Happy 6th Birthday!

My girl,
How has it been 6 years since you blessed our lives? It seems like yesterday the doctor was handing me the most beautiful little baby bundle I had ever seen.  I look at you every single day and I am amazed by your beauty.  You are the sweetest most thoughtful little child I have ever met. You care about your family, your pets and your friends. You are hysterical. You make up the silliest songs all the time. Daddy and I just laugh at the things you say.

I know you have been nervous about turning 6 because you are worried you won't be my baby anymore. Sweetheart, you will be my baby when you are 6, 26, 56...forever.  You will always be my baby.

This has been a huge year for you. You started your first year of school and it had been so much fun to watch you learn, create new friendships and be part of a wonderful school family.

I can not wait to see what your future holds. I hope you know no matter where life takes you, daddy and I will be here for you every step of the way.

I love you more than you will ever know my Tinksie.

Love,

Mommy

Alex,

It's been such a wonderful year for you!  You started school and made new friends, grew into an avid little reader and so much more.  Your happy smile and fun loving inquisitive personality light up the hearts of everyone you know. 

Each and every day you make me smile and make me even more proud to be your daddy.  We get to do so much together and I can't wait to see what else we have ahead. 

I always thought that being a daddy meant I had to teach you things. And while that's true, what I didn't know was how much you would teach me. Because of you I laugh more, I look at the world in a whole new way and most of all you have taught me what is important. 

I love you Alexandra Rae and no matter where you are or what you do for the rest of your life, your daddy will be right there with you...even if you can't see me.

Summer, week 1

We hit the ground running the first week of Summer!  

Alexandra loves to be in the kitchen so we've started having little cooking sessions where she has to read me the recipe, help measure ingredients then finally enjoy the things we make! It's been so much fun. So far we've made strawberry jam, hummus and mini muffins!

We spent the rest of our week going to the library, playing on the slip and slide with friends and going on family bike rides each evening. 

At gymnastics Alexandra received a medal for all of the hard work she's been putting into her advanced class! I can not believe our girl has been doing gymnastics for almost 4 years!

We ended the week by having a sleepover with one of her sweet friends from school. The girls had so much fun running around the backyard with sheets over their shoulders like Elsa capes!

Red, White and Blue

This sweet girl of mine loves everything red, white and blue. I think it's because she knows her birthday falls 5 days after the 4th of July.

This year she helped me make a cute wreath for the door. She asked me months ago if we could make one for her birthday, but she wanted it to look like a flag for July 4th. I love the way it turned out!

I also found cute little popcicle stick flags on Pinterest so after a quick look in our craft closet I found all of the supplies we needed. 

These little flags may be my favorite thing ever. They turned out so cute!

They look adorable in the planters on our porch along with the wreath!

Last Day of School

This, like so many other post, is long over due!  We are 2 weeks into summer and it is already flying. 

Alexandra had such a fabulous kindergarten year! I can't believe how fast it went by. We absolutely loved her teacher, Miss Krueger. I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer in the class room once a week so I was able to get to know each child and really get to know Miss Krueger. 

Alexandra just thrived at school. She is reading well beyond her grade level so I'm making sure we keep reading over the summer. 

Alexandra made so many sweet friends this year. I have just loved all of the kids and parents from her class. We had hopes that her class would loop since several kindergarten classes do that at her school. (Looping is where the kids and teacher stay together from K to first grade so they already have a relationship, the teacher can get right back to teaching since she has first hand knowledge of their levels and they know all of the class rules and expectations.)  Miss Krueger warned us over Christmas break that she and her boyfriend (who loves in Louisiana) were getting serious and looking at their next steps for the future and sure enough, they became engaged this spring. We were so happy for her but a little sad at the fact we knew the class would not be looping with her.  So this summer our beloved Miss Krueger is moving to Louisiana. Happy and sad. 

Knowing she was leaving made the last day of school a little harder. Alexandra was very sad she won't see Miss Krueger next year but we've promised her she can email, text or write her letters any time she wants. 

My girl is excited and a little nervous for 1st grade. She is worried she won't know anyone in her class. I assured her between her 15 other classmates and friends she made in the other 5 kindergarten classes there is a very good chance she will know at least one other person in her class. Now we are just waiting until mid August to see who her teacher will be. Miss Krueger taught 1st grade at our school for 6 years and loves every single 1st grade teacher and said we can't go wrong with any of them so it relaxes this mommys mind a little!

Alexandra and her Miss Krueger

Spring Break (part 1)

Alexandra had her first real Spring Break last . Josh took off the entire week...it was fantastic! 

We stayed home the first weekend then woke up bright and early Monday to head to Galveston.  While we were getting ready Alex asked if we could stop at the American Girl store. 

Once we arrived in Galveston we had lunch then headed to the Railroad Museum. My girl loves trains! I love that she can share that with her daddy :)

From there we went mini golfing. Alexandra said that was her favorite part of the trip! 

After golfing we relaxed in our hotel room for a little while. Alex had fun playing with her new AG stuff. 

That evening we went back to The Strand for dinner. We had a yummy meal at Willie G's. We talked Alex into sharing a dessert with us instead of getting we own!  It was enormous and delicious! 

We left the following day and spent some time in Houston before we made it home. 

Weekend Recap!

My parents came in town this weekend! Josh and I had big plans for a date night Saturday and massages Sunday...unfortunately Josh wasn't feeling well :( 

My parents took Alex to dinner Saturday while we stayed in, ordered Chinese and watched the Olympics. While it wasn't what we originally planned it was nice to stay in!

Everyone slept in Sunday morning! My parents and I took Alex to Michael's while Josh rested.  It was so much fun walking around and filling our carts!

We found these fabulous tiaras!

When we were done, my dad dropped my mom and me off for massages. I figured since they were alread booked, I couldn't let them go to waste and my mom was happy to step in! My sweet dad took Alex to lunch and then to Best Buy where she helped him pick a new phone case. Apparently he picked a boring black case even though she showed him every colorful case they had!

We spent the rest of the weekend home, hanging out and watching the Olympics. 

This brown blanket gets lots of love in our house!

This morning Alexandra slept until 8:30 then made her way to the couch to snuggle and watch the end of Cars. Josh was in heaven!

Since we've been watching the Olympics every night Alex has started learning the different names and abbreviations for the contries. Today she worked on her Olympic "dots" and flags for the countries! 

Valentine's Day 2014

We had such a fun Valentine's Day! I love how kindergarten celebrates every holiday!  My sweetheart wanted to take a little something to her teacher!  

At school they had an ice cream sundae party. 100 five to six year olds, two rows set up buffet style with topping equals happy kids!

My little valentine!

That evening we planned a super romantic night with 2 other couples and their daughters. Nothing says romance like the bowling alley!

We had so much fun bowling boys vs. girls!  The kids were soo sweet cheering each other one at every turn! We are to thankful to have friends we love and kids who all get along!

My #1 Valentine! 

Dashy Cat

This is how we rang in the new year...with this little kitty checking everything out!  We were leaving our house to head to a friend's for the evening when a little cat ran out from under our car. I told Josh and Alex to get in the car while I tried to guide the cat to the side yard and leave it. The little sucker was fast and every time I tried to run away she was right there with me. We ended up taking her to our friends house with us. 

We sent an email to our neighborhood and no one claimed her. She was very clean and calm so she clearly wasn't a wild cat. The next morning we decided to put it back outside hoping she would go back home. She stayed on our porch for a while then disappeared. It was around the same time Alex noticed the kitty was not around. We had huge tears when we told we what we did so Josh walked the neighborhood looking for her. He never found her. I went out a bit later and heard rustling in the lot beside us and out came kitty. I went inside and showed Josh. He told me to get her and call our friends to see if they could watch "our cat" until we got back in town!!!

We picked her back up Saturday evening and have been getting her adjusted to our house. Cooper adores her and loves to try and play with her tiny little bell balls we bought her. We have been calling her Dashy. Sweet little Dashy went to the vet today and they confirmed she is in fact a she, is not micro chipped and is 5-6 months old.  So it looks like we have a new family member. She is fitting in quite well! We all already love our little Dashy Pie Stafin!

Happy 2014

This year will be my year to be a better blogger. My post may not be lengthy, but they will be more frequent! I find myself with at least 45 minutes to an hour in the carpool line every single day. Why not use some of that time to blog?

We had a fantastic, American Girl filled Christmas! 2 days after Christmas we had a trip to the AG store, saw Shin Yun in Houston, then took Alexandra to see Pirate and Princess with another sweet family!

We rang in 2014 with the James family...and also grew our family by one.

Meet Dashy Pie Stafin, the lucky little kitten who found us on New Year's Eve. 

We are currently celebrating our 3rd Christmas with Josh's family and I'm savouring the last few days of time off with the family. Josh took off the 2 weeks Alex was out of school. 

First Few Days

So far we are 3 days into kindergarten and I can already say I LOVE Alex's teacher. On Monday evening she emailed me a pic she took of my sweet girl. She also wrote a little about her first day. It made me feel so good to know her teacher took the time to email me, and every parent, so help settle nerves :) 

We continued with our milkshake tradition we started last year. I think it's one of my new favorite things. This year Josh joined us. It was so sweet to sit and share milkshakes with my two loves while Alex shared all about her first day of school. 

On her second day of school Alex told me she had to go to the nurses office. Poor baby got a nose bleed at school. :(

We have moved Alex's bed time from 8:30 to 7:30. She wakes up so tired. I know it's just because she is getting used to longer days at school. It feels so weird to put her to bed while it is still light outside. After her bath each night we snuggle on our bed for a little while and play games on the iPad together as a family. It's such a sweet little ending to our day. 

The one thing I am still trying to figure out is drop off and pick up. I've walked Alex into her kindergarten pod everyday so far. She has decided this morning will be the day she goes in alone!  It takes about 5 minutes to drive to her school and another 15 to actually get through the line to drop off. The afternoons are crazier. Parents seriously start lining up a little after 2 for carpool. School gets out at 2:55. I'm still playing with what time to get there. Yesterday I arrived at 2:30 and was so far back in line I wasn't even in the school zone. Its hard to tell in the pic but this is just the line waiting to turn into the school. Once you turn in, you still have to snake through the parking lot.  They actually have sheriffs out directing traffic every morning and afternoon.  By the time I had Alex in the car it was 3:15. I've heard it gets better as people get used to drop off and pick up, but I've decided for now I need to take a book with me and be used to spending 30-45 minutes waiting in line for pick up. 

First Day of Kindergarten

My sweet only child started kindergarten today. I had mixed emotions. She was so excited about it. At meet the teacher we found out she has 2 friends in her class. That was such a huge relief for this mama. We only knew a handful of kids at this school and we were lucky enough to get 2 of them in her class. 

From what I hear, her teacher is AMAZING! She has taught first grade in the past and is now teaching kindergarten. We know several children that had her and they only have positive things to say about her.

Alex's school is a pilot for different concepts they are looking to roll out to the whole district. One is very short tables with the kids sitting on the floor. So far Alex thinks it pretty cool! Her class has 16 kids. At her school several teachers "loop" with the children so they have the same teacher for kinder and first and they keep the same class mates. There is a very good chance that Alex's teacher will loop since she has experience in K and first. We are crossing our fingers this will be the case!

We kept a our tradition of going for a milkshake after school to talk about the first day. The first thing she told me was that she LOVES her teacher!  She talked non stop about her day, her friends, new friends she made and everything she did. I am so excited to see what the year holds for her!

Kindergarten Prep

Alexandra will start kindergarten in less than 1 week! We have been talking about school non stop and doing lots of things to get ready for school. School supply shopping, hair cut, lots of play dates with friends we won't be at school with and of course, supplementing her closet with school friendly clothes and shoes!

We received our invitation for meet the teacher so Friday Alex gets to see her actual class room for the first time, meet her teacher and hopefully see a few familiar faces in her class. Most of our friends are going to a different school than Alex, but she will have a handful of friends at her school so I'm hoping she will have at least one friend in her class. 

I can not believe my girl will be starting school Monday. I'm so excited for her but my heart aches a little every time I think about it.  I had grand plans of using this week to work on waking up early and getting Alex used to waking up before 8 so school won't be as hard next week but that plan flew out of the window. Instead we've had semi lazy mornings snuggling and enjoying our last week of summer. 

We met Alex's 4 year old teachers for lunch Monday along with a few friends from the class she won't be at school with. 

5 year checkup

Alexandra had her 5 year checkup today. At her 4 year checkup we talked about our families history with high cholesterol so Dr. Henderson decided at 5 we would start monitoring Alex's cholesterol. We discussed it with Alex and she was very anxious about having blood drawn.

The appointment started off great. She aced her hearing and vision test. She weighed 41.2 lbs and was 44.5 inches tall. She's grown 3 inches in a year!!!

Then it was time to have blood taken. Thankfully it was just a finger prick, but she did not take it well. We also had to get a urine sample. I'll just say getting a kid to pee in a cup...not easy.

We waited for her results and found out her iron counts are low. I need to make sure her vitamins have a good amount f iron in them. We also received her lipid panel. Her overall cholesterol was in a good spot, her bad cholesterol was a little bit high, her good cholesterol was low and her triglycerides were at an acceptable number. So her next screening will be at 9, unless he sees a need to do it sooner. Since she is active in many different activities and slender, he doesn't see a huge need to be concerned at this time. So to be proactive, we will make sure we stayed physically active and try to get omega fats in her! My poor girl with he bad cholesterol genetics :(

Happy 5th Birthday!

 

Dear Alex,

Here it is...your 5th birthday already.  It feels like just a month ago that I was carrying you around in your car seat, and now you're so close to starting school!

It's funny, you have hit an age that I can remember myself.  Each day is a new fun adventure and the smallest things make you giggle and smile.  In a way, it makes me sad to know you just keep racing ahead, growing older every second.  In another, it makes me so very happy and so proud to watch you grow.  And in even another way it makes me reflect and appreciate those tiny things that make you smile so much.  It's easy to lose sight of the small wonders we all see every day and without you I would miss them, I just know it.

Not a moment goes by that I'm not thinking of you and everything you mean to me.  I miss you when I'm at work, but I know that I'm there making sure you have the best possible life and that you never have a worry in the world.  I miss the days when you just sat there wide eyed and cooing at your "dada" but I look forward to the things we get to do every day and the things we have yet to do.

I love you Alexandra.  I have loved you from the moment I first saw you and you will never have a moment in your life where you are not loved completely, fully and truly by your daddy.

Happy birthday my sweet bunny.

XOXO - Daddy-O

My girl,

How are you already 5? The last five years seemed like they passed in a blink of an eye.  I can't believe this is the year you will start real school, spend the majority of your time with your friends and teachers away from me.  I cherish every single minute we get to spend together.

I have been so lucky to spend my days with you, watching you grow, playing with you and having you fill my days.  You are the sweetest little girl I have ever met.  You are so funny, caring and thoughtful.  I could just sit and watch you play and laugh forever.  I love hearing you sing in your sweet little voice from the back seat when we are in the car.

You have truly changed my life.  I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love you.  You complete our family in a way I never imagined possible.  You light up our house every day.  Every night when you go to bed, Daddy and I talk about how much we love you, how cute you are and how you crack us up all day long. 

You are my baby, you always will be and no one will ever love you as much as we do. 

I love you now, forever and always,

Mommy