Track

We signed Nolan up for track and today was his very first track meet. It was the most adorable thing ever to watch 5 and 6 year olds make their way through their events. But Nolan did great! Plus I got to try out my new, free lens my sister found for me. Thanks Emmie! I have a little work to do on figuring out the focus but you can't beat free!

Needs to work on his captive listening skills a bit. 

His first event was the 25 meter dash. He came in 4th, which is pretty good because he tripped a little at the start and came back from last. 

Next up was the softball throw, something he had never got around to trying at practice. It took a few throws to figure out which arm to use but once that was worked out he did pretty good, although did not place. 

Finally for his last event it was the 200 meter run, half way around the track. He was most excited about this and told me he was going to try for 3rd place since he got 4th on his 25 meter. Sure enough he got 3rd. 

Most importantly, he had this huge smile on his face the entire time. So glad he found something he enjoys, and wears him out...we all win!

Rachelle's Bridal Shower

Last weekend was Rachelle's bridal shower and I had so much fun helping put together this shindig. It was girly, rustic, glam and to me was perfect for Rachelle. I think she loved it too!

We held it at a local winery tasting room and it was a perfect backdrop since it had rustic touches too.

 

Her champagne bottle guest book was so much fun! I can't wait to give it to her! :)

My beautiful co hosts and fellow bridesmaids. They got it DONE! It's so fun when it's party planning with friends.

 
The oatmeal cookie sugar scrub favors smell so good. I may have come home with more than one! ;)

 

Congrats Rachelle. One step closer to the big day!!

Trip to the Farm

Miles and I ventured down to our neighborhood farm on one of the first sunny days of spring. I thought he would love it because he was obsessed with the chickens (or bock bocks as Miles liked to call them). He fell for this lovable little bunny who patiently put up with Miles petting. 

He was tolerated the corn bin.

Although he had way more fun climbing in and out of it rather than actually playing with the corn. 

This little pony was easy to love and Miles seem to be a fan.

I think they bonded over their equally large appetites. The horse nearly broke the fence to get to a little patch of new grass. So Miles picked it to feed to him.

Kittens!! who couldn't love that. Miles enjoyed these guys quite a bit.

This is where things got complicated. He liked LOOKING at the animals but as soon as they made noise he was over it. Which is why he liked the smaller/silent animals it seems. This parrot was one of his many enemies of the day.

The beautiful white peacock was amazing but it's repeating call was way too much for Miles. Lucky for us, the peacock decided to follow us around for most of the day and yell at it. It was great.

We finally found the chicken coup and I thought this would totally be his thing. But the roosters were crowing and he wouldn't even go in.

Same deal with the sheep pen. They were so cute but Miles would quiver with each Bah and yell "No that! No that!" while hiding his face in my jacket. So he is probably not going to be a future farmer.

We ended the day on a high note though with the baby chicks. These ones were just the right amount of noise.

Nolan's Progress Report

Nolan's teacher sent home an email right before his progress report came home. I have attached it here:

Nolan is an amazing kid. I am very impressed with his progress as we have reached the half way mark for the year. Nolan has learned routines, procedures and expectations and he is always willing to meet or exceed our classroom goals. I love spending my days getting to know him and helping him to learn. Some of my favorite things about Nolan are his genuine, kind personality, his enthusiasm for life and his family, his detailed and excited storytelling and the fact that he never ceases to bring a smile to my face. You have taught him wonderful skills to become a great friend and he is reliable and trustworthy. Nolan has the sweetest demeanor and he is always willing to help his classmates succeed. 

In reading, Nolan continues to make improvements every day. He currently knows 22 out of 25 sight words, 14 more than the first trimester. With our small group and one on one instruction I am working hard to get him to grade level by the end of the year. At this time, Nolan is reading a level B which is meeting grade level expectations. I will continue to work with him daily to help him gain the strategies he needs before first grade. He has gained skills for reading and understanding the story that will help him greatly as he grows as a reader. I will continue to work with him and build his confidence. He has the knowledge of many different reading strategies and so I want to teach him to try several things before giving up on a word. You have worked hard with him and his growth is showing! 

In math, Nolan’s strengths are patterns, counting, identifying addition or subtraction, solving stories and recognizing numbers. His goal is to work on more difficult story problems, writing number models consistently, and explaining his thinking and strategies for problem solving. He has faced “tricky” math challenges this year and he does so with determination.  He loves to make up his own story problems to share with the class.

Writing is a subject that is tricky for many kindergartners with very high standards from the district. However, Nolan has taken all instruction and tasks full steam ahead and he is making progress every day. When he writes his stories have a beginning, middle and ending to his book and words and pictures on each page to match. He beams with pride!! His stories are wonderful. We are now focused on how-to writing and he has been so excited to teach his classmates how to wash a dog, play games, and take care of pets.

My goal for Nolan is to continue to share his incredible ideas through his writing.  He is working on the sequence of his story and writing his ideas on the pages. He uses his reading skills during writing to add words to his stories consistently. We will continue to work on building his writing skills as the year progresses. He sometimes lacks confidence when writing even though he is capable and has the necessary skills. I continue to encourage him and remind him that he is able to write letters for words. He also plans his stories well so I will help him use planning to create the stories and books he wants to write.

I adore Nolan and I thank you for raising and sharing such a kind, considerate, warm hearted kid with me.

Yeah, we bought him the lego set he has been asking for since his birthday. I would've bought him a million lego sets if he wanted, we were just so stinking proud! I mean this time last year we weren't sure if he would be able to get through kindergarten so to hear that he is happy, excited to learn AND thriving is just amazing to us. That is one well earned lego set!

iPhone offload: Spring & Easter

Translation: The goggles are right here.
We couldn't find his goggles for a few days and when he found them he felt they needed to be clearly marked.

Practicing on his new "snorkeler". 

Ugh, toddler pudge. I will miss these rolls!

Miles was at our back window shouting "quack! quack!!" and i figured it would be a robin back there but sure enough our Lake Clingman ducks came to check us out. 

This was Miles the day before Easter. Possible pink eye and an ear infection. This was also about 36 hours before we were leaving for our trip. Our family really knows how to make things exciting. 

This is what happens when you hide the eggs early in the morning. Slugs come to crash your easter party.

Nolan found all the easter eggs by himself because Miles was finally sleeping after a few rough days  of no sleep. When we got inside Nolan asked if he could take half the eggs and hide them for Miles once he wakes up. Sweet little man! So he put on his bunny ears and hopped around the house hiding each egg and making sure Miles would be able to reach it. I think he enjoyed this even more than finding the eggs himself. 

Pat made special easter pancakes.

Miles finally woke up and with Nolan's help found every egg. 

The rest of the day was spent taking turns being the easter bunny or the finder. 

Ruby

We didn't realize how much we would miss our Ruby girl while on vacation. She was at "Dog Camp" (a farm with 16 other dogs) when we got back she wasn't quite the same dog. We weren't sure if she was pouting about us leaving her behind or if she was exhausted from playing in dog heaven for 11 straight days. Either way a few days later all was back to normal. She was part of our litter again.

The pile of Clingman kids.

She's gotten EXTRA protective of her domain. Barking at every bird that lands in the yard. The neighbors are pretty stoked we're home. :)

As soon as I sit now she climbs up as high as she can to cuddle on my shoulders. Super relaxing to have a 50 pound leggy dog on your back!

I blame cuddling with her like this when she was itty bitty. Lesson learned, no more cuddling! Just kidding, its totally worth it!

She's insisting on going everywhere with us, today she felt she needed the safety of a car seat.

This is another favorite position for her.

I'm not sure exactly how this happened but I was in and out of the garage (where we keep her crate) and somehow Miles climbed in and anytime he opened the door Ruby would push it closed again. Sibling rivalry?

And if your curious about Mavis, she stayed home during our trip and was watched by Corbin's family (Thanks Poiriers!) It sounds like she was in Mavis heaven with peaceful house all to herself. I think she was a little disappointed to see us return.

Kauai: Days 1-3

DAY 1:

We decided to take a family vacation to celebrate our upcoming 10 year wedding anniversary. So when some friends of ours asked us to go to Kauai with them we were all in! We booked it for the week of Nolan's Spring break (plus a few extra days).

The boys and our plane

We had a great experience at the airport, we breezed through check in and security which allowed us enough time to grab dinner, play in the kids zone and work a bit of energy out of the kids. The first half of the flight was pretty good but Miles decided that 3 hours was long enough and started getting antsy. Let's just say the rest of the flight made me seriously consider taking a boat back home. :(

But we arrived late at night and promptly went to bed and woke up before sunrise the next day. Since we were sharing the house with our sleeping travel companions we took the kids out for a sunrise walk to check out the island. It was already a balmy 70 degrees so we went in short sleeve shirts and bare feet, it was amazing.

A few hours on the beach and we headed back home for breakfast and to pack up for our first day out. We headed to Poipu Beach just down the street from our house.

Within a few minutes of setting up our stuff, we had a visitor.

A Hawaiian Monk Seal, which are endangered, but you wouldn't know it by our trip as they were everywhere! We had to move our site since this one decided to hang out there instead. She was later joined by another seal as well.

On the other side of the beach Nolan finally got to try out some real snorkeling. He has been practicing at the pool for a few weeks so actually getting to see some fish and coral was a huge surprise.

Miles wasn't a fan.

He preferred cuddling on the sand.

Guess what else happened?! Totally unprompted Nolan made a little booty trail down to the water. Look familiar?

Nolan booty scooting his way to the water in Maui 5 years ago!

The boys did great together on vacation, they played together and didn't bicker as much as they do at home. Nolan was happy to do what Miles was interested in and vice versa. Here Miles was interested in covering himself head to toe in sand.

And throwing some sand to help get Nolan covered too. It was a wonderful start to our trip!

DAY 2:

For the second day we decided to do a little hiking in our neighborhood. It didn't hurt that our neighbors were one of the nicest resorts on the island!

There were all these paths leading to the beaches or the resort. The grounds were so beautiful!

Shipwreck beach in front of the Resort. see the person standing on top of the rock? They were jumping off of there day and night, it was terrifying. 

These birds (and lots and lots of chickens) were everywhere! I especially loved seeing them in the bushes. 

Our neighbor, no biggie!

Keep walking past the resort and there is a trail through the lava beds.

Which led to that rock kids were jumping off and some amazing views.

Back down the cliffs for a picnic where Nolan pulled a coconut out of the water. 

During Miles' (and Pat's) nap, Nolan and I checked out the pool, we had the whole place to ourselves and I got to read an entire magazine in one sitting! 

After nap time, we went to Bubba's Burgers for dinner. The onion rings were so good!! But the kids weren't feeling especially patient.

While there, we checked out the nearby farmers market as well. The boys enjoyed the live music and tried 2 new fruits, apple bananas which really do taste like a green apple but are a banana and lychee fruit. Where has that stuff been my whole life?!

The kids were feeling a bit antsy after dinner so we decided to drive up to Waimea Canyon or the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific". I've never been to the actual Grand Canyon but Pat said this was just as impressive.

We went right before sunset and the shadows were starting to take over but we could still see the waterfall.

The kids were cold so Pat took them back to the car while I did a little extra exploring.

There were a ton of trails (with no guard rails) that I followed and found some amazing scenes. Above is a waterfall carved into the red dirt. and Below the trail ends right at a huge drop off. Definitely not a hike for kids.

Our official tourist family photo. This was our busiest day I promise!

DAY 3:

Day 3 was super easy. We packed up the kids, the gear and plenty of food and drove an hour north to Tunnels Beach. This beach is all over pinterest and I can definitely see why. Lots of shade to relax under, calm water, snorkeling, towering cliffs as a backdrop and happy kids made it my favorite day of the vacation.

I couldn't keep this guy out of the water so most of my pictures are of Miles. Nolan was content meeting people on the beach, snorkeling with Pat and boogie boarding with me. 

Miles even got in the water a lot at this beach!

But still preferred to surf on dry land.

  

The boys made up a game called crystal hunter where Nolan snorkels around the lagoon and finds Miles pieces of coral that he pushes around on his boogie board. They did this for at least 2 hours.

More cuddling in the sand.

Sunburned and exhausted we headed home. Nolan said this was his favorite day too.