Seth-ito!

Does anyone else's kids start planning their birthday party as soon as their sibling's birthday is over?  That's what seems to happen around here.  And Seth wanted...Skippyjon Jones.  We LOVE the book series.  SJJ is a Siamese cat who likes to pretend he is a Chihuaha when he is sent to his room.  His alter-ego is Skippito Friskito, and he goes on wacky adventures (in the comfort of SJJ's closet) and makes up his own Spanglish along the way.  So I started to search for party ideas, and it was slim pickin's!  I did the best I could, and luckily, Seth wanted to have it at the playground again, so I didn't have to think up too many fillers.  (And just so you know, it was HIS idea to wear the ears from his dress up day at school, he had some crazy hair when we got home!)

 Racing around with the cousins...

In one of the books, SJJ is in trouble because he colored a bunch of chihuahuas on the wall.  So we had a chihuahua drawing contest, which turned into a "how many chihuahuas can you draw" contest...

In another book, SJJ's imagination gets the best of him, and he he gets in "mummy trouble"...

 Not all the kids wanted to participate, but some did!

In the first book of the series, SJJ pretends to battle a bumblebee-ito, which is really a bee pinata in his closet.  This year we found a pull-string pinata, and that bad boy held a LOT of candy...

In another book, "los chimichangos", SJJ's chihuahua buddies, use a burrito to throw him to the top of a building.  We borrowed a parachute from one of the preschool teachers and used one of Elise's Taco Bell chihuahuas. 

And don't forget the Skippito Friskito masks!  The posterboard was actually orange on the back, which worked out great for the little girls, who didn't want black masks.

Seth-ito and his cake!  The weather was beautiful, and I think we had a better turnout than we would have had the weekend before, so it all worked out in the end!

City Meet 2011

Two years ago, Nathan made a name for himself at our pool by smokin' the competition in a 4th of July race.  Last year he was invited to swim in the City Meet, but he had a scheduling conflict.  This year, he made it a priority.  The Aqua Demons were tickled to have him.  He swam in two relays and two individual events.  First came the IM relay.  He did the butterfly leg of the relay, a stroke he hasn't swam since high school.  The kids and I were sitting by the rest of the team, and you should have heard them hootin' and hollerin' about how fast he was, while one of the coaches bragged about his freestyle time.  The guys came in sixth out of fifteen.  My parents stopped at the pool on their way into town and picked up the kids (THANK YOU.  I hadn't had much sleep the night before and was not coping with the kids and the heat very well.).  Anyways, I missed his 50 Free event, but I hear he messed up his turn and still matched his posted time.  He came in 13th out of 39.  (He was swimming against anyone 16+, I think I should mention that as well.)  Then came the 50 Breast.  He smoked it.  Third out of 20-something.  Which is amazing to me, because it's not like he practices with starting blocks anymore, and his workouts are distance, not speed!  And then we had three hours until his next event.  I either people watched, or read, or dozed.  The last event was the free relay.  The guys placed 5th overall.  It was fun!

Fly in the IM relay:

This is for the people who knew Nathan in high school (studying the heat sheet):

 50 Breast:

I didn't get any good pictures of the free relay, just a lot of choppy water. 

CW vs Sherwood

Last night Seth had his first away swim meet.  We had been warned ahead of time that there was a shark at the bottom of the pool:

 With most of the kids in his group, it's whatever stroke they feel like getting them across the pool, even though the 6u event is freestyle. Most of them are more concerned with checking what place they're in than making it as fast as they can across the pool (Seth fits in the most of them category).  Some of them start the race in the water, some just take a big leap,

but I'm pretty sure I didn't see one of them dive in.  (And don't get Nathan started on the absence of flip turns in the older kids' races...I have a feeling that won't be a problem by the time Seth's group ages up!)  But there were a few seconds of freestyle in both races, and I actually got a picture of it!

It was hot, it was humid, and it looked like a big storm was rolling in, so we headed home.  Hurray for a normal bedtime!  By 8:45, the kids were sound asleep!

how we spent Seth's birthday

Our VBS is this week, so Seth spent the morning at church.  He didn't seem to mind.  Then we met our friends at Chikfila.  Nothing says birthday fun like getting your picture taken with the cow:

We went home quickly so Seth could take his (refridgerated) antibiotic, picked up a neighbor, and went to the library to watch a magic show.  Then we went home, Seth changed, and we headed to the pool for an abbreviated swim team practice.  Seth has WAY too much energy without school and the pool.  We thought we'd risk it and let him get a few laps out of his system.  Seth's dinner of choice was an IHOP create-a-face pancake, which he ate faster than Nathan and I could eat half our meals.  The manager made Seth this fancy ice cream concoction when he told her it was his birthday.  It was delicious!

We went home and Seth opened his presents, and then proved that manhood begins at age six when he refused to let me read the directions to his new Kung Fu Panda Wii game so he could figure out the moves.  Instead he got frustrated and was ugly to all his well-wishers who called that night.  Poor kid.  It's busy being six!

six years ago...

...we became parents.  Seth was born at 8:35 on a Monday morning.  This blog didn't exist back then, so I thought I'd share the story.  Two weeks before he was born, we found out quite by accident that he was breech.  He did not turn, so we scheduled a c-section for June 20th, which was Nathan's PawPaw's birthday.  We lived less than 3 miles from the hospital, but Nathan's parents were waiting for us when we got off the elevators.  Colette knew something was up and made it almost impossible to get out of the house that morning.  I was a nervous wreck in the OR, too numb, and cried through the whole thing.  Seth was one messy kid when he made his grand entrance, got wrapped up, and handed over to daddy.

I was the only patient in the recovery room, but my nurse sent Seth to the nursery because she thought he might be in respiratory distress.  My legs may not have been able to move, but my ears were working fine.  He was not grunting.  He was taken to the nursery where Nathan and our parents got to watch the nurses get him all cleaned up.  This used to be my Dad's favorite picture.  He said Seth looked like Winston Churchill:

I was moved to my room after about three hours, and Seth joined us shortly thereafter.  I immediately stripped him down and inspected him from head to toe.  We took off his paper t-shirt and dressed him in real clothes:

I don't have a ton of pictures of us, but here we are June 20, 2005...

 
This picture was probably taken right before Seth filled his britches and Nathan changed one of the worst newborn diapers I have ever seen (remember where I work) while our parents stood by giggling.  We spent the required three nights in the hospital and spent the long hours getting to know Seth when we didn't have visitors.  I had given Nathan his first ipod for his birthday, so we look turns listening to music.  We even let Seth listen once in awhile!

Happy birthday, Seth!  I hope you have a great day!

Father's Day 2011

Seth felt good all day yesterday so we went ahead with our plans to take the kids to Parents Night Out Saturday night.  Now the kids are split up in two different rooms.  Seth loves the big kid room because it has a Wii and air hockey.   We saw an NBA player at dinner, and when we picked the kids up, they had had a great time.  So much fun, they never stopped to eat their snacks!  So by the time they had full tummies, it was about 9:45 when they got to bed.  Seth slept until 9 this morning.  I'm pretty sure that's a new record at the Mayse house (and I woke him up to take his medicine, no telling how long he would have slept!)

We have had a quiet Father's Day.  Nathan and Amelia took naps.  A few more episodes of "Ang" were watched.  I made a photo book of all the projects Amelia made at school this year.  Nathan watched baseball, soccer, and golf simultaneously.  Seth and I are in the midst of a 75-minute-and-counting game of WAR...I had him down to five cards, I don't know what happened, but we're about even again!

Nathan noticed I took several pictures with him in it at the meet Thursday.  There is a method to my madness!  Nathan is a hard working, hard working-out-ing, hard playing daddy.  He's working out more this year than ever before, but it seems like we have way more family time than we ever have.  That's some time management!  Happy Father's Day...I hope you enjoyed cherry cheesecake #2 and your new bucket hat!

 
Also, Happy Father's Day to my dad...how I wish skype had been around when I was a kid!  Look how fun talking to your dad can be when using a webcam!

nothing like a little strep throat...

...to put a damper on party week.  Seth woke up yesterday morning with a sore ear and a temp.  Classic ear infection.  Or not.  Strep throat and some massive unilateral swimmer's ear.  Great.  So, we told my parents and the Beerys to unpack and cancelled their sleepover.  Which cancelled our date night to celebrate Nathan's birthday (bummer!).  I sent an email to the swim team to let them know Seth couldn't participate in the swimathon this morning.  And then we cancelled Seth's birthday party.

To add insult to injury.... Seth isn't supposed to swim for a week.  (We're planning to let him swim in the meet on Tuesday, he probably got the swimmer's ear from shenanigans, not from laps across the pool.)  I had already baked the cakes, so I rearranged the freezer and was able to freeze the cakes for now.  The pediatrician said he would call in Seth's prescription for me.  He called it in to the wrong pharmacy.  It's not a convenience when you end up having to set up an account at a different pharmacy (after you've gone to your regular pharmacy and they look at you like you're crazy, so you call the doctor's office and the nurse tells you where the script was sent to) and wait forever to get your insurance information verified.  And then, I offered to get takeout from the restaurant we were going to go to for Nathan's birthday dinner.  But their website wouldn't load.  I called the restaurant, which was allegedly open, and let the phone ring 15 times twice, and no one answered.  Nathan was starving (because he did two workouts yesterday even though it was his birthday), and asked for Bojangles instead.  Some birthday dinner!  I made him a cherry cheesecake for his birthday, and one of the darn cherries (from a can, I'm not that good) had a pit in it and almost broke his tooth!  It was not our day!

But on the bright side, Seth is on an antibiotic that he's never taken before, and he has responded quickly to it.  His ear is tender to the touch, but nothing a little Motrin can't fix.  Nathan and I watched a couple episodes of American Pickers and Pawn Stars, two of our favorite shows, after the kids went to bed.  We have had a very productive morning here.  I cleaned out our closet and went through all the kids' schoolwork from this year.  Nathan cleaned the fish tank and spent some time doing geneology stuff.  The kids have been alternating between watching episodes of the cartoon version of The Last Airbender and playing like crazy.  Seth doesn't seem the least bit upset that we're not having a birthday party today.  It looks like the rest of our weekend can go on as regularly planned.  Well, except for pool time, that is.

first swim meet

Last night we had our first home swim meet!  It was very exciting!  Seth wore his new jammers with the team's logo on it.  In case you were wondering, he officially wears the smallest size endurance suit Speedo makes.  I bought the next size up, so he can wear it for a year or two (or three). 

Seth was REALLY nervous about the meet.  He thought he'd be racing against the big kids.  When we got the heat sheet, he was really excited to be swimming with/against his friends.  And then we got to the pool, and he got overwhelmed.  His coaches spoiled him, he had a man-to-man with his dad, and he was willing to try it out.  When the meet started, he watched the girls race, and he was ready to go!  He was in the 6U free relay with his buddies.  Here he is, ready to go:

His team was in second place by the end of Seth's leg of the relay:

The kids enjoyed playing during downtime under the 6U tent.  After the relays and long events, it was Seth's turn to swim in an individual event.  He placed fourth in his heat of the 25Free.  He had a great time!

Oh dear.

It's finally here.  Today is the last day of school.  I still don't want to talk about it.  Seth brought this home yesterday.  Wow.  What a difference 180 days in the classroom makes:

I made a cookie cake for the class today, since Seth won't get a chance to celebrate his birthday with his classmates:

He's wearing the same outfit he wore the first day he went to school, and it was surprising the things he brought up this morning.  He remembered that the very first thing he drew in kindergarten was a rainbow, and that they used to have specials first thing in the morning, so his first class last fall was PE.  He has loved almost every minute of kindergarten, mostly thanks to this woman:

She has helped him learn how to be a "first grader in training", how to not get so worked up about things and not be so hard on himself, and has listened to countless "Mrs. G, I have to tell you something"s.   I could always tell the days he had a substitute, because he'd come home creating work to do.  I swear some of the stuff he does now, I didn't learn until second grade!  I could not have asked for a better first year of school.   I am sad to see this year be over, but at least I don't have time to dwell on it...remember, it's party week here! 

having a field day

Yes, we did.  On one of the hottest days of the year.  In fact, it was supposed to go until 2pm, but the principal cancelled it at 12:30, when the temperature reached whatever his magic number is for not letting the kids go outside.  It was HOT, but our class was prepared.  We had LOTS of water, LOTS of cold fruits, and we carried a tailgating tent from station to station so the kids could get in some shade when they got out of the games.  This was my favorite; it was called scuba relay.  The kids had to put on all this garb, waddle over to the pool and get a shell, and then waddle back to their team.

This was just a 30-yard dash.  Seth is fast as blazes!

The kids LOVED this one.  It was musical chairs, but they sat down on a wet sponge!

Only two days left.  I still don't want to talk about it.

she's done!

Thursday was Amelia's last day of preschool in the 2's class.  In the fall, she will move next door into the 3's class.  She picked an extra sassy outfit to celebrate.  I bought her new sneakers on clearance, Kohls brand, but she thinks they are the Skecher Twinkle Toes like the big girls wear. 

 Here she is with her wonderful teachers, Ms. Jane and Ms. Susan!  For some reason, she calls them "teacher" and "other teacher"; you know she knows their names!  There is a lot of love in that classroom, and I am forever grateful for all the artwork made this year that commemorates the size Amelia was in this class.

36N Tri 2011

Last Thursday, I got an email asking for volunteers to help at the 36N Triathlon Sunday.  I was actually considering getting up early to help with body marking, and coming back home before the race (which was about a mile from our house) so Nathan could do his planned workout.  That night at swim team practice, we found out a neighbor was doing the triathlon.  Nathan signed up Saturday, and they gave him as low of a race number as they could.  Nice, because earlier start equals lower temperatures.  Unfortunately, it was in the middle of the tri training group.  Nathan passed fifteen people in the pool, with a staggered start, meaning there were 15 seconds between each starter.  It was entertaining to watch from the pool deck, and people were talking about it.  Obviously, it didn't end up being his best swim, but he still got second in his age group.

Then he was off to bike.  There were two bounce houses, so we managed to stay entertained while he was gone.

During the run, the kids decided they didn't want to bounce anymore.  They were just starting to whine about the heat, when we saw #90 coming up the path...

When we got home, we found out Nathan placed FIRST in his age group on the bike, and second in his age group for the whole race!  Overall 27/177 men. Very exciting!

Monkeys' class party

The school year is winding down, and I don't want to talk about it.  Not that I'm not looking forward to summer, because I know we're going to have fun, but I don't want this wonderful kindergarten experience to be over.  Friday was Seth's class party.  Miss Liz came to play with Amelia.  It was three hours outside in the heat (it's been in the 90's here for over a week), but we had four tailgating tents and lots of water games, so we all managed to stay cool. 

The kids loved getting tattoos and colors sprayed into their hair!

And the perfect way to end a fun party...the snowcone man drove up in his little cart and the kids got to custom-make their own treat.  I was banking on Seth not finishing his, but he did, so I had to buy a SlushPuppy at the pool that afternoon! 

Amelia's picnic

I had my first ever kids-in-two-schools conflict last week.  I was asked to be in charge of Amelia's class picnic, which was the same time as Seth's Young Authors' Tea.  I stayed with Amelia at her picnic for half an hour, went to see Seth, and drove back to the park in time to pick Amelia up (she was not happy to see me).  I did get a picture of her, Anna, and an uber-friendly squirrel before I left:

grrr.

I got a little click-happy when I changed the blog background and I permenantly lost my book list and my blog list.  If you are a fellow blogger, please email me your blog address so I can make a new list.  At least I remember I'm on book #22 of the year...I wonder if I can test my recall and remember all of them?

Young Authors' Tea

Yesterday, Seth's class had their Young Authors' Tea.  Every day, Seth's teacher writes a note to the class.  This is what yesterday's said:

This is not showing off for the parents.  She writes notes like this every day.  We are so lucky to have her as Seth's teacher.  I feel like he got a private school education for free this year.  I teared up a little bit on Tuesday when her note said "There are only 10 days left of kindergarten!" 

That morning, the kids made a list of what they had learned this year...again, I think it speaks volumes about their teacher...

The red carpet was rolled out, and the microphone was ready...

Each student wrote a story.  Most were about their pets, their friends, their family, or the beach.  Seth wrote about his friends, Nickolas and Kaitlyn.  And on the very last page, he said his best friend was Amelia.  I love that kid.  I made a video of it, but it is too big to post here.  If you want to see it, let me know and I'll send you the link.  I don't have a picture of him reading, unfortunately. 

And here he is with the best friend not mentioned in the story, Ella Brooke!

Great job, monkeys!  Mrs. Mayse is so proud of you!

camping!

We have been invited several times to go camping with Elise and Chad, but we have never wanted to go.  This time, we were up for the adventure.  Nathan bought a tent, and it's been sitting in the basement.  Our trial run at putting it up at home was a fiasco.  It poured the entire trip down to Columbia, adding over an hour to our trip.  Luckily, it was just sprinkling when we arrived, and Elise and Chad helped us get the tent up in no time.  Here is a picture of our vacation home:

It has two rooms.  We used the back room for sleeping (yes, on air mattresses), and the front room for storage/play time.

Saturday morning we went to the playground, which was supposed to lead to a short walk to a "waterfall", but my little adventurers wanted to continue on the trail, and everyone else was game, so we took the longer route around the lake.

Brian with his potty seat (the bathrooms were REALLY nice...the standard has been set, I may have to read up on the bathroom situation before we pick anywhere else to camp!)

 Each site had it's own fire pit...we used it to cook hot dogs, and of course, marshmallows, Saturday night.

And surprise!  Lisa and Michael stopped in for a visit!  Seth tried to talk Michael into another hike around the lake.  And this was after he and I spent an hour on the paddleboats (although he couldn't reach the pedals, so I guess that doesn't really count for him...)  They settled for a boy trip to the playground instead.

Here are the kiddos after we loaded up to go home, a little tired, but happy!