BFF & more Rainbow fun

We finished up Emma's birthday celebrations today. At school they celebrate all the birthdays for that month on the last Friday of the month. Which was TODAY for the September kids. I made these for her class:



They sang to the five birthday kids and got to pick if they wanted birthday hugs or spankings from Mrs. McDowall {their English teacher.} Guess what Emma picked. ;)



The birthday kids getting the first bite.


This is Hailey Martin. Emma's BFF at school. They quickly became friends when school started this year. How great it is to have good friends.



We invited Hailey to come over after school for a birthday play date. Emma was so excited! It was like her birthday all over again with the counting down, too excited to sleep, etc...Hailey was just as excited.

My kids were cracking me up on the way home from school. They pretty much gave Hailey the first discussion.

"You have to go to church if you want to go to heaven."
"You also need to get baptized."
"Did you know that everyone needs to get baptized. Even those that die."
"Ya, we can do their baptisms for them."

Hailey didn't know what to think of all this, "This that true Rachel? Are they lying?" So proud of my little missionaries.

I had a rainbow balloon banner for a fun surprise. They had a lot of fun with those balloons.



Emma drew a beautiful poster for Hailey {using her desk.} I should have got a closer picture because she put in lots of detail. Especially "I Love Hailey" in big bubble letters. Hailey also drew Emma a picture of them complete with frame that is now on her desk.

There was lots of dancing, jumping on the tramp, more drawing and pizza and rainbow slushies.


Spencer gettin his groove on




Lucy loved the balloons too!




The girls and their FRIENDS FOREVER necklaces.

Counting

Have you ever felt like someone in your family was missing? You look around the room counting to make sure everyone is there. Only to double check because you know someone is missing.

My sister-in-law had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe you don't either.

This happened before I got pregnant with Lucy. I really feel like its that spirit reminding their mama's heart that they want to come to earth. Don't forget me I need to come too!

So it happened to me. The counting thing. Let me remind you that Lucy is only 3 months old. It was Labor Day, right after my parents had left and we were all playing Apples to Apples. I looked around the room twice to make sure all 5 of my kiddoes were present. Check. And yet I could feel that someone was missing.

It happened again this week during dinner. O.K. Apparently this spirit is excited. Or something. Fully noted. You will not be forgotten.

Roll Over, Roll Over

My 3 month old rolled over today.

Twice.

This is record breaking earliness for the Kurt Romans children.

She is a mover.

And I'm screaming Don't Grow Up So Fast!

Oh ya.

And good job baby girl!

Ice Cream Social

Tonight the kids had their Back 2 School Open House. It was great to visit with the teachers, see art work and classrooms and meet other families. The first month of school has been good and it feels like we are well on the way to a good routine. That includes the drive.

Austin has been much more vocal {at home} with his Spanish. Kurt loves to talk with him and he understands so much. He has moved up 2 language groups since last year and his Spanish teacher continues to "celebrate" his progress. She gets so excited about how well he is doing, it is contagious. We need to add Spanish into the daily life at home. So that boils down to ME. {{I have located a Rosetta Stone that is NOT being used so that is super exciting!}}

Emma Lynn was tested on her reading today and she is reading and comprehending at a 4th grade level. Go girl! She is loving the world of chapter books. There is a lot of Junie B. Jones at our house currently. She continues to be a self motivated, dedicated student.



The first week of school Spencer would continue to tell me that he did not get in trouble that day. I was happy when those reports stopped because it is not a concern of mine! We were walking out of the library one day after school when we passed a girl from his class with her parents. As soon as we walked passed Spencer loudly exclaims, "Mom, that's the girls who always gets in trouble!" LOL

I am happy to report that Spencer is NOW adjusting very well to school. The first few weeks were very hard. He did great at school but at home he would cry, and whine and then cry some more. About everything. It was a battle to do homework {that was super easy for him} and he put little effort into his work. I was surprised because this was NOT my easy going happy boy. I kept reminding myself that it is an extremely long day for him and that he was tired. Gratefully he is getting more sleep and adjusting to the routine. I'm SO happy to have my boy back.



All three teachers have commemted on how they are leaders in the classroom. That makes me beam with pride kind of happy.

We had root beer floats afterwards.

Emma Lynn is Seven

Happy, Happy Birthday Emma Lynn.




First Birthday


Second


Third


Fourth


Fifth


Sixth

Somewhere along the planning brainstorming session we decided to go with the rainbow theme. She adds so much color and happiness into our lives that it seemed fitting. She is such a fun girl to help plan and make decorations and be involved in the process. Together we finished a birthday countdown block set. That is something fun we can all enjoy.

She woke up to this on her birthday.


She had a few presents to open that morning to make the uniform a bit more fun. New shoes, leg warmers and bracelets.

What a super cute seven year old!

About a month ago when school start Emma asked if she could get her ears pierced. I was quite surprised it had come up but told her I would have to ask Kurt before we made a decision. I was even more surprised with his response. "Sure. Sounds good."

What???
Did he hear what I was talking about???
Is he ready for our little girl to grow up???
Shouldn't she be at least 21???

So we decided the birthday present was to get her ears pierced. After talking with a friend I found out that a Doctor's office in Ontario does BOTH ears at the same time. WOO HOO. I was ALL over that. Emma does not handle pain well. I was really worried that we would get one ear done and then {due to the level of drama} not finish the other ear. This was the perfect solution.

So we headed over after school. By the time we got out of the car she was getting really nervous and tears were already coming. I don't really want to go into a lot of detail but the poor girl really psyched herself out. I felt bad for her. She was crying huge crocodile tears and her body was shaking. At that point I told her that we really don't have to do this, we can wait. "No. I want to get them pierced today." As she sobs between each word. OK. Happy Birthday.



Now that all the pain is gone and drama has ended she LOVES them and I have to admit so do I! Its sooo cute. We are both excited for November 3rd when she can have fun accessorizing.

She has Art Lessons on Thursday so that was perfect. We made rainbow cupcakes to share with her class and they started a water color painting.


When dad got home we had dinner {requested homemade mac n cheese} followed by the party. For the games we played "Build a RAINBOW." There was a rainbow on the piano and behind each color was a game we had to play. After we completed the game they could put that color of candy on their plain white cupcake. So when we were finished with all the games we had built a rainbow.

RED {7 Facts}

{PS Austin & I tied with 5 correct answers.}

1. Favorite art medium: CRAYONS
2. Best part about First Grade: EVERYTHING
3. When I grow up I want to be: TEACHER and ARTIST
4. Favorite Book and Movie: JUNIE B. JONES/"TANGLED"
5. What makes Emma laugh? What makes Emma happy? AUSTIN/FAMILY
6. I look up to & want to be like: JESUS
7. The best age to be is: ALL

ORANGE {All About Emma Pictionary}

We drew: school, ear pierced, t-ball, books, and art.



YELLOW {Portrait Contest}

Emma assigned our subject {Sunset} and judged the winner {Spencer!}





GREEN {Red Light, Green Light}



BLUE {All about Emma Charades}

We acted out: prayer, cleaning, helping with Lucy, reading and clogging.

PURPLE {Rainbow Tag}

Austin and I made up this game. Each family member was given a different color and RED {Austin} had to tag ORANGE {Kurt} and so on through all the colors of the rainbow.

We ate our cupcakes and opened presents. She was so excited. Dancing around and grinning. You couldn't help but smile.





The big present was the desk redo project. I painted our computer desk white to put in her room. Currently I'm typing this on the floor because we haven't moved the desk from the guest room into the family room. Maybe tonight...It was a really fun project because I kept it completely a surprise and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. She can organized and create to her heart's content.

Thanks HGTV for teaching me how to do a proper reveal.




I love all the things that make it personal. The vinyl monogram on top. The fun stripes on the drawer for a pop. The perfect green chair. And my design item, easel paper on the side of her desk so she can pull it all the way across her desk to create the perfect masterpiece. I covered a bulletin board with cute fabric {still needs to be hung} and made a vase of flower pens. Her reaction was worth all the effort.


"I LOVE IT! Oh Thank You.
This is the best birthday ever!
You are the best mom ever!"

Sunday we had a birthday dinner with the family. I made her rainbow cake.



We love you so much Emma Lynn. You are a beautiful, loving, talented daughter of God. We are SO happy that you are in our family. Thank you for bringing so much color to our lives.

3 months

Love this baby girl. She is so sweet.



She is very alert and very interactive. She LOVES to talk and she LOVES to smile! These are super fun things to make a family happy. The kids swear she says "HI" amongst all her cooing and talking.



This girl loves attention. As long as you look at her she will smile. She is getting a lot better about hanging out on her own. She still loves to be held.



And I think we have even broken the bad car behavior. We have a good rountine of feeding at 6 am, transferring nice when its time to take the kids to school and sleeping till at least 9:30 am. This makes our morning commute so much nicer.



She is sleeping well. 6-7 hours at a time during the night. Great blessing! She is a fabulous baby. We adore her.



PS So obviously these are uneditted photos but I didn't want to wait any longer for this post. Maybe you'll enjoy seeing the before and after when photoshop and I finally make time for each other.

Extracurricular

This week the extracurricular activities started. The calendar is once again full.

Tuesday started Cub Scouts. I was recently called as a Wolf Den Leader and it was my turn to teach. Nothing like jumping in and getting your feet wet. There are 13 boys in our den. They are busy. But I'm excited and I think I'm really going to enjoy this!

Wednesday Spencer started gymnastics again. Seeing him move around the gym and his happy grin made me realize how much we missed it over the summer {that and his constant monkeying around on the furniture ALL summer long!}

A new addition to the mix was ballet for Ruth. It is in the same building as Spencer's gymnastics, directly after his class. It is a 3-5 year old class. Ruth is the youngest by far. Emma would have been better suited for this class. And so it is taught at a much higher, technical level. Simply put it is not age appropiate for a 3 year old. My biggest fear is that it will be a repeat of Emma's ballet experience and she won't want to dance at all. She is doing clogging for sure in January...so... I'm thinking there is no need to push this and most likely we will not continue it.

She sure had fun getting dressed for class though.


She did the first 10 minutes by herself but she got progressively more unsure of the situation so I went over next to her to help.





Spencer took it upon himself to be our photographer. He was able to capture the event in about 30 photos.



We rush home after that for Austin piano lesson. It makes me happy to hear him back at the piano.

On Thursday Emma Lynn had her first Art group lesson with Sister Wolfe. We have been looking forward to this for just about forever. I'm so excited for Emma to get to know and admire Beth. She is such a wonderful role model and Emma already adores her. There are 4 girls in her class and they work with color pastels to practice shading and shadows. Love.



In October Mondays will be Girl Scouts and the week will be officially full. TGIF.

First Day of Preschool

Today we started our Mommy n Me preschool group for Ruth. We are meeting Monday from 9-11. There are 10 different families {and 11 kids} participating. Ruth and I hosted today. She was very excited to plan the snack. :) We learned how we are each SPECIAL.
All the kids thought Lucy was super special. She got lots of love.


Emma Ruf, Bella Johnson, Bailey Blake, Ruth Romans, Brooke Bair, Kesley Stepleton, Claire Johnson, and Zachary Stewart {not picture Canon Hiatt and Kash & Tyson Cobb.}

I loved teaching again. It was fun. But I am also glad that I'm not teaching 30 kids 3 times a week. I love Lucy and she deserves my attention. I'm glad that Ruth can still have this experience. It is such a good feeling knowing you've made the right decision in life.