Tag: Allison

Best. Weekend. Ever.

This past weekend was an amazing weekend on all accounts. It was one of those weekends where the stars aligned and everyone was happy and the right amount of busy, relaxed, and enjoying each others company and activities that were going on. It was Parent Teacher Conferences so on Wednesday there was just a half day of school and then no school again until Monday. When the kids got home we went through the backpacks and got all that stuff done and hung them up so we didn’t have to think about it again until Monday morning. I went to the conferences and they were all fine. That night Matthew had a makeup baseball game that we went to. The girls both had a friend to play with so they were off at the park having a grand time. Both teams agreed to use wood bats because the tournament we played in over the weekend was a wood bat tournament. It didn’t go well. The boys had been practicing but all of their timing was a little off and it was kind of a sad game. Matthew decided to get over it by going to his friend Jake’s (also on the team) for a sleepover that night.

Thursday Matthew was at Jake’s most of the day and the girls and I went to a pumpkin patch. We had a fun little time. We did a hay ride, tractor ride, jumped on hay bales, went down slides, saw lots of animals, did a mini cornmaze (the best kind of corn maze), played in a giant bin of corn like a sandbox, and picked out some cute pumpkins. We topped it of with a favorite treat of salt water taffy on our way home.

Friday we played some games. One of our favorites right now is Trouble. Emilee thinks she can control the dice by wishing hard enough and crossing her fingers. It’s pretty funny when she guesses the right number. Friday night the girls gymnastics place was having their monthly parents night. The girls love it, they go and eat dinner, play games, and do gymnastics from 6:30-10:30. They have a blast and are still not ready to come home at 10:30. Matthew had three of his baseball buddies come for a sleepover Friday night. It was what he wanted to do instead of a big party this year for his birthday. We ate dinner at Pie Five, his favorite pizza place and then we went and played a couple games of laser tag. After that they came home and played night games outside for a while and watched a movie. I’m pretty sure they all had a great time. They all agreed to go to bed a little earlier than usual for a sleep over because the next day we started the Wood Bat Tournament.

Everyone woke up and it was hilarious seeing four boys get ready to go to their game. Ryan made us all a yummy breakfast and we went to the games. It was chillier so we were bundled up and snuggled in with blankets. I love it. We do spend a lot of time at baseball games but it is a fun time. The girls have fun at the games too. Sometimes they sit with me and watch but most of the time they run around in a pack with the other younger siblings at the game and play at the play ground or play tag or whatever they come up with. Emilee and her friend spent the whole day making homes and feeding their stuffed animals with grass that they would collect. Allison is one of the older ones so she likes being in charge and watching the kids. She played ‘the best game of tag ever’ most of the day. Then there is the food. We bring some healthier options but the girls love getting some nachos or an icee, or pretzels. They have hot chocolate now too which we all love. The boys played AMAZING and won the entire tournament with a 5-0 win record.

Champions! First Place!

Alli had a birthday party she went to at the community center pool. Best friends and swimming in her favorite pool-double win.

Sunday we made it to church on time and without fighting in the morning. That is a miracle in itself. The primary is practicing for the program for the next few weeks. It is always an exciting time to get to sit on the stand and talk and sing in the microphone. Matthew had his first class with his new deacon quorum. He was also given the Aaronic Priesthood by his dad. Uncle Ross and Brother Sawaya helped in the blessing too. That night he was able to go to his first youth fireside. He came home and was telling me all about how media can be addictive and we should be careful what we watch and limit what we watch. I tried not to look to dumb founded as he told me all this ‘new information’ he had learned. I tried even harder not to say, “Matthew I have told you that almost every day for the last half of your life.” I am glad hearing it from a third party helped it actually stick a little between the ears instead of a pass through.

We all had a really nice weekend. There was a lot of quality fun past due family time. It was hard to let it go and return back to real life on Monday morning. I won’t name names but there were more than one kiddo sad enough to start the tears that they had to go back to school. On the way back from baseball we got ice cream, Emilee was eating it but had to take a nap before she finished because she was so tired. I looked back and her hand was inside her ice cream bowl and she was sleeping.

Emilee napping in the middle of eating her ice cream.

 

 

 

Allison’s Greatest Grumpy Moments

I love you to death Allison, but you can be a stinker sometimes.  You have the tenacity, will power, and grit of a pit bull that just got bested by a chihuahua in front of his friends and his girlfriend. I love those qualities in you, they will be very helpful to you in your life. However, helping you learn to control, understand, and use those qualities in a positive way is not easy and as you well know, leaves you and your dad and I at our wits end sometimes.  I am not perfect and know I make mistakes and don’t always help you in the best way. I apologize for that to you a lot, and I am sure I will owe you many more apologies in your life. Sometimes when we are in the thick of a situation with you we just have to laugh so we don’t scream or cry. When you see this it obviously infuriates you even more but we hope someday you will understand. We are not laughing at you, or making fun of you. We are laughing at the situation and our own frustration.  So, I have decided to write down some of your more ‘stick it to my mom’ reactions and incidents so someday when you are older and understand we can laugh together.

Control is a big deal for you. You do not like to be told what to do or do something simply because everyone else did it. In church on Sundays when they make new callings or ask for sustaining votes, then any opposing votes. You ALWAYS oppose. If you are feeling a little more aggressive you will raise your hand high up in the air and clearly let anyone looking know you oppose. When you are a little less ornery it might be a quick half hand raise. I have even seen you just raise one finger, but nine out of ten times you do something. Then look at your dad and I like – “What are you going to do about it.”

Another one from church recently was planning your baptism. We sat down to pick who you wanted to do what for your baptism. We had to take a break and come back to it later because you were determined that you would only have one witness instead of two. “There is only one of me, I don’t need two people to watch me go under the water. I can watch myself.”

I have received many notes from you on my pillow when I go to bed at night. Sometimes it is a nice but more often than not it is chewing me out for some injustice you feel you had to endure throughout your day. This isn’t really a nasty one but it made me chuckle when I found it. If you notice, the diagonal ‘Chories Suck’ in purple letters. Very creative.

 

One of the earliest moments I remember of you deliberately being ornery was when you were about three. I knew your dad and I were going to have our hands full. I was chopping up raw onions for dinner and you came over and said you wanted to eat it. I told you it wouldn’t be very good but you wouldn’t let it go. I told you if you really wanted to take a bite you could but I didn’t recommend it. You grabbed the biggest piece you could find and shoved it in your mouth. It took about a half a chew before you face showed exactly what I expected, you did not like it. I said you could go spit it out because I could tell you didn’t like it. You glared at me, finished chewing, swallowed and said you did like it and grabbed another one and shoved it in your mouth. Then you stormed off, probably to go spit it out without any witnesses.

The past few months you have developed a habit that infuriates your dad and I. When someone is talking to you (anyone-but mostly your dad and I) and you don’t like what they are saying you start humming or making some obnoxious noise over them. AAAAHHHH! It seems like when I set my resolve to be more patient and not let your actions get to me, you up your game.

You have grown up a lot the past few months though and there is much more happiness than grumpiness from you for the most part. Whatever your mood though I love you tons girly!

Catching up with Allison

Allison is having a little growth spurt mentally and physically. She is leaving her little girl traits behind and starting to get young girl traits in their place. She is loving 3rd Grade. She has a good fun group of friends she hangs out with and she likes her teacher, and she is feeling challenged with school work instead of doing ‘baby work’. She has a good grasp of math. She was playing a game with Ryan the other day and he was really impressed with her strategy ability and how she could add numbers in her head so quickly.  It is fun seeing her start to grow up and show more of her traits and abilities. She is a talented girl.

She has been sick this week so she stayed home with me Wednesday through Friday. She slept most of the first two days but was starting to feel better on Friday enough to play Battle Ship and watch a movie together. She is a fun little girl. I love it when she is her happy silly self. She kept winning at Battle Ship so for the last game she put her ships all together so once I found one I found all of them. She has a kind sweet little heart.

She is good at piano but I am having to coerce her quite a bit to get her to stick with it. We made a deal that if she does it through Christmas break then I will let her choose if she wants to keep with it or not. Hopefully by then she will be hooked and want to keep going.

She is loving gymnastics still. She even admitted she was glad that she switched to the new place. She has been improving a lot. She can do several different kind of flips and walk overs. She switched from the tumbling only class to the general gymnastics class so she could do bars too.

She is doing another year of girl scouts. We switched troops this year too, and it is a much better fit. There are several girls in her troop that she hangs out with at school too, and her best friend from last year that is at the new elementary this year is in it too. They do a lot more activities that Alli is interested in and it is a good fit for her.

September Memorable Moments.

  1. Emilee is sitting on the floor staring at her feet. All of the sudden she gets quite concerned and says, “Mom my toes are broken and I don’t know what happened to them.” Apparently she was trying to spread her toes and she could spread the ones on her right foot but not her left, after trying many times she was concerned they were broken. I explained to her that they were not broken sometimes you just can’t spread your toes. Every now and then I ask her if she ever got her toes fixed and she usually says something along the lines of, “No. I don’t know what is going on with those toes.”  She says it in a very matter of fact tone, like she has been putting a lot of thought into it on a regular basis.
  2. Matthew has a blanket that he fell in love with the second it touched him when he was just a few weeks old. He has slept with it since then and the think looks like it has been ‘loved’ to death. I have sewn it almost as much as I can to keep it in one piece, but it is getting pretty shredded. I went into say goodnight to him one night and was laying by him and talking for a little bit. He was twisting his blanket around in his hands and there was a lull in the conversation. Then he said, “Mom just feel this blanket, rub it with your fingers just like this, and twist it around your wrist.” I tried to do what he was showing me and he said, “Isn’t that amazing how comfortable and satisfying that feels!” He then showed me all the favorite parts of his blankets and the best way to sleep with it. I loved that he tried to explain the amazingness of his blanket to me. It made me chuckle.
  3. I was working in the yard and Emilee called me to see something. I walked around to where she was at, she was pointing at a tiny little hole she had found by the window and said she thought that is how all the flies were getting into our house. I told her I thought it was because of the door she left wide open behind her while she looked for little holes.
  4. This one isn’t even my kid but it made me laugh anyways. I went to lunch with Allison at school the other day. Towards the end of our lunch the next group of kids came in and sat down to start eating. I would guess they were second graders. As we were sitting there visiting I noticed one boy who had brought his lunch from home take the apple out of his lunch and make a ‘ewe gross’ face. Then he casually took the apple and hung it from his hand behind him as low as it would go then dropped it on the floor under the table. Allison saw it too and we both looked at each other and laughed. She knew exactly why he dropped it and thought it was hilarious. Little stinker, I should have figured out who it was and told his mom. He would have wondered how in the heck she found out. Hahaha! The mom network, that’s how! Anyway, I told Alli to just bring her food home if she wasn’t going to eat it, and we finished our lunch.
  5. Emilee has always been a momma’s girl. Being in my presence is great but we have a family joke (that is kind of true) she prefers to be physically touching me whenever possible. While this is sweet, it can be frustrating at times too. Like in church when it isn’t her turn to sit right next to me she holds her hand out in my direction and gives me ‘puppy dog eyes’ and silently sobs for all of sacrament. All day kindergarten has been a big adjustment for her. Once she is there she does fine and has a great day but bedtime before and the morning of can be a little rough. She has said things like this many times but one night it made me smile when she was being particularly dramatic and said, “Mom, I can’t go to school tomorrow. It is so long. I can’t go that long with out touching you!”
  6. Emilee is not a morning person. This was one of her funnier ways of showing us she still wanted to be in bed rather than up eating breakfast.

How many packs do you have?

So Matthew works out a lot for baseball and football and he has recently become interested in getting strong well defined muscles like his arms and his abs. The other day he was explaining his plan to turn his four pack into a six pack and then an eight pack to Ryan and I. It was a very entertaining conversation. Allison and Emilee overheard it and Allison decided she was going to get an eight pack first and then keep going until she had a twelve pack. So the past week or so we have seen a lot of sit ups and crunches and many unknown exercises that apparently strengthen your abs. The funny part is the way they talk about it, they don’t really know what they are talking about. Allison skipped up and told me that she her two pack was now a three pack after doing sit ups for thirty seconds. I play smacked Matthew in the stomach the other day when he was being a smart mouth. He quickly replied that I missed because he blocked it with one of his packs.  Emilee asks us to tell her how many packs she has all the time or just picks a random number to say she has. What a bunch of goof balls.

Fall FINALLY arrived!

The past few years I have noticed that I really enjoy the changing of the seasons. I am ready for the change and the different activities with each one.We were at a baseball tournament and football game a few weeks ago. The temperature was 89 but with the heat index it felt like over 100. It was so humid and stagnant. Ugg! It was like that from the beginning of September to just this week. Then we had a little rain storm and it cooled down and the next morning it had that cool crisp fresh feeling in the morning. Aaahhh! I love it.  We got the Fall decorations out, I put Mums in my planters, we have been having yummy soups for dinner, and going on walks to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Allison has decided that her new gymnastics place is better than she thought. She is progressing quickly. I felt like she was on the cusp of being able to do a lot of things for a while at the last place we went for gymnastics. I switched her to a new place I thought would be a little more aggressive in getting them to progress. I started Emilee in a class too. Allison was pretty upset at first and said it was awful and they didn’t know what they were doing. I told her to give it 6 months before she ‘insisted on switching back’. She has been there almost two months now and a few weeks ago she admitted its pretty fun. Her and Emilee both look forward to it every week. Now I am trying to get her to do the same thing for her new piano teacher.

Matthew and his friends like to play night games sometimes. Another fun Fall activity is having an evening fire pit with the neighbors and roasting some marshmallows.

We usually take turns eating dinner with Ross and Lauren at one of our houses on Fast Sunday. This month we went to their house. When we were cleaning up dishes I was wiping off a counter and when I looked up this little guy was hanging on the rim of the cabinet.  He is probably only about an inch tall. Ross got him at a white elephant party. He is a drink marker, he hangs on the edge of your cup. The one he happened to get at the party had Ryan’s name on it. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

I volunteered for a few things since school started. I am enjoying it trying some new things. I volunteered to do dental screenings at elementary schools. I go and evaluate the kids teeth and let their parents know if they need to see a dentist. I am going to be a co-leader for Emilee’s girl scout troop. That one makes me a little nervous. I think it will be fun but it is a pretty big troop-17 girls. I hope I don’t go crazy. I am helping two of the kindergarten teachers once a week with prep work stuff too-copying, laminating, whatever they need. I have a goal of helping at Harvesters Food Bank once a month too if I can. That with all my regular stuff keeps me pretty busy. I like it.

September Happenings.

Wow! The last few weeks have flown by. School and activities and other things are in full swing now. There is always something going on.

We finished the last weekend in August off by going to The Great Wolf Lodge for Aaron’s birthday. We had a great time! We tried all the slides, all the pools, and tried almost every kind of ice cream by the time we were done. Matthew was done around 3 after a full day of swimming. We had to drag the girls away at 4 to get back in time for baseball practice. Six hours of swimming wasn’t enough.

Allison and Matthew seem to have adjusted to school and handle their schedules pretty well. Emilee is still struggling a little bit. She seems to have a little bit of separation anxiety. She was nervous but doing okay, until last Friday I left her crying on the curb at school and thought she was going to follow me home. A teacher helped her make it to class but her teacher said it was a rough start to the day. Monday I walked her into class. The rest of this week I told her if she was a brave girl and got out of the car everyday this week and walked in like a big girl, I would come eat lunch with her on Friday. That worked pretty good. I think that will be our deal for the next couple weeks. Once she gets there and going she does great and has a good day. It is just hard to wake up and go in the mornings. We invited a friend Laney over today that she met in class. They are pretty good buddies and she lives just around the corner so that will be nice to have a friend close by.

Emilee having a hard time accepting it is time to wake up and get ready for school.

Emilee went to a birthday party last week and was so excited to tell me that she got to fight Darth Vader with a purple sword when she got home. I love it when kids get so excited over fun simple things like that.

Last week was really rainy so football and baseball were canceled and moved to this week. That makes this week extra busy, but Matthew had his first football game last night. His coach has been talking with him about needing to be more aggressive and commit to his tackles more. He has been struggling with that and getting pretty frustrated. Last night at his game he was not going to play to much because his coach wanted him to get a little better at tackling first. Another player broke his arm at school so Matthew took his place. He is still a little timid but he did better than he has ever done at tackling. He took a couple people down and evaded a couple tackles. He was pretty proud of himself, so were we and so was his coach. His coach told him he figured out Matthew was a little surprise he wasn’t expecting.

I was going through some papers the other day and I found this little note that Matthew wrote for his dad. Every year on Matthew’s birthday they have a race because Matthew thinks he is faster than Ryan and Ryan has to prove he isn’t.  Matthew wrote this for Ryan to intimidate him before their next race. Hahaha!

Matthew’s intimidation note to Ryan.

My birthday was nice. Ryan gave me an Apple Watch, it is pretty handy. He said I have no excuse for not answering or texting him back quickly now. I spent the day reading and relaxing and watching chick flicks. I went to lunch with some friends and we went to dinner as a family. The kids cleaned my car really well for my present. It was at my request and it is still a work in progress but they said they would get it done by this weekend. I watched a movie called, ‘All About Steve’ as part of my relaxing. It has Sandra Bullock in it, who I really like. The reviews were not good but I decided to watch it anyway and it was hilarious. It was supposed to be more ridiculous humor, and it must have been right up my alley because I was laughing a lot. It was a nice day. I did notice that most people asked me how young I was, instead of how old I am. I’ll take that as a sign that I am starting to head more towards the ‘older’ category instead of the ‘younger’ category.

I started the next phase of repainting my house. I picked the colors when we bought it and I still like them but the builders painted with flat paint. So I have been gradually repainting everything with a better paint when the wall gets so dirty that I can’t stand it anymore. I really hate painting, but I love a freshly painted wall. Especially one that I can wash when it get dirty. I also put most of my Fall decorations up. Not my Halloween yet, just Fall. I love Fall. I love being able to sit out on the porch and relax and enjoy the weather. I love that the Holidays are getting ready to start too.

Allison is really liking gymnastics. I switched where she was taking classes because she had stalled in her progression for a while. She wasn’t happy about it but I told her she had to give it a few months and she would notice lots of improvement. She has been there for about a month now, she is not complaining when I pick her up any more and she has gotten better in several areas. She is excited about it again and work on it at home a lot more. She is often doing sit-ups or arm exercises to help herself get stronger.

 

Genetics are strong.

Many years ago my two sisters came upon some stink bombs that they were very excited to put to good use. I was not living at home anymore but they filled me in later. I can’t remember what they did with all of them but I know one ended up in the 18 hole at a mini putt putt golf course and could be smelled from the parking lot, where they observed from afar and laughed their heads off. Another one ended up in my brothers room and I have been told many times since that was probably the maddest they had ever seen him. They still laughed their heads off, just at a safe distance.

Fast forward a decade or so and…

Allison wanted to do a little shopping with some of her money that she had recently acquired. It usually starts burning a hole in her pocket the second she gets it so she wanted to go to 5 Below and see what treasures she could find (5 Below is a step or two above a dollar store, but everything is $5 or less) She meandered around and eventually found the prank aisle and thought she had enough money to get a whoopee cushion, fake little pieces of poop, and a small aerosol can of ‘fart smell’. (Insert emoji slapping its forehead) Luckily, she did not have enough to get all of those things, but despite my efforts to find something not in the poop category to spend her money on she put back the whoopee cushion and took the other two up to the front to pay.

When she checked out she actually only had enough money for one. I again told her we could go find something else but she agonized for what I am sure the people behind us in line felt like was forever over her decision until finally deciding to just buy the stinky spray (insert emoji with fallen disappointed face) After making her purchase she then skipped out to the car pleased as punch with herself.

On the way home she decided to test it. I should have seen this coming but didn’t think through needing possible rules for the stinky spray before we even got home. She sprayed it in the car and immediately started complaining that it didn’t even stink and she was going to email the company and tell them ‘their fart spray stinks because it doesn’t stink.’ Mean while, I am driving the van and was unfortunately sitting in a location in front of the direction she sprayed the stuff. It did stink! It was foul and disgusting and unlike a ‘real fart’ it didn’t dissipate after a few seconds (actually got stronger), or by rolling the windows down. It was disgusting and of course Allison thought it was hilarious. I immediately laid down some ‘stinky spray rules’ (never saw that coming before I became a mom) and told her no more spraying it in the car or other enclosed spaces.

Allison is the worlds best negotiator though and she baked up some story to spray a little in Matthew’s room as a joke on him because he pulls little pranks on her all the time. I could tell this was the entire grand plan behind getting the stuff in the first place so I told her she could do it one time. Matthew does pull lots of pranks on her.

Allison decided to sneak in his room when he went down for breakfast on Sunday morning before church. She sprayed some stench in his room them came down to eat. Matthew went upstairs to shower. Alli was bouncing with excitement waiting to hear his yell, or gagging sound or something. Nothing. He showered and got dressed then came out. I figured he tried the ‘just ignore it’ tactic to make Allison mad. I forgot about it and finished getting ready in my room. Allison was not ready to just move on though. She went in his room and sprayed some more. She made up some excuse to have Matthew come upstairs to his room, which he did…nothing. Didn’t react in anyway. He went back downstairs. Allison was not to be deterred though. She sprayed more, a lot more. So much more that it came out of Matthew’s room and down the hall and Ryan started to smell it from his closet. (Side note, Ryan was not happy I ‘let’ her buy the stink spray. He said it was a ‘bad choice’ and he ‘wished I wouldn’t have let her do that’ (insert emoji rolling eyes)) He came out to see what was going on and was ‘assaulted’ by the horrible smell now filling the hall and floating down the stairs. I don’t know what reaction she wanted from Matthew but she got one from Ryan. All previous stinky spray rules were erased and a new one was put in place.

NO stinky smell sprays are allowed to be used, stored, or even brought into the house or they will be thrown away and destroyed immediately with no compensation to the owner.

Apparently bad smells make Ryan pretty grumpy. That isn’t a big surprise, he is always telling the kids, ‘Don’t be the stinky kid.’ By this time everyone was getting annoyed and gagging at the smell, except for Matthew who was down stairs with his nose in a book oblivious to everything. While I was opening windows and getting some Febreeze I asked Matthew if his book was so good he couldn’t smell the stench overtaking the house. He said, “No, but my allergies are so bad that I can’t smell anything.”  I told Allison why her prank didn’t work and she was pretty annoyed. HAHAHA!

So we finished getting ready for church and headed out the door. When we got to church Matthew came and sat between Ryan and I.  I kept catching whiffs of the smell. I guess there was some that settled on his clothes when he was in his room and hadn’t had enough time to go away yet. Alli sprayed A LOT of it.  I was making a game plan to get some smelly lotion or oils from someone to help cover the smell but by the time sacrament was over the luckily the smell was gone. By the time we got home the smell was gone from the house too. I did one more round of Febreeze in Matthew’s room so that he was safe from being the stinky kid after sleeping in his room all night. Allison’s remaining spray may or may not have been misplaced. All in all though I think she felt like it was a great purchase.

Then vs now-Kindergarten

I think for a post every now and then I am going to pick an event that everyone (or most) of our family has done and compare them or write what we remember about those times. The first one I am going to do it kindergarten.

I’ll go first. I think these memories I have are from kindergarten…but they could be mixed with other memories and I don’t realize it. That’s the product of age plus memories I guess. Like the time when I was telling my mom about our trip to Nauvoo when I was younger and she told me I had never been to Nauvoo. I told her all about the trip and she showed me a picture book with pictures of the events that I had described. Apparently at some point I looked through the pictures and it became a memory of something I did instead of pictures I had seen. Anyway, I digress. Back to kindergarten.

I lived in Loa Utah, in a white house that I believe was on the corner of the street that was a straight shot down to the school. It would have been 1987. I want to say my teachers name was Mrs. Taft but I would have to look that up in a picture book to be sure and I am to lazy to do that right now. I remember learning our letters and she had a little blow up alphabet character for each letter and we could take turns bringing them home sometimes. I remember swinging on the swings and being ‘married’ to someone if we were swinging exactly together. I think we had a nap time. We did have snack time and it was chocolate or regular milk with something to eat. You were not allowed to blow bubbles in your milk or they would take your milk away. I remember blowing bubbles one day without really being aware of it and they took my milk away. I wondered how they even knew I was doing it. I remember wondering how adults knew a lot of things growing up. It makes me chuckle now when I can tell my kids are thinking the same thing. It is usually pretty obvious but in a kids mind you think you are being so sly. I remember our neighbor Clayton that was my age. He had a rabbit and I remember him explaining how to tell if it was a boy or girl and I had no idea what he was talking about because all I could see was fur. I remember telling my mom that I was sick one day when I wasn’t and I thought I was pretty slick because she let me stay home and lay on the couch. I was highly disappointed when everyone got home from school and I felt better and felt good enough to go play with everyone. my mom said I should probably stay on the couch for the rest of the day to make sure I didn’t get sick again. The only other thing I remember about kindergarten in that my dog followed me to school one day and was barking at people. I was worried they were going to take him to the pound but my mom came and got him and took him home.

Ryan lived in Manhattan Kansas. He would have started kindergarten in 1984.  He remembers racing out to the jungle gym for recess because everyone tried to race and get the spot on top. His teachers name was Ms Crane. His mom took him to school and he doesn’t really remember anything about in the class and learning. He remembers recesses and looking forward to them. He met his friend Jake Sumners in kindergarten and they are still friends to this day. The only other thing he remembers is how to get to his class room when he got to school.

Matthew went to Scarborough Elementary in Olathe Kansas and had afternoon kindergarten with Mrs Herl in 2012. He says some of his memories are also PE and recess related. He learned how to play color tag and found out that he was a pretty fast runner. His favorite things to do were PE with Mr Simpson. Toilet tag was another favorite that he taught them to play. It is basically freeze tag but when you get tagged you have to put one knee on the ground and hold your hand out. If someone runs by you and ‘flushes’ your hand you can unfreeze and start running again. The first fire drill scared him because he didn’t understand what a drill was. He remembers cutting his knee open when he slid on the rocks at recess and thought he was so tough because he didn’t even know it and it didn’t hurt. There were only 11 kids in his class and of those 11 only 3 were boys. They had two recesses. They had a Halloween costume parade and he was Optimus Prime. When they had career day and were supposed to dress up as what they wanted to be when they grew up he dressed up as a zoo keeper. One of his favorite things when he was in kindergarten was animals. He loved to watch the Nat Geo Wild Channel and his favorite TV show was Wild Kratz. All the parents sent in a couple boxes of something for snacks and if anyone was allergic to any foods they had to bring their own snack.

Allison went to half day morning kindergarten with Ms Ryder in 2015 at Prairie Creek Elementary. For her first Halloween at school she was a Spanish dancer, mostly because she liked the dress, not because she liked dancing. They had one 15 minute recess. I have asked several times what other things she liked about kindergarten and she has repeatedly told me nothing…so this is a short paragraph.

Emilee started full day kindergarten in 2018 with Mrs Pahl also at Prairie Creek. Half day kindergarten is no longer an option. I had to sign a waiver saying any snacks I send to school for Emilee will only be eaten by her and not contain any nuts or be made in a place that has nuts. She has a morning and afternoon recess for 15 minutes each. She is making friends and enjoys it once she gets there but is still a little nervous about going in the morning.