First Grade

I have to start this with last night's humor. We've done Pants' room over the weekend (photos to follow). We have transformed the Tinkerbell green room of the other house into something more big-girl rather than baby girl. In doing so we have disappeared some Tinkerbell accessories. Here's last night's lament:

Pants: Mom. I miss my Tinkerbell 'what-time-it-is-inator'. (?!?)
Mom: You mean your Tinkerbell clock??
Pants: Yeah.

Good thing school started this morning. Seriously. What time it is-inator?? As we were reading our book last night a paragraph came up about the main character looking at his alarm clock. I substituted "what time it is-inator" for "clock" and got the funniest look from her. A bit sheepish and totally funny.


Little Miss Pants is back this year for her first grade year at Liberal Lakes Elementary. I cried again this year after dropping her off. She just looks so small to be left alone in that classroom. Her teacher is so sweet, softspoken and Pants missed the first few words she said as she was so busy getting to her desk (she has a desk!). It was all I could do to not sneak back into school after I left to peek at how she's doing.

I didn't go overboard this year with the pictures like last year. In retrospect I should have. Here's Miss Pants in our front yard. She picked out her outfit the night before (thanks Memaw for the new plaid skirt! Super cute with the Little Miss Sunshine shirt!)


(I love this picture and am thrilled I remembered to take it). And of course the love on her hand in case she misses me during the day. I'm sporting a matching heart on my hand to remind me of her in case I miss her. I think I'm in need of the reminder more than she at this point.

Little mommy-daughter bonding before heading for school.

Great Minnesota Get-Together

My birthday was spent at the Great Minnesota Get-Together, otherwise known as the State Fair. It's become a bit of a tradition to do birthday breakfast at the Fair. Fresh hot mini-donuts (although we had to find another donut booth this year once it was revealed that all the proceeds from our usual booth went to support candidates shall we say on the other side of the fence); coffee, coffee and more coffee, cheese curds, Pronto pups, and maybe a beer or two. Just 'cuz it's my birthday and all.
We have gone to the State Fair almost every year since bringing Pants home. I had never been in my years prior living in Minnesota, but once you have a child, apparently it's inevitable. Aside from the birthday breakfast tradition, others have emerged. For example: taking Pants' picture at the corn-cob statute to mark's her growth over the years. Some moms have baby books, I have pictures that mark height by corn kernels.







2005 - Almost 3 years old. 5 kernels high counting the antlers on her John Deere Visor.














2007 - Almost 5 years old. 7-kernels high.





She'll appreciate this in the future, right?








2009 - Almost 7 years old. 9 kernels high with her 'fro. Oh and let's talk about the 'fro or Fair Hair as it's called. They said it took a little shampoo and conditioner to get it out. Flat out lied to me. Two days, two hours and two buckets of tears later her hair is back to "normal".


More pictures of the fair:

Camp Memaw

A rather long blog if you want to see all the pictures. There's video too! Ooooooh!

On Thursday, Pants made her annual pilgrimage to Camp Memaw. By herself. I cried this year, too. She wore a green shirt because, "It's Memaw's favorite color." All together now: "Awwww...."

As we started through security, the TSA Agent said that due to her cast she was required to have a little extra "wanding". I thought "okay, of course, let's hassle the kid with the cast" but was resigned to making it O.K. The wanding was actually a swab of her cast with the explosives pad then fed the pad through the machine. It lit up RED!! and BLINKING!! "That's interesting," I said. TSA assured me that it could be "just about anything" that set it off. I'm not sure if that's any assurance or not. If it's "anything" then how accurate is it for detecting what it's supposed to detect. Just sayin'.

The kind TSA agend explained to me that she would have to be frisked, patted down, and wanded. She was really nice about explaining it to me and to Pants, but the sight of her with her feet so wide apart to match the feet-prints on the mat was too much. Several business travellers behind me witnessed this display and were thoroughly (and rightfully in my opinion) offended by the sight. One guy asked, "Who do I write to about this!?" It is odd to see a 6 year old being patted down. She took it in stride, as she does much everything, and we carried on. Here she is at gate E5 after a grueling trip through security.

I joined in on Sunday afternoon so as not to miss my turn at Camp Memaw. We've been hanging with my sister and her two kiddos Lil Red and Tutus and it's been a blast. Reminds me of how quiet my life is.

I made the comment the other day that despite the fact that we are in Denver, Colorado, we rarely avail ourselves of all there is to do here - true confessions: we mostly just hang out, eat and drink. A good time is had by all.

This trip, in an effort to remedy this, we decided to "do something" and that something was the Denver Botanic Gardens. If you are ever in Denver you MUST visit. It's amazing!! They had this dinosaur exhibit which kept Pants and Lil Red busy searching throughout the Gardens for dinosaurs. We found them all!!

This is my first try at linking the Picasa album. I'll comment more on the pictures, but suffice it to say that every time we came upon a body of water, Memaw, Sister, and I were placing bets on whether or not Lil Red would be in the drink. Surprisingly he stayed dry!

Sister is presently teaching our children how to slide down the basement stairs in a sleeping bag into pile of pillows. I'm so proud... we used to do this at our home growing up; the legacy lives on. Any bets on if/when we end up at the Urgent Care just up the road from Camp Memaw?

Crap. Did I really film these sideways??? Sorry. You get the point.

Okay, it's 8pm and my sister just yelled at me that our children haven't eaten dinner because I'm blogging. Got to go.