So this is a BIG post, because we did a LOT last weekend. A L O T. So brace yourselves!
Starting, out, picture day at school! I didn't get a picture of Tyler but you bet I got one of Katelyn! How adorable is she? Here she is with one of her teachers Irene. Usually the kids in the infant room don't take school pictures but they will when they have an older sibling. I can't wait to see the pictures of Katelyn and Tyler together! Although... we already take so many of our own (both at home and in the studio) that they'll have to be really good to impress me! haha! They tried taking some of Katelyn alone but apparently she was not feeling it and cried. Awww.
Wouldn't you know it, the week that Will is out of town - Tyler's class needs collages made! I must admit, I was stressing a little about this. I am really not creative at all. A collage? Ack! Turns out I had nothing to worry about. I just backed up some photos with construction paper (the class provided the bright orange sheet) and Tyler went to town with his Disney Cars stickers. He actually wanted to put more on until I insisted there was no more room. I think it turned out cute! They are now laminated and posted in each of the kids' cubbies.
OK. Friday. Friday was Back to School night at Tyler and Katelyn's school. Think of it kind of like an Open House? This is one of the reasons I love their school (ICDC) - events like these that allow the parents to meet the teachers and other parents. They start out with serving dinner for everyone (right?!) and then you go into your kid's classroom. This was our first time that we had to worry about going to two different rooms! We started with Tyler's. This is their group time area. You can't tell that clearly, but their names are all taped to the rug at different places so they all know where to sit. Tyler loves story time and always wants to sit in the front. Good thing his spot is right there! I like to think that it's because the teachers know how much he likes story time, and not that they want to keep an eye on him. Hah! Sitting behind him is his friend Zane - Tyler really likes Zane - I think it's because Zane is really chill and not aggressive!
This is posted outside their classroom door. The theme this year in their class is space I guess? Can you find Tyler?
There he is! Seriously, could Tyler be any sillier? heehee, he is SO silly, I love it.
Here's Tyler with one of his favorite teachers Vanessa. The kids call her "Nessa". She's a Pre-4 teacher (Tyler is in Pre-2) and even though she isn't one of direct teachers, Tyler is one of her favorites. Thank goodness! Whenever Tyler is feeling sad/grumpy, she's one of the few teachers that can cheer him up. After this year, Tyler has only one year left in preschool before he starts kindergarten, so I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he goes to Pre-4 and not Pre-3.
Activities in the Pre-2 classroom! I think they were stamping bags here. You see the closet door in the background on the left? Black with white things on it? Those white things are each little astronauts with the faces of each of the kids on them. There's a question of the week and the kids' responses are on them. The question they asked them that night was: "What's your favorite thing to eat?". Without hesitation from Tyler: "Yogurtland!!". Not surprising!
Here's Will and Tyler doing crafts. Will had a special name tag - it said: "Will Chang, Board Member". Fancy smancy huh!
Tyler and his 3 teachers in Pre-2. Deena, Sheri and Mauricio. Deena is Tyler's other favorite teacher. When we were having trouble with drop off, she was the only one he would go to and not be upset. On the drive to school, we'd talk about giving Deena a BIG hug when we got to school. It worked great until one day when she was out sick! Hah! She is really sweet though, I'm glad he has a special connection with one of his class teachers. It's good to have Mauricio in that class too - he's taken a lot of courses in child development AND a guy presence is great because that class is very heavy on the boy side. Tyler was saying "think think think" in this picture and pointing at his head. I can't remember why...
Ok, on to the infant room! In hindsight, I probably should have gone to the infant room first by myself and left Will with Tyler in pre-2. I missed out on meeting most of the infant room parents. Doh! Anyway, infant artwork! Seriously, how cute is that!
I loved this. Little handprints of each of the kids and their birthdays. Katelyn is the 2nd from the left on the bottom row. She's just about in the middle age-wise of the class. Although, sitting with the older kids, she looks the same size! It's funny because the newly 1-year-olds will be sitting there eating snack - pancakes and apple chunks...and she's next to them - same size, trying to get some cheerios in her mouth and missing half the time. Hah!
Painfully cute. Love that it's pink too!
Here's Katelyn with one of her teachers Daniela. Daniela is one of my favorite teachers too! She was a teacher in the infant room when Tyler was there, and moved to the Toddler room when Tyler was in the toddler room! I was very happy to hear that she moved back to the infant room so that she can watch Katelyn. :) Katelyn was going to town on her necklace!
And some more pictures with her teacher because Katelyn is just too cute. Doh, I forgot to take a photo of the collage they made her! We still have Tyler's collages from Infant room and Toddler room posted on the wall in his room!
My favorite Infant room teachers!
After the event ended, our crew headed for a late night snack (seriously, 7pm is late night for us to be heading out!) to YogurtLand. We're getting more and more brave! Before, I'd never take the kids out so late...
After Tyler had his frozen yogurt, he was very quiet as he watched a movie on one of his friend's phones. We've cut down on the time he gets watching Thomas and Cars videos on YouTube...
Saturday. Katelyn still had a cough so we took her to get checked out at our pediatrician's office. I love that they have walk in hours every morning for an hour. Amazingly, Katelyn fell asleep on the way there. What!? Katelyn N E V E R sleeps in her carseat. It's like she's allergic to it or something. It happens extremely rarely, and usually only on a long drive after she's been fussing for a long time. Poor thing must not have been feeling well. She looks so rested and peaceful in this picture - why can't she sleep more?! I NEED MORE SLEEP!!!! (ok, sorry, that was my lack-of-sleep delirious-ness coming out..)
Hated that we had to wake her up to see the doctor. Good news, her chest/ears looked and sounded good. But she was just really congested. Doctor recommended some antibiotics but I was kind of on the fence she she didn't have an infection...yet. I've been reading about antibiotics and infants, and didn't want to give them to her unless they were necessary. Now I wish I had...maybe that would help her sleep better, because we're so tired, this whole last week she's been sleeping badly, and last night was the worst, and...and..and... (Whoops, excuse my exhaustion induced delirium...)
After the doctor visit, we headed to breakfast at the Corner Bakery. YUM! Love that Katelyn is getting big enough that she can sit in her own high chair.
Hello there Katelyn! Even though I always think eating out is such a hassle, I think Katelyn loves it because she likes to people watch. She's always looking around and taking everything in.
After breakfast we headed to the OCFA - Orange County Fire Authority. Right here in Irvine, the OCFA is the headquarters for all the OC Fire Departments. It's HUGE and they were having an open house that day. We parked in a farther lot and rode a school a school bus over. I think it was Tyler's first time on a school bus! Very exciting. We count school buses everyday but he actually got to sit in one this time!
This place is pretty cool. Not only is it the office headquarters, but it's also where all the firetrucks go for maintenance, AND it's a training center as well. Training center = buildings and cars that they set on fire, which was one of the demonstrations we were looking forward to seeing that day.
They had every single kind of fire vehicle on display that day. Not only were they on display, but the kids were allowed to go in them and check them out!
Tyler was so tiny sitting in the driver seat of this fire engine.
Family picture! Katelyn was knocked out asleep at this time.
Outside they had a cool setup for kids - putting out fires with a fire hose! Of course the fires were fake, but the hose and water were real! They had wooden cutouts of houses and a car, with fire cutouts as well. The kids got to use the firehose to knock down the fire. Tyler LOVED it.
Here's what they were aiming at (the fire pieces have already been hosed down).
The fireman let Tyler hold the hose all by himself. Tyler was excited to tell us that he did it all by himself! He even helped clean the wall up high too. :)
Short firehose Video.
Another short one! That was probably the highlight of Tyler's day. He did it twice but then the line started getting really long.
Next was the demonstration! Very exciting. I thought it was pretty cool that there were SHADED bleachers for us to sit in. Tyler was not so patiently waiting.
This is when Katelyn woke up. It was hot that day! She really likes the Ergo baby carrier - she'll fall asleep in it all the time!
The most exciting part of the show was right in the beginning. The fire started and 2 fire engines came driving in with their lights and horns going full blast. It was EXCITING! The putting-out-the-fire part? Eh, not so exciting. Probably because it was pretty far away for safety reasons...
Afterward Tyler got to meet the real live firemen who had put out the fires. Did you know that only the Captain wears a red helmet? Regular firefighters have a black one. I think Tyler was a little awestruck.
He got really shy! Not shy as in "I'm going to hide" but shy as in "too shy to even look at you".
By the time he met a second firefighter, he had gotten over his shyness. Or maybe because this firefighter wasn't a captain... hmm...
Lots of cool things to check out. Here Tyler got to press the different buttons to make different sounds that an ambulance/firetruck make. He really liked that!
And he also got to explore the inside of an ambulance!
This picture creeps me out since it's so huge compared to Tyler. That's how you get to the engine of a firetruck. The whole front part lifts up! I keep thinking it's going to change into a Transformer or something.
Driving a fire vehicle. All the different vehicles had firemen on hand to chat with. I waited in the shade with Katelyn while they explored some. With Santa Ana winds coming, they're bracing for some big fires. Did you know that most fires are caused by accident? Like from a spark from the bulldozer or something.
Here's Tyler wearing his fireman hat... backwards. They even had free lunch that day - hot dogs and chips. And all over they had coolers with cold bottled water for people to drink. I thought that was pretty awesome!
Katelyn was very happy chewing on my cold water bottle. Darn all those teeth poking through!
After that draining hot day, we were all exhausted. Everyone took a nice nap after we got home.
Sunday morning, we headed out bright and early to head to an Apple Orchard in Yucaipa. It was far, on the way to Big Bear! I was excited to take Tyler apple picking though. Even though we can never get him to eat apples...
I've never been apple picking either, and for some reason I pictured apple trees to be much taller. I don't know why. It was really cool! Lots of different types of apples to pick too. Funny side note: Tyler had his first portable potty experience. As soon as Will opened the door, Tyler covered his nose with his elbow, started shaking his head, saying "no, no, no.." and backed out and away. His other hand his grabbing his crotch because he REALLY needed to pee! Haha! Will had to convince him to hold his breath while he peed in the urinal on the side, instead of the toilet hole. Ah, first fun experiences. heehee.
Uh-oh, Tyler and his friend Cambria both want the same apple!
I love outings like these with our friends. Tyler is having a great time with his friends, and we get to hang out with their parents who are our friends too now! We have a great group! Which is also why I was bummed that I missed meeting a lot of the parents in Katelyn's infant room. Those are the parents of the kids that Katelyn will be growing up with - I wanted to scope out any potential couples. :)
Tyler and Will picking apples!
Picking Apples with Will Video. Tyler didn't understand at first that "redder was better". He was looking for green apples. As you can see, our son doesn't eat many apples!
Tyler was super excited to play with one of his friend's misters. It's actually really cool, you pump it to build up the pressure and then you can adjust the nozzle to mist yourself and others. Perfect on a hot day. Except that Tyler's was a little defective and instead of a mist we were getting sprayed by a little stream of water. The kids didn't mind it though!
They had fun playing in a nice shaded area. We seriously were in the middle of nowhere. Love that there were forests and stuff. Can't wait to take the kids camping next summer!
Family picture! Yes, Katelyn is sleeping again! I'm telling you, she loves sleeping in the Ergo.
After picking 2 bags of apples, we headed to the main area for lunch. MAN was it packed. CRAZY packed. We waited in a really long line to get lunch. Tyler was happily playing with his mister.
When the kids started getting unruly, Uncle Larry did story time.
And then snack time. The line was really long!
After lunch, the boys played in a dry ditch/gully nearby. Yes. You read that correctly. It was super fun for some reason. All I could think of was how happy I was that I had remembered to bring a change of clothes for Tyler. Tyler LOVED it. I guess it's good to let boys get dirty once in a while huh! Here's Tyler with his friend Evan. Evan is one of Tyler's school friend's older brother. He's 5 years old, I think. Tyler loves playing with him!
Tyler playing in dirt video. SO DIRTY!
I love this picture because Tyler is SO happy to be so dirty. He's got dirt smudged all over his face and his legs were covered also. But he was SO happy. Now that's a real smile!
At one point, Tyler got upset about something and started sulking. Arden came up and gave him a hug to try to make him feel better! It was so cute! Although, maybe she was trying to get the giant water mister...
And finally, group picture! And look, Katelyn is awake! Yay!
Definitely a tiring day, but well worth it. Tyler was so excited to pick the apples himself that he's actually eating apples now. Just this morning he was chomping away on an apple core! Yay finally! Oh yes, and this week at school they had veggie and fruit tasting day. Tyler likes corn and honeydew now. Yippee!
Knocked out in the car on the long drive home. In clean clothes thank goodness!
What a weekend huh! I told you it was long. It took forever for me to write it too! Now on to some random Katelyn photos from the week.
Katelyn loves these little balls from with Winnie the Pooh toy that I got from my older sister. Only problem is that Tyler really likes the balls too (why I have no idea) and he's always trying to take them from her. Hmm... Anyway, here she is ready for a walk. Will's parents bought that beanie/scarf combo from Italy for Tyler when he was a baby! So cute! Oh yes, and it's been cold and rainy lately. L O V E I T !!
Sometimes Katelyn likes to just chill in her ball pit. I can't believe she's playing in here now. I have so many memories of Tyler loving it. Tyler tried to get into it the other day and was a little upset that he couldn't cover himself in balls anymore. But he was excited when he realized that he was growing bigger!
Happy Katelyn in the ball pit.
Teeth teeth teeth. Katelyn's main thing right now is to grow new teeth. She's 7 months and they just keep coming! And she's super grumpy because of them. I gave her some frozen blueberries and she LOVED it. It was very messy but well worth it.
With Will out of town last week, Will's parents came on Tuesday to help out. Tyler was excited to make dumplings with them.
And lastly, Katelyn and her 5 teeth. Not such a flattering photo of her but you can see all 5! This photo was from last week, and it's already outdated. Next posting in a couple days will show her new accomplishment - a 6th tooth! Plus I see swelling for even more coming in. AHHH!
And I'll leave you with a video of Tyler Making Katelyn Laugh. She loves her big brother!
1 comment:
such a fun week!! and i love the school collages. so cute
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