lucky number 7

August 18, 2013- This guy is 7 years old.  

Yep, hard to believe.

He celebrated with a shark themed pool party on a marathon birthday weekend.

We feel pretty darn lucky to call him ours and can't wait to see what the future holds for him.

work of art

June 2013- Pecos loves arts and crafts projects here at home so I was really excited when I found an art camp this summer offered by the Fredericksburg school district.  And by some miracle it actually fit into our jam packed summer schedule!

The teenage helpers used pastels instead of sidewalk chalk to decorate the entrance to the building.  So bright and pretty.  No more sidewalk chalk for us, from now on we're using pastels!

He said this was his favorite project:

This was a canvas painting done with marbles.  He said he painted the background turquoise for me since that's my favorite color.  He sure knows how to make my heart swoon!

And then they peeled off the letters...ta da!

This one is a watercolor, but so vivid.  Wish our Crayola watercolors turned out this way!

 Here's the budding artist with all of his projects he made for the week.  Brazos insisted on being in this picture.  Don't you just love his expression?!

when we grow up...

May 2013-

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest one day and thought it would be a fun way to capture the kindergarten class and display at graduation.  

I had another parent help me one day when the kids were in music class so we could keep it a secret from their teachers.

Each picture may have been a bit boring on its own.

But when I collaged them all together it turned out really neat, if you ask me.

One of the parents of a kid in the class has a frame shop and graciously printed them poster size at cost for us then mounted them to display at graduation.

Overall, I think everyone really enjoyed seeing them.  I also printed a 5x7 for each kid to keep and an 8x12 metal print for the teachers end of the year gift.  

If I can manage to hang on to the posters I'd like to display these again at their high school graduation.  Not sure if I could get them to pose again at that age!

About Pecos' wanting to be a paleontologist...that was news to me since up to this point he's always said he wants to be a cowboy like his dad.  

tooth fairy cometh

February 17, 2013- Pecos has been waiting for a loose tooth for so long now.  Seems like everyone in his class last year and this year have lost a whole mouthful by now.  So needless to say, he was extremely excited to feel a little wiggle.  And wiggle it he did, every day wanting it to come out so bad.  

He finally agreed to let Casey try and pull it.  But the tooth was so tiny and slippery,  daddy's fingers just couldn't get a good grip and dental floss kept sliding off.

So I offered to pull it out.  Here's a video of the big moment.  I promise he really wanted me to pull it but got very upset when it happend.  I think it overwhelmed him.

But he quickly got over it once the tooth fairy visited and left two very special coins.

100 day celebration

January 31, 2013- The 100th day of school is kind of a big deal in kindergarten in Harper.  I'm not sure how much the other grades celebrate it but it is pretty much a party all day long for the kinder kids.  

One of the things they do is go out to the football field to form a human 100.  I was there to photograph it and all was going well until Brazos decided he needed to pee.  We were at the top of the bleachers in the stadium and the nearest unlocked restroom was a half mile away.  So I did what any desperate mom at the end of her potty training rope would do...I took him around the corner of the press box and let him pee off the edge.  He was thrilled, I got to take the pictures and no one even noticed.  At least I don't think they did.  There may be security camera video footage of it floating out on the Internet somewhere.

I volunteered with a couple of other moms to pick up 100 helium filled balloons for release on the football field.  The weather was simply beautiful...until the exact moment we had to unload the balloons out of our SUVs and take them to the football field to meet the kiddos.  That's precisely when the wind started to gust at 30mph.  The strings were tangled, kids couldn't hold onto the balloons and we could barely hear the teacher's instructions on when to start counting to 100 leading up to the big release.  

 We managed to get them released in a semi-orderly fashion.  Some of the kids were very upset that the balloons were gone and wanted to chase them down.

After all that excitement it was back to the school building for a snack of sugar cookies and juice, just what they needed after all that excitement!  

One more picture with his 100 day project, then it was off to the playground and wouldn't you know it, there wasn't a breath of wind!

100 days of kindergarten

January 31, 2013- We made it to 100 days of kindergarten!  For his 100 day project Pecos wanted to do leather stamping.  He really does enjoy leather stamping but it is most likely the time spent with dad that he likes the best.

Since we knew Casey would be gone the week before and during the 100 day celebration they worked on this at about day 85!

The process went something like this:
Pecos selected a leather stamp very carefully.  Casey held it in position.  Pecos gave it a whack with his mallet {sometimes hitting Casey's knuckle instead of the stamp}.  Casey checked to make sure it made the desired impression and gave it another few taps if it didn't.  Repeat 99 more times.

Toward the end of the project they ran out of stamps and Pecos just did not want to repeat one so they had to come up with ideas of designs to make with the stamps they had.

Casey cut it out for him and tied the leather lacing so he could easily display it at school.

There you have it ~ a rather involved but very unique 100 day project complete.

{dis} r-e-s-p-e-c-t

January 2013- Pecos is having a bit of a struggle with boredom at school.  I knew this would be an issue by taking a red shirt year of kindergarten.  I know he feels like it is the same ol' thing and he already knows everything.  But boredom shall not lead to disrespectful behavior...at least that's what I'd like.  We are still 100% sure that keeping Pecos back because of his age was the right thing to do, we just have to figure out a way to make it to the end of the school year without boredom translating to bad behavior in class.

Today he didn't want to play alphabet bingo.  I'm still not sure exactly what happened because I haven't had a chance to visit with his teacher but Pecos is honest with me for the most part with what goes on at school.  Apparently he didn't care to play the game so his teacher asked if he'd rather go sit in the principal's office instead...and he said yes so that's what he did.  But he says he wasn't in trouble, he just wanted to go there rather than play bingo.

We had a talk about respect and that even though he may not want to do whatever it is his teacher is asking him to do he still needs to respect her and do what she says.  And do it nicely without being sassy.  I told him Mrs. Randle has a hard job teaching so many kids and he needs to help her by listening and behaving.  He agreed.  He also agreed that it may have hurt her feelings when he didn't obey and that maybe he should write her a note to make her feel better.

thankful for everything

November 21, 2012- Pecos' kindergarten class did a project for Thanksgiving stating what they were thankful for.  Here's the class bulletin board:

And here's Pecos' contribution.  He's thankful for everything.  

Happy Thanksgiving and hope you are thankful for everything!

flag football {movie}

Fall 2012-

Here's my latest "movie" project...Pecos' inaugural flag football season.

This is the link to the video on You Tube if the above file doesn't play for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuZ5TOSCXzA

pecos on politics

October 10, 2012- Pecos told me that his class was going to vote for the President in the election.  "Really?", I said, "Do you know who our president is?"  He told me it was President Obama and he was going to vote for him.  When I asked why he said because he is our president.  It was as simple as that for him.

{News of this school-wide mock election was made available to me today at the PTO meeting.}  I was hoping Casey and Pecos could discuss this important election when he is home this weekend but since he brought it up I figured I had to converse a bit more about it with him.

It went something like this:

Me:  So, you're going to vote for him just because he is the president now?
Pecos: Yeah.
Me:  Do you know the name of the other person you could vote for?
Pecos:  I'm not sure but I know it is someone that is not the president.
Me:  Hmmm, well the other guy's name is Mitt Romney.
Pecos: That's a funny name.  What does he do?
Me: Right now he works in Washington D.C., kind of like Jamie's boss, Senator Cornyn.
Pecos: Oh, is Jamie's boss gonna try to be the president too?
Me: No, not Jamie's boss, just Mitt Romney.
Pecos: Does Jamie work for Mitt Romney too?
Me: No, but let's talk a bit more about President Obama.  Your dad and I don't think he is a very good president.
Pecos: Why not?
Me (trying to think in terms that Pecos would understand): Well, for one, he has made gas more expensive so it takes more money to buy gas and drive our cars; that makes everything like food cost more too.  Then we have less money to buy other things and do fun stuff.
Pecos: Well, daddy works a lot so he has money for that.
Me: Did you know that President Obama takes a lot of daddy's money that he works for and gives it to the people that don't work?
Pecos: Why don't they work?
Me (hitting hard this time):  They are lazy and would rather that daddy work instead so that Obama can take his money and give it to them to buy that expensive gas and food.
Pecos (with a look of shock and horror on his face):  That's not good!  President Obama should be fired!
Me: Yeah, I think so too.  Do you know how President Obama gets fired?
Pecos: No.
Me: Everyone has to vote for Mitt Romney.
Pecos (with much exclamation): I'm going to tell Mrs. Randle that so everyone in my class can vote for Mitt Romney and he can be the President!!!!

You can forget presidential debates and campaign commercials.  Just share this story with your friends and maybe we can fire Obama!

Don't forget to vote on November 6th!

in the practice pen

October 3, 2012- Pecos and Widow Maker have been practicing for the upcoming Harper Horse Club play day on Saturday.  

The competition should not be too worried...Widow Maker only has one speed and it is not very fast!

take me out to the {t}ball game

May & June 2012-  Since we have started flag football I thought I should probably get around to posting pics from t-ball season!

Pecos decided this would be the year to play t-ball.  I'm so glad he did because Casey really wanted him to play last year but we didn't want to push him into it.  And he almost didn't play this year...he changed his mind about a week before practice started.

They allow the coach to pitch to the players and after 3 strikes they bring out the tee.  Pecos did pretty good and managed to get a few hits from the coach's pitching.  

Even though the coaches do all the pitching in t-ball, Pecos looked pretty comfortable in that position.

Picture day!

The team had a great coach ~ Mr. Harper~ and he prayed with the kids before each game.

Casey filled in as assistant coach for a few games.

Pecos and Coach Harper:

We played one game a week for 6 weeks.  Every game we set up our chairs in front of the 3rd baseline fence, not so we could see the game better, but so Brazos could play with his tractors in the dirt.  

 He was pretty good about sharing, until someone wanted to play with his front end loader!

It was a great season ~Pecos said he had fun and he'll probably play again next year.