Kira and 1st grade

Kira is doing really well in first grade.  She had such a hard time when I went to work in kindergarten and seems to have outgrown a lot of her fears and anxieties.  Some of it I am sure was loosing my parents and time seems to heal and make a lot of things better.

She is really smart.  Just gets things.  Reminds me of Scott in a lot of ways.  Has perfectionist tendencies.  Scott used to be hard on himself.  She isn't hard on herself or the outcome but just scared to do new things or in the process if they aren't turning out how she wants, she gets real frustrated.  It has been fun to see her learn to read.  All of a sudden, her reading just took off and somehow she went from learning one word to reading at a pretty high level.  I read an article years ago about how they teach kids in Switzerland (I think) how to read when they are older and actually ready to read and they progress happily and much faster than in America.  It really impacted me and for the most part I have adapted that into letting the kids learn skills when they are ready.  It has worked for reading for us.  She loves it.  In her free time, she goes onto RazKids, an online reading program, to read.  Reading has been such a great thing for Scott so I hope it is for Kira as well.   Scott has been really bored in school the past couple of years and this is really the first year I addressed it with his teacher, but I am going to stay on top of that with Kira because I can see her also getting bored in school before long.

She doesn't seem to have a group of friends like my boys did or at least I am not as much in he know with her.  With every kid, I feel like I am more and more removed.  With Scott, I would go to the park and knew all the moms and kids.  Now I find that Kira plays with her brothers friends more than her own.  Not that it is a bad thing, but just how it works out.  With that said, when we go to school, her friends seem to always say hi and she seems to have a lot of friends.  She is happy to go to school and always seems to have fun.  So we just plug along.  She has Mrs. Shirley, who Scott had.  Danny or I volunteer on Tuesday and I teach art once a month which is fun!

She is doing gymnastics which she really likes.  She seems much more confident and comfortable.  Last year, she didn't want us to leave her and now she doesn't mind so that is a great thing.  She has another showcase coming up.  The last one she was so scared, so hoping she is happier this time around!                                                            

Tyler's Yearly Cardiology Appt

Tyler met with Dr. Saba, his new cardiologist.  Dr. Cooper retired with Kaiser a little over a year ago, so this was our second appt with Dr. Saba.  Great guy, great Dr.  We are so blessed.  It was the first appt that I was able to drop him off for because I had Blake and Parker with me. He did great and the best news of all was that his heart is doing great!  We are so blessed.  There are so many kids that spend most of their lives in and out of hospitals and I Tyler has been blessed with a fairly normal childhood.

He is getting to the age that he needs to start using judgement of how to manage his health. 4th grade is the first year that the class has a P.E. teacher and I suggested to his teacher and Tyler that he probably shouldn't run for warm up but instead save his energy for more fun activities such as tag, frisbee or whatever they are playing.  He came home one day and told me he had to sit out all of P.E. because he didn't run in the beginning so it was a good opportunity to remind him to vocalize his limitations to his teacher.  I talked to the teacher again and he said he forgot which I totally get, but Tyler needs to continue to work on communicating his needs and limits.

He is doing fairly well emotionally. Still can be mean to his siblings at times, but everywhere else he is really a wonderfully nice kid.  He is kind of shy at school, obeys, works hard.  His patience and that love is still being worked on at home even though I do feel it is going in the right direction so I will take it.

He isn't doing many activities outside of school and that is fine. I am someone who is always on the go and can probably overschedule my kids, but I am doing a better job at realizing it is ok for them to have down time or just activities they want.  The kids play with neighbors a lot and always have kids over and I realize that is something I loved about my childhood so grateful they get to experience that as well!

He is doing well in school.  He has his same 1st grade teacher and always says how she is so much stricter in 4th grade than 1st, which I find funny.  He is so smart but also really lazy with doing homework or any extra work.  I should get on that but for now we are just kinda coasting along until I get more disciplined.

Tyler's BD and such

Kira's into having her hair done.  She asked for [French braids] and I didn't know how to do them.  I told her I'd have to watch a youtube video.  Then, in church, Megan was doing French braids on Malie and I learned how to do them.  My first attempt was pretty ugly, but you gotta start somewhere.  This was my second attempt.  I'm still not that good at them and it takes a while, but I had to take a picture before Kira took them out.  Her hair's not quite long enough to do two braids and merge them into one, so I did three separate ones.  

Tyler celebrated his birthday by having a sleepover.  More like a NO-SLEEP over.  I think the kids had a good time, though.

The piñata was popular even though it was too heavy to support its own weight on the hook.  The kids ended up smashing it on the ground.

Our new neighbors are great.  Our kids take turns jumping on each others' tramps.  They just climb over the fence like this.  Here they are enjoying some fudgecicles and popsicles.  Mmmm.

Yesterday we went to the redwood valley railroad at Tilden park.  It's been a while since we've been there.  I always like that place.

This is the little farm at Tilden park.  It was fun until Blake had a meltdown.

Last stop was the Oakland Temple visitors center.  They showed us the new "meet the Mormons" video and then Parker started to melt down.

We finished the day by eating at Mi Pueblo.  The kids were kind of wired but the food was good.  We even had a little left over.  

We got Kira this Trek Mystic bike on craigslist.  She probably could have used her 16" bike for another year but I've been searching for several months for this bike in pink, and when it came up in Stockton for $35, we had to get it.  Kira loves it.  She was telling me about it and then when I started to film, she thought I was taking a picture.  But she was so cute I had to post this.