JR's 5th Birthday Party

We had JR's party today at our house. It was a success. I think as much as a 5 year old could ask for. JR loves Cars, so we had a Cars theme. Eight little kindergarteners showed up at our house for crafts, games, cake, and prizes. James was the game coordinator and led the 5 year olds in "Pin the lightening bolt on Lightening McQueen", builders and bulldozers (where the kids have to race to knock down or set up cones), and a treasure hunt. JR was so cute with the treasure hunt. All the kids were digging into the treasure when they found it and JR was so fair and took only one of each item while other kids had handfuls of loot. What a sweet kid. I think he had a lot of fun though. After dinner we had more cake for dessert and more presents from Mom and Dad. What a day.

Our Cars decorations

The party gang

The cake

Builders and Bulldozers game

Things I've been meaning to post about

I know I have neglected the blog. Even though I said I would try to keep it more up to date than my attempts at JR's webpage, things get busy. First it was the move, then work, then daycare, then illnesses. One thing leads to another and sooner than I realize it has been months since I've posted. You have been missing out on updates of some major milestones. So here is a couple of updates:

JR is in kindergarten!

JR's entrance into kindergarten went pretty well; as good as I could have expected. He wasn't overly excited, but seemed fairly confident about going. He didn't complain and maybe once mentioned in passing that he didn't want to go. But amongst all the changes that were going on with us, he did well. On his first day, we dropped Tristan off at daycare and James and I took JR to school. JR got to ride his bike to school and James and I stood and waited while JR stood in line to be led into his classroom. JR gave us a couple tight hugs, the kind where he was reluctant to let go, but blew us some kisses and requested that we walk along with him as the line was led into the classroom. We followed him toward the door, waving the whole way, until he was inside. When we picked him up he still seemed neither happy or sad about it, but ok. For several weeks I would take him to school and send him to line up in front of his classroom, get the tight hug, then follow him toward the door waving all the way until he was greeted by his teacher and entered the room. He made friends, but slowly. Now JR is enjoying school, making friends, and as time goes on I get to hear more and more about what goes on inside the kindergarten classroom. I even got to go on JR's first field trip with him. And next week I get to go to the parent/teacher conference and find out how he is really doing.

JR was excited about being able to ride his bike to school.

He doesn't look overly excited standing in line waiting to go into class.

Heading into class he was ok.

This is JR coming out of class, not the happiest but he was ok with it.

Tristan is crawling!
A little before he was seven months old, Tristan got up on his hands and knees, and a few days later he was making his first crawling steps. I think this was all motivated by the crawler babies at his daycare, but he learned fast. It went from hands and knees, to "stepping" forward with his hands and getting stuck, to full on crawling with in the time frame of a week of so. Now, of course at nine months, Tristan is crawling all over the place. He has now moved on to pulling himself up on everything. This is making in more and more difficult for JR to keep his toys away from Tristan. Poor JR doesn't have a chance.

JR encouraging Tristan to make his first crawling attempts.

Happy Halloween!

I know I haven't posted in a long time. But hopefully I will do some catching up soon. In the meantime, I will post our Halloween pictures.

JR had lots of fun for Halloween. He had a "Harvest Celebration" at school where they all dressed up as scarecrows and had a party where they made pizza and played games. Then in the afternoon, I had the nanny drop the kids off at my work where we were having a big celebration and JR and Tristan got to see all the aisles and cubes decorated for Halloween and have some pumpkin pie. In the evening of course we went trick-or-treating. JR and Tristan were matching lions. JR really had a dragon costume for this year, but since Tristan had a lion costume, JR wanted to wear his lion costume from last year to match. We just went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. After about 10 houses, JR stated that he had enough candy and was ready to go home. At home we had fun checking out all his candy and passing out candy to tricker treaters. JR got to skip a bath and stay up late. Tristan wasnt' all that interested in the festivities. I think he was a little confused about why we dressed him up in funny clothes and then went around to peoples houses at night instead of going to bed. He was pretty tired, but he was cute.