has exploded over the last couple of months and it is so neat to watch him pick up on new words and sayings.  He can pretty much let you know what he wants now, too, which is profoundly helpful!  A few of his pronunciations, though, are hysterical and I wanted to get them down before we forgot...

1. Water: Wawers (always plural, no matter what or how many containers it's in)
2. Soccer: Roccer
3. Socks and Shoes: Rocks and Shoes
4. Pacis: Pappies
5. Top: Poc, as in "Jack put 'poc' on"
(There are several words where he takes the final sound and puts it first.)
6. Elmo: Elbow
7. Cookie Monster: Cookie Honker (plain.as.day)
**He has to check every diaper to see if Elbow or Cookie Honker is on it.
8. Superhero: Reereehero
(After the kids get out of the bath at night, they have been wearing their hoody towels on their heads like capes and running down the hall being 'superheroes'.  Jack yells this the whole time he's running and it's so stinkin' cute.)
9. Zipper: Bippers (again, always plural)
10. Surprise: Bee-prise (see next post)

I'm sure there are more that I will add later, but these are the main ones for now.  We love that sweet boy!!

Jack's First Haircut

Pre-haircut curls in action

Jack's hair came in just like his Daddy's and Aunt E's--curly!!  What a shock to this straight-haired mama!!  It has been precious and I loved running my hand through those cute little curls at the nape of his neck.  When it really started to grow, though, it started to look rather mullet-like.  Then the hair over his ears started to take off in Bozo fashion and I knew that it was time for a hair cut.  I didn't really want to do it and cut off those cute curls.  A part of my heart broke, actually, but I knew he needed it.  So on October 17th, at 20 months old, I took Jack to get his first hair cut.  He was a champ and sat relatively still sucking on his lollipop.  He kept trying to turn around and figure out what that lady behind him was doing to his head, but otherwise was pretty good.  She did save those precious curls for me that will forever be saved in his baby book.  I didn't leave there with a baby that day...Jack became a little boy. (sob, sob)

My little man