trouble!

Anyone want to take a guess at why this lil' girl is in trouble with me? (I say me, because Daddy thinks its funny)

Need a hint... 

oh you need another one? Here is her trashcan

 

You guessed it, Parker CUT HER OWN HAIR! One of my friends said, "at least she knew to clean up after herself." Actually there was lots of paper on top of the hair...cleaning up or hiding the evidence? There is some Barbie hair mixed in there too!

When I asked her why she did it, she said "because I wanted my hair to be like my American Girl Doll."  Good answer Parker!

We will be going to the kids hair cutting place in the morning to see what we can do! At least she wears her hair up 99% of the time, so it can be somewhat camouflaged!

Kyle was surprised she hadn't done it sooner!

Kegan is off to First Grade

How hard is it to believe that our lil' guy is a first grader?
Meet the Teacher
Last Thursday night was Meet the Teacher night.  Kegan had a certain teacher in mind that he was hoping to get (I was hoping he would get her too.) We showed up to the school and went to the first grade hallway. We looked at the list, and sadly, he didn't get who he/we were hoping for.

Kegan pointing to the list (this is the, "Mom I don't want to pose for a picture look!)

 

We proceeded to the room, to meet his teacher, and check out the classroom. He was happy to see two of his friends from kindergarten in his class!

first pic with the new teacher, Ms. Owen 

Kegan found his name plate 

First Day

We decided that Kegan needed a little more responsibility this school year. So, the weekend before school started, we went to the store and got Kegan his very own alarm clock, for his bedroom. We then sat down and made a list of the expectations for each morning.  (In the past, he was know to piddle around in the morning.) He is in charge of getting up when his alarm goes off, and turning it off. He also needs to get dressed, brush his teeth, put gel in his hair (he decided on that one), put his shoes on & tie them, finally, he is expected to turn off his light and his bathroom light and come downstairs to take his medicine & eat breakfast.  As of day 3, he has done an amazingly great job at all the morning "chores". He did realize on the first day, after putting on his brand new tennis shoes, that he forgot how to tie his shoes...I guess he wore flip flops too much this summer :)

Back to school breakfast....how handsome is he??

 

 Ready to go in, with teacher gift in hand! 

a little sucking up won't hurt, right?



the crew that walks or rides bikes to school together! 

In his seat, ready for his first day! And a little love for sister!

Yes, that is his backpack.

Yes, it might possibly be the most hideous backpack sold this year.

Yes, I let him pick it out himself (with no persuasion from mom)

And Yes, it is not monogrammed  (somehow monogram didn't seem to fit the style of the backpack.)

 

This is Mommy letting go of full control (as hard as it may be)

 

Each day Kegan has come home raving about how much he likes his teacher (yay!) and all the wonderful things that happened that day. ex. "We got three handful of marbles in the jar today!" "My teacher has a sweet voice!" "My teacher is really nice!" "My teacher smiles at me when she is across the room!"  So I guess, even though we didn't get the teacher, we thought we wanted, it turned out better than we could have hoped for!

 

 

After the first day of school I said, "Kegan do you want a peanut butter sandwich again for lunch?" He relied, "Oh yes, I really love the peanut butter sandwiches!"I go to make his lunch and open his sandwich box to find this

Oh, wow, it is very apparent that you LOVE the peanut butter sandwich!

 

It turns out that he does LOVE the peanut butter sandwich he just didn't have time to finish, you know, with all the socializing! First day of school...he makes friends very quickly!

(notice I did get to monogram the lunchbox with my new favorite font!)



 



Parker's First Sleepover

Parker has two very best friends, that live on our street. They are perfect together. They are all the same age. They love to play babies, dress-up, put on make-up paint their nails, ride their bikes. It is so cute to see them together. They will get together and play all day rotating houses throughout the day!

Parker and Allie did a little in home dance class together this summer. It was every Tuesday for an hour and they had lots of fun. I think Parker's most favorite part was picking out which dance outfit she would wear each time.  Last Thursday they had a little recital to show what they had learned!


Parker and Allie

 

This fall, Parker and Elizabeth are going to be on the same soccer team.  Elizabether's dad is the coach and makes soccer practice really fun!!

Elizabeth and Parker

 

 

 

 So last friday night, we decided to let the girls have their very first sleepover! They were SO SUPER EXCITED! They had so much fun and were so cute!

The sleepover started with a little dress up

Then after dinner the girls made thier own ice cream sundaes. They spent way more time decorating the sundaes than they did actually eating them. They took a couple of bites and were full!

Pajama Time!

seriously, how cute are they?

Time to paint our nails and toes...yes they insissted on doing it themselves. I offered to do it for them, but they wanted to do it by themselves.

final product..almost salon quality!

getting ready to go to sleep.

 Chocolate, sprinkle-covered donuts for breakfast the next morning, Elizabeth didn't like donuts so she didn't join the girls for breakfast!

 

All three girls did a great job! The only problem is that the sleepover monster has been created. They are already asking to have another sleepover.

In case you were concerned about Kegan, he had a sleepover with Allie and Elizabeth's older brothers at another house!

 

New York trip to visit Aunt Karrie

 
At the beginning of August we were able to go on one last trip before school started, to visit Aunt Karrie, and see her new house. Daddy didn't get to join us, because he had to work but Mimi, Kegan, Parker and I got to go. Mimi came in town on Wednesday early afternoon, we were able to go visit my friend Courtney's new baby and get some shopping in before leaving town.

The Stelmazewski Family lovin' on baby Grace!

Thursday morning, we got up and headed to the airport. We got coffee and donuts and boarded the plane according to plan. We arrived in Newark, NJ about 2:15, our short flight to Albany (where Aunt Karrie lives) was scheduled to leave at 4:15. I started getting emails saying that our flight was delayed and our gate was changed. After 4 delays and 3 gate changes our flight GOT CANCELLED! I had never had a flight cancelled before, especially with 2 tired kids who just couldn't wait to see Aunt Karrie. Parker had a full on melt down, crying on the floor because she "just wanted Aunt Karrie." After assessing the situation we agreed the best plan would be to ride a train to Albany. We went to find out about our bags, they told us that they were already on their way to Albany and were most definitely NOT in Newark. So about 8:50pm we head out to get to our train. This Texas girl has not ridden many trains in her life (not even one that I can think of?!) Long story short, the first train we were on was the wrong one, we were supposed to be on Amtrak and we were on New Jersey Transit. Luckily, we figured that out pretty quickly and were able to get off on the first stop and try again. After two additional train rides we got to Albany at 2:20 a.m. (thanks Uncle Kevin for picking us up even though he had to work the next day!) Uncle Kevin even looked up the closest 24hr Wal-Mart to his house so we could stop and buy tooth brushes and other necessities, since we didn't have luggage. Well right on track with perfect day, we pull up to the 24hr Wal-Mart at 2:45am and there is a big sign on the door that said, "we will be closed from 2a.m.-5a.m. tonight" Of Course! We went to CVS (Spent twice as much as we would have at Wal-Mart) and then to Aunt Karrie's house to go to sleep!

airport with Mimi

We only get donuts on special occasions in the Stelmazewski Family!Parker only eats the frosting and sprinkles off hers. Kegan went all in with the Oreo Donut filled with frosting...Gag!

Ready for Take-off (when the day was going as planned)

Parker happy in the airport!

Parker crying beacsue she just wants aunt Karrie!

Train station...Kegan is super excited about the whole adventure!

Parker HATED the loud noises of the train.

Another first..Grape Crush Soda....gag again!

Kegan claimed he was going to stay up ALL NIGHT, but finally on the train, he gave in to sleep!

Parker had no trouble sleeping on the train

After a short night sleep, breakfast in Aunt Karrie's beautiful kitchen! Luckily, Aunt Karrie works for a bank so she has LOTS of Trustco Bank shirts for us to sleep in.  We didn't get our luggage untill Saturday about 4 pm.

LOVE Uncle Kevin

Kegan was so in love with the basement. And climbing.

And Uncle Kevin's workout rings (fresh off the Olympics, which Kegan was obsessed with watching)

Parker sporting Aunt Karrie's shirt!

After finally getting our luggage, we went to the Saratoga Race Track and introduced K & P to the thrill of gambling! Kegan loved it when he was winning and hated it when he was losing!

He especially hated it when the 3 horses Parker picked to to show got first, second, and third place! 

Kegan and Parker's all time favorite thing to do in New York is to go to the Saratoga bowling alley, where they have a huge ball play house, bumper cars and oh yeah bowling. 

The next day, we got up bright and early, to go to New York City. Aunt Karrie (conveniently) had a work family day trip to the city. So we were able to ride on nice charter bus with a DVD player!

Once we got to the city, the girls and boys split up. The boys went to FOA swartz and then went to lunch.

On the way to the Giant American Girl store, Parker got to ride in a Taxi for the first time!

Aunt Karrie bought Parker her first American girl doll that looks a lot like her!

 

Mimi bought her some fun new clothes and accessories for her doll!

Next, we went to the Broadway musical Spiderman Turn off the Dark. the show was SO GOOD!

a few pics in the park before heading back to Albany

seriously, how blessed am I with these two??

 

Making S'mores in Aunt Karrie's backyard.  Picture is very blurry because my camera was a different setting and I couldn't figure out what was wrong for a very long time!

Parker wanted her hair and lil' Parker's hair fixed the same. (Kyle thinks it is creepy when the girl and the doll look alike!)

One day, we went to the Six Flags Amusement Park, The Great Escape!

watching a magic show after lunch

Mommy forgot to pack Parker's bathing suit so she had to wear her dress in the water...oops!

cold after the water park...wearing Aunt Karrie's jacket

The Canyon Blaster, their favorite ride (roller coaster) of the day!

Back to the bowling alley!

Getting back home from New York was just as challenging as getting there. Our flight was delayed several hours but that was ok because we had a 3 hour layover in Chicago. Our flight from Chicago to Dallas was scheduled to leave at 9:23, we landed in Chicago at 9:20. We hurried off the plane and they told us we were changed to a different airline, of course it was also a different terminal. We hurried ourselves across the airport just to find out that the flight had been delayed until 12:50 am! At 11:12 we found out we were not booked on the 12:50 flight! But since it was such a late flight there were plenty of seats on the flight and we were able to get on it BUT of course that means our luggage would not be on that flight! Daddy drove to the Dallas airport an hour early to find our luggage! He picked us up and we got home at about 3:30...Daddy had to work the next day and Mimi had to go BACK to the airport to get on her flight to go back home! I am pretty much done with flying for a while!!

Parker was a great flyer (on the first flight)

sitting in the airport WAITING....we got very good at WAITING

Again Kegan excited about the adventure. AND the later into the night the adventure, the better in his book.

still waiting in the airport

He couldn't stay awake any longer!