kung fu party

yeah, i know, i'm late for halloween... but i don't have those pictures yet, so here's a kung fu party we had back at the beginnning of september :). btw, my kids all love kung fu panda, and whenever they get to watch it together, something like this in fairly inevitable... but i still think it's pretty cute, so i still take pictures. especially because this time malachi was wearing his blanket as a toga... and that's just fun!
so some pictures:


!

he was actually doing a bunch of 'moves' but it's hard to tell in any of the pictures because the blanket is always in the way, but i love his smile just the same :)



at peace with the universe



high kick! (and she didn't even fall over!)

and for the fun of it, afton's been practicing with some of the editing software on the photo-program, and this is what she came up with for her picture: 



(just a little hard to see, but it's got at least 4 or 5 different effects so it's 'pretty cool')

afton's 6

i couldn't believe it when afton had her 6th birthday! i understood that it was coming, but i couldn't believe it just the same! i felt old, and she looked so big... weird... she had a great day, malt-o-meal for breakfast (yuck, but it's what she likes) and i had lunch with her at school, and we brought cookies to share with the kids at recess afterwards. her teacher makes a big deal out of birthday's for the kids in her class, so she had a crown, a certificate, a new pencil and some other little things, but afton loved the attention. i also picked her up from school to cut down on the hour bus-ride, and grandma and grandpa f came for pasta and meatballs, presents and cake. so i think that was about the best she could have hoped for ;).

afton's new 'reading nest' chair, and holding some of her school things



one of her birthday gifts, a croched my little pony, (unfortunately for my kids, my nerdiness comes through for their birthdays) it makes a nice sleeping-companion



maybe, just maybe the pez isn't the best present in the world, but it's close, and it's the best shot i have of afton's face

she also got some new clothes, some toys (polly pocket, barbie, puzzle-books, legos, etc), and her chair, seemed like a pretty good haul.

she requested an ice cream cake, and i didn't get any pictures of it except this one, but it was cute and very very tasty!

evidentally i also didn't get any pictures of her shirt, it's cute too,

reading 'birthday girl' in different color letters and sparkles

september pictures and update

it seemed like september flew past! i haven't even done a post about afton's birthday (though i do have pictures, so i guess these posts are just in the wrong order)... but here's some of the memories we captured from september:



rayna and malachi being cute... i have lots of pics of these two clowns!



paul took pictures of the kids sleeping one night, they sure are sweet when they're asleep!



i shouldn't have cropped this picture, you should see all of rayna's 'most important things' that sleep on her bed with her! it's phenomonal... and a real pain when we need to wash the sheets ;)



rayna and malachi playing at the playground one day before rayna's school started



all dressed up for hispanic day at school, ironically, she's the ONLY white kid in her class... and she was one of only a small handful of kids that dressed up... admittedly, we don't have the best costume, but it's adorable and we tried :)



how do you play trucks in the house? with beans of course! chi originally dumped the last of the beans out in the living room one day, but i thought limiting them to a cookie sheet was a better idea, turned out to be a great activity that kept the kids busy for the better part of a week!



this one is from a school project afton did, an 'all about me' poster that included a lot of her favorites, instead of just putting pictures of all her favorite foods, we managed to scrape them all out of the fridge on leftover night once, and she was in alt! sweet potatoes, tomatoes, meatballs, and apple juice!

it's been a little bit of a struggle for us to get back to a regular functioning schedule with school and everything, though we hit a rhythm pretty easily... there's just too many things that weren't getting done to my satisfaction *chores* but i think we're slowly working around to a better balance, despite some of pauls schedules and my projects and afton's homework...

in quick re-cap, paul's working like a crazy man finishing up all his application stuff for his internship, there are 28 sites he's applying for, so we can say we will definately live somewhere in the US next year, but that's about all we can narrow it down to (if anyone interested in knowing more about the sites, send paul or me an email or give us a call, and we'll tell you about the possibilities in your neck of the woods ;)

i'd been teaching piano lessons, but my piano broke and is not repairable so that's kind of on hold and i'm getting ready to run a half-marathon... i'm actually really proud of myself not just for running it, but for wanting to!

afton's reading like crazy, which i love!--i have a teacher-conference next week to see just what she's up to in school. she had the ITBS (i think) testing last week to see what grade-level she's currently working at, though i don't know when we get those results. she loves riding the bus to and from school, though she doesn't get home til 4, so it's a long day for us all. she loves her teacher and science class, but isn't so excited about spelling (who can blame her?!)

rayna's really sweet and happy unless she's tired. she LOVES her school teacher too, and frequently plays school with malachi. she now knows all her letters including most o fthe lower case ones. she's happiest playing by herself on her bed (did you see the note about all the toys up there? it's totally worth the pain of sheet-changing because she loves it so much!)

malachi's 2. enough said, right? very, very 2. he alternates back and forth from devil-child to sweetheart faster than anyone else i've ever met (or so it seems). he loves 'helping' in the kitchen, as long as it's doing what he wants to do. his favorite toy is an old frying pan i gave him when i got a new one for my birthday. and his favorite place to stand is in front of the open fridge door. such a boy ;).

first day of school

again, it just occurred to me that i never posted first day of school photos! i put them on facebook, so i imagine most of you have seen them, but for the rest of our adoring fans, here's to the first day of school!

afton, kindergarten, and full of spunk ;)



and the backpack shot



i wouldn't let her ride the bus on the first day of school... i'm old fashioned that way, but this is the second day, and she's been doing great ever since, though the ride home is L--O--N--G!!!



and rayna's first day of preK, she goes afternoons, so she wasn't quite ready yet when afton left to pose together.



and her backpack shot, she's such a sweet girl! love this one :)



and i have to include this one, because it always makes me laugh! i have no idea what she was doing or saying, but i love it just the same!



and one more, with malachi who had his backpack all ready to go, and was very upset when he realized he still had to come home with mom and take a nap.



and one of rayna at school with her new teacher in the background...

Rayna wasn't too sure she wanted to stay at school, and she still regularly insists that three hours is a LONG time to be away from home, she'd rather watch a show while malachi naps, but she loves it just the same. she comes home almost every day and proudly announces that she's green or purple (they use a color system for behavor, green is where you start and you can go down to yellow or red, but if you have an exceptional day you can go up to purple) and can sometimes talk for an hour about all the fun things they did that day. i think she'll get used to it soon.
Afton started out from day one excited for school, and it's only gotten better! she has an AMAZING teacher that i already love, and she's pushing at all her boundaries in reading and math! (though her favorite is science). i'm really excited for both girls this year, i think having a great teacher is the key to making great students, so my girls are in good hands.

fourth of july

so i always post about the allen celebration for the fourth of july (remember last year, and previous years?) this year it was our big party with paul included just before we left for colorado, so we made him play with the kids a lot--i don't think he minded ;)

some big hits this year include: the firetrucks (as ALWAYS a huge hit), 

afton in the fire truck, she loves to pose!

the RVs, which we didn't get a picture of, there were 2 big RVs on display trying to get people to want to rent them for their summer trips, and they were NICE!

Fishing:

lots of fishing:



rayna was the only one to actually catch anything, and she may have had some help, but it was still pretty cute!



chi tried some fishing too, but it was mostly for daddy

we also loved free slurpees, we got multiples, jumping on the springless trampoline, and of course, more firetrucks!

we did stay for the fireworks, and afton's getting big enough now that she's not scared of them, and rayna did fine as long as she sat with me and kept her earplugs in and covered with her hands, and my hands... malachi actually did great, he called them pretty flowers, though he wasn't a fan of the loud noises either. i'd have to say this years was the best fireworks show i've EVER seen :) i was really impressed, and it fit with the music really well. all in all, i'm calling it a success!

family reunion

so i'm WAY behind with blogging, but since we had a relatively slow summer, i think that's okay :) and i'm catching up! now enough disclaimer, here's the pictures:

this summer i decided it was time to break out of texas for a little while, it was a hard decision because i knew paul wouldn't have the time to break away with us, but thanks to a little help from my family,

we made it all the way to colorado! my mom's amazing family planned a big family reunion near mesa verde state park, and we loved visiting with everyone, hiking, swimming, eating, playing, eating and visiting!

and of course we posed for a bunch of family pictures :)

probably the only big unplanned disapointment (cause really leaving paul home was the only major disappointment, but that was the plan...) was me forgetting my camera, so these are all gleaned from FB and others...
it was great to see so many cousins! and we LOVED going hiking in the mountains. we also thought the pueblo tours were pretty cool, but this little hike was one of our favorites, just getting out in the mountains was such a treat! thanks katharine's family for coming with us and letting me slip into lecture mode :)


miriam, katharine, vienna, malachi, me, afton, rayna, grace, jacob and seth

we also happened to be there over the fourth of july which means, FIREWORKS... which 2/3 of my kids hated... but they couldn't sleep through them either, so they sat with us out on the second floor porch/balcony of the hotel and watched them with us. it was a nice little show, though it was a little drizzly, and we weren't sure when it was actually ending... maybe you had to be close to hear the program that went with it? or maybe the rain was giving them trouble, either way, we were glad of the rain/drizzle, because there were numerous wildfires not too far from where we were, though it rained a little bit almost every day. 

wathcing hte fireworks, i know it's not a very flattering picture, but it struck me as funny... kodi (the dog) did great!

and last but certainly not least, this is one of my favorite pictures from picture day, 


THE AFTONs --anyone else see the family resemblance?

there are a surprising number of repeated names in my mom's family, my afton was not technically named for this cousin, but it's certainly a great name! and they're so cute! for the curious, some of the other repeats include : Joseph (3), Elise (2), Emma (3), Sara (2), Katie/Katharine (3), Nan/Nathane/Nicki (okay, technically they're all different, but named for the same person) (3), Andy (2), David (3--2+ a middle, + Uncle Dave, in memory), and i'm probably forgetting someone! but it was fun and there would have been even more repeats if everyone had been able to come :)