Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss is a very popular author in our house. I love being able to read his books to my family, especially to my biggest fan, Ryan.

On the weekend, Ryan will set up my room for story time and start calling for me in his charming way "KELS! COME ON! READ A BOOK!".

He brings all of his favorite cars and dinosaurs to tuck them under his blanket so they can hear the story, too.

Ryan's Baby

Crazy Man has a soft side for babies. He has taken full ownership of the collectible doll given to me as a baby by our great aunt Doe. He hugs it, carries it around, tells Mom when his baby is crying so she can help comfort it, and gives it a bottle. 

He brings it in the car (along with McKeen, Mater, and dinosaurs) for the ride to school.

We think he will make a very good daddy in hopefully 30+ years.

We think he has a best friend in Maggie at school. Mom was talking to her Mom and they agreed it was a good match in case they want to get married in the future. The teachers told Maggie's Mom that Ryan was "a really good boy" and "very sweet". Mom found that reassuring, because they always tell her he is "high energy" and "lots of fun", which is usually code for crazy maniac. We know he is a loving, big hearted crazy maniac. The proof is right here.   

Confessions of A Big Sister

Mom found this in a pile of papers on her desk.

Ryan's Basket

Having an entertaining little brother in the house is really fun.

Like when he decides to have a camping party in his "basket". He demands an "ice cool water", his favorite blue blanket, and the "boat blanket", then dictates exactly how he wants us to set it up. Then he says "you go bye bye" so he can get some sleep.

Best Fred

I have a new BFF- she has been my favorite new friend in my Kindergarten class. What's crazy is that she lives right around the block from me! Mom and I were walking Maggie one afternoon when she came running out into the street to hug me. 

This weekend she walked over to my house for a cupcake decorating play date.We even let Ryan join the fun when he woke up from his nap. He likes her, too. He couldn't understand why we didn't want to play with him, or why we took our color pencils and paper into the laundry room to hide from him and Dad.

She drew me a picture when we walked back to her house.  It's awesome:

Animals On Shirt

We love hearing Ryan's raspy voice and accent, especially when he says things like "I'm not crazy. I'm so funny!", or when he gets mad at Mom and says "I want you go bye bye.". We finally caught him on video describing his T-shirt: Animals On Shirt. We love the end when he names McKeen and Fillmore.

Monday Milkshakes

Here is another example of Mom nailing her quest to be Super Mom by giving us chocolate milkshakes. We like to celebrate Mondays with milkshakes. It's just another example of how she is falling behind in modern competitive parenting. What we should be drinking is a "clean", gluten free, organic, dairy free, freshly juiced beet and kale slushy with probiotics. Instead, we get frozen chocolate poison for an after school snack.

 Let's recap some of our 2013 New Year's Resolutions to see how we're doing:

• Make a weekly meal plan that helps us Eat A Rainbow of nutritious fruits and veggies.
• Limit boxed macaroni and cheese to one night per week.
• Same limit for chicken-nuggets-that-may-not-really-be-chicken.
• Stop filing all of those adorable Weelicious recipes under "Sh*t My Kids Won't Eat".

 We're doing well with the Rainbow- just last week we got blue lollipops! Mom says that in life, it is important to count your victories. 

Ryan's Fort

Ryan's new favorite game is hide and seek. He loves to hide in his fort with McKeen, calling out "Knock knock! Who's there?" until somebody looks for him: Ryan's Fort.

Flu Shots

It's that time of year, again, when Mom marches us, terrified, into the doctor's office for another horrible painful experience that involves needles. She tries to ease my anxiety with the promise of candy and explaining how her flu shot "only hurt a little". The good news is that this year we are both old enough to do the FluMist nasal spray vaccine!

It may seem strange that we took pictures of Ryan getting his vaccine. It's just that we think everything he does is hilarious because he is so intense. Like when the nurse asked him to sniff the spray up his nose, he gave a super obedient snort.

  Then he immediately shouted his demand to Mom: "I WANT A LOLLIPOP!". Even our nurse got a laugh out of his natural comedic timing.

Bubbles

Is there anything in the world better than a bubble bath?

Or a bare booty in the shower?

I love a good bubble bath, especially on Movie Night, when I can snuggle up on the couch afterwards with Mom and Dad.  

Mom said when I was a baby they would give me a warm bath at night and I would curl up just like this in my Boppy.

This is what a sweet, tired girl looks like on Dad's weird iPad camera.

McKeen

There must be a program in boy DNA that makes them love cars, trucks, tractors, and school buses. And dinosaurs. Our favorite boy loves all of these, and he tries to carry around as many as his tiny arms can balance. Lately he has been very attached to Lightning McQueen ("McKeen"), and likes to keep him and a companion for the day, one car in each hand.

His teacher lets him bring 2 cars into class in the morning to play with on the carpet that looks like a race track. He starts confirming this at the crack of dawn every day when he wakes up. "Hi Mama! I'm ready to get up! I want McKeen! I'm gonna take McKeen to the carpet?".

When we get to school he runs straight up to his best friend, Maggie. She usually squeals "RYAN!" as he hands her his second car. They immediately "race" the cars along the carpet, table, shelf, and cabinets. Lightning McQueen has become so important to our daily lives that when he went missing on Saturday morning Dad went to Target to get a new one. He saved the day, and got to see pure joy on Ryan's face as he introduced Mater to New McKeen. 

Future Teacher

Big Kid School seems to be working well for me. I love following rules and I take pride in doing good work. At home I like to pretend I am the teacher and set up class pictures like this one, or hold a clipboard and order Ryan to be my pretend student. He's my class clown, as you can see in his photo bomb here.

 

Mom and Dad had their first parent teacher conference this week and were thrilled with all the nice things Ms. Buckley had to say. She said I was shy and basically silent for the first 3 weeks of school, until I came out of my shell, and now I won't stop talking! I tell my friends stories about Ryan, my weekend activities, stuff I see on the news, books I read the night before... I basically talk about anything and everything. She said my classmates all gather around to listen to me and love it.

We do journal entries in our math and science composition books at school, which gave me the idea to do a personal journal at home. I like to write 3 statements from the day with nice illustrations. For example, the first one is me at school on awesome red on the behavior scale. And the bottom one is my project from art class: an animal rainbow with Maggie and Moxie walking over with a ladybug and butterfly. Mom likes this one because it reminds her of Moxie on the Rainbow Bridge.