Kid Updates!

Matt informed me that while I have been doing a good job updating Miss Brea, I have forgotten the older two on the ol' blog. So now what's been happening with Carter and Isla...

Carter Thomas
Is half way through 2nd grade!! OMG! I cannot believe this...he is becoming such a big kid now. He is starting to think about his upcoming birthday (8!) and wants to invite his entire class over to our house for a LEGO party. I am trying to get him to scale back on his grand plans. He is enjoying school. His loves math and loves to read. His favorite special is art. He is happy to see me everyday at school and isn't shy (or too cool) to give me a hug. *I don't know if I mentioned on the ol' blog but I accepted an Educational Aide position at Hopewell this past September. I love the position and working at Carter's school. The hours aren't bad either :) * We both love his teacher this year (as in previous years) and he is extremely happy that his best friend Cam is in his class.

With Cam

Morning with Mom at school!

Carter hasn't changed much in the fact that once he is 'into' something he gets completely obsessed with it. The past several months it has been LEGOs. The boy loves to talk about them and building them. He also loves to do LEGO previews of the sets he gets. I had good intentions of putting them on YouTube but so far have only uploaded one. Poor Carter thinks he has his own YouTube channel (Carter Tube) and talks to his 'followers' about each LEGO set.

Carter reads before bed every night and has REALLY gotten into the Percy Jackson series. He is on the fourth book and we have seen the first two movies. Since the series deals with Greek mythology he is also really interested in learning about this topic. EPIC is reading program he uses at school and he can search books by topic. I suggested he look up Greek mythology because neither of us have good background knowledge on the subject. He took that to heart and fills me in on everything he is learning.

Carter is still in Cub Scouts and really enjoys this time with his friends and his dad. He loves to climb and tries to climb just about anything. He hasn't found his sport quite yet. He is signed up for golf and swimming this summer and I plan to sign him up for track this spring. I have enjoyed our laid back winter without too much going on but I would like him to find something he enjoys to do.

Carter is a really good kid but we have been dealing with some bigger kid attitudes, which hasn't always been fun. He likes to negotiate his way out of things instead of just saying 'okay' or following the direction. He can be a wonderful big brother (especially to Brea) but he and Isla have been hot and cold lately. It is probably a combination of being stuck inside with each other and Isla finally fighting back.

Isla Elizabeth

We can't forget about our amazing middle child, Miss Isla. She is halfway through her last year of preschool and has kindergarten round up coming up! Yikes! This is happening so fast and I can't believe next year I will have TWO kids in school. I feel like it was just yesterday Carter was in kindergarten so I am in complete denial that Isla is now this old. She is turning 5!! Where did that time go?! She also is enjoying school. She loves the art table and comes home with many creations she has made there. She loves to practice her writing. Isla always had a beautiful pencil grip even from a young age, which has helped her with her penmanship. For the longest time, she wrote her S backwards in her name. This is pretty typical and neither her teacher nor I have any concerns over this but Isla knew that it wasn't correct. So she kept practicing and asking 'is this right?' It would break my heart to tell her that the letter was still backwards. But she was persistent and now consistently writes her S correctly. Her teachers had wonderful things to say about her during fall conferences. Noting that she is very even-keeled and laid back at school. A couple of times she got frustrated (writing her name towards the beginning of the year and with a math sheet) and they looked over and she was just in tears over it but other than that she is a happy girl at school.

She has a boyfriend at school, Colin. Isla can be very shy so imagine my surprise when she pulled Colin over for a picture after their Christmas program.  :)

Isla and Colin ~ I can't even...

Isla played soccer this past fall and enjoyed it. I was happy to see that she had several kids from her preschool class on her soccer team (including Colin). She cried the first practice because she was so shy and I was worried how things were going to go. But she got more comfortable and had a lot of fun. She got into the mix of things much more than Carter but got knocked around a bit a couple of times so she held back. Isla was a good goalie for her team and wasn't scared to fall on the ball. I signed her up for Spring soccer and hope she has another good experience. Isla still takes ballet and is now one of the older girls in her class. This hit me kinda hard the first class when we got to watch the girls the last 5 minutes of class. The other girls looked so little compared to her! 

Isla can still be sensitive and shy in new situations. But that girl is stubborn and has an attitude that comes out when she is tired...it is not pleasant. We went tubing at SnowStar with the boy scouts the other weekend and she did not want to go when it was time to leave. She was walking with me to the car and almost tripped because she was too busy sulking and not paying attention. I giggled at her and she claimed that I 'bonked' her (I did not). I told her that I didn't even touch her and she said, "I'm getting sick of you guys." I had to walk away and let Matt deal with it because that is so frustrating to me. She always feels bad and silently cries but won't apologize. She was asleep before we even left the parking lot. Fortunately, these moments are few and usually correspond with her being tired. I am not ready for a big girl attitude!

She went to kindergarten round up and had a great time!! She was nervous to go and I was nervous for her! I didn't need to worry about a thing. She is very comfortable at Hopewell and totally rocked it! She had a very fun morning but was a little disappointed because they didn't have time to play in the centers in the classroom :).