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 :)

some of the rest of the summer...

so there's been a lot going on this summer, and a lot of it wasn't documented with pictures so i tend to forget to blog those things... here's the best i can do:

--afton reading a book to malachi: these 2 are best book buds, they love reading together, and afton's a lot more confident with him than with me

--science experiments: mixing food coloring into a plain cup of water and into one with baking soda in it, the baking soda-water creates a tornado effect while the plain water just slowly mixes in

try it at home, it's kinda hard to see in the double layer santa cup

--visiting cousins: hooray for cousin marcie for coming to visit us (even if we were just a stop along her way) we loved having all those extra kids for a night! and we would love to have you come back through too!!!


we especially love giant chunky babies!!!

--grandma williamson: we got a surprise phone call from grandma williamson one afternoon, and she was in tx! so we dropped everything and raced out to the airport to see her for an hour or so before her layover ended! what an exciting day! oops, no camera :(

--dadfest: this is a 5K that's especially geared for families (the weekend of father's day), unfortunately paul had to work, but the kids and i rode the train up to richardson early in the morning and i ran while they played with some friends, then we all played a bit more, enjoying free samples (frozen greek yogurt was a favorite), playing in the water fountains, and afton climbed a tall rock wall, i wish i'd timed her, she was that fast! and the kids got little bead necklaces that they loved.

the kids had a 100 yd dash, both girls did great! and i love that they get bibs too

--lake visit: fun spur-of-the-moment trip one day, and i forgot my camera :) but it was fun!

--father's day: the kids made paul a shirt for father's day with roads and buildings, etc all over the back, the point is he can lay down and they can drive cars all over him like a little kid-massage. he laughed, but he wore it on our family walk that evening :)

this one's not technically from father's day, but i thought it fit!

--Juliana's garden: my friend juli lives a little out in the country here on a little farm, and she has a big garden that was getting a little out of control, so she invited us to come help weed in exchange for some produce! yum! we had a blast, she has chickens and donkeys, and just recently passed on her peacocks (they were waking the entire family before 5 am!) but she gave us a couple bags of eggplant, tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers. it was all amazing, and the kids had a blast
also, ms juli is an artist, here's a link to one of her works, i think you may recognize the subject!

the kids had a great time playing with some old peacock feathers though!

--i mentioned before that jacob and wendy came to visit, they were actually cisiting grandma, but we finagled our way in so we got to see and play with them a couple times too! rayna was delighted that she and sophie had the same swimming suits, and we loved taking them to the arboretum too. unfortunately i didn't ever take pics of the 2 cute curly-headed blondies in their matching swim suits :) go pink!

--malachi got this great new card-table tent for his birthday, it's technically a little too big for our kid-sized table, but the kids don't mind! it's so cute and they love pulling it out.

--and this is a picture i took that really has nothing to do with anything, but it makes me think of grandpa williamson, so i have to include it



malachi was pouring over the train calander one day, he'd get excited on each page and point and yell "train!"

now that i think about it, i should post one more picture:
we made this yesterday:

that's right! a count down chain til school starts!!! eek!

(ps, i don't usually let my children run around dressed like that, but it still seems to happen more often than i care to admit)

ps again, fourth of july and family reunion still WILL come! promise!