Today was the In the Zone Pep Rally! Go Rockets!!! It totally rocked and the kids loved it, loved it, loved it! Unfortunately, most of the kindergarteners did not get to experience it. Will and Noah were lucky and had music during the Pep Rally. Since the music teacher was busy working the mic at the Pep Rally, they got to come during their music time. They thought it was really cool and had front row, center seats!
An old Cool Spring ritual of wrapping the teacher into a mummy made its way to Read-Pattillo. Here Audra, an awesome 3rd grade teacher, gets wrapped!

Here is Ethan waving his rocket. I sort of missed the rocket in the picture!
Here are the primary teachers, along with Sam, singing the zone song. Mrs. Jones, the music teacher who the boys adore, wrote the lyrics. The kids really got into it.
Here is Bryce, Mrs. Vaughn's son, waving his rocket for school spirit.
This is cutie pie Sammy, Mrs. Fernandez's daughter. Mrs. Fernandez is our fabulous art teacher.

The soccer season has officially started! Today was the draft for Ethan's age group. Since Chris is coaching, he had his first drafting experience as a coach. Before, all the boys were too young to have to participate in the draft. This season should be far more fun for Chris to coach. Ethan's finally at the age where they will have a better idea of what is going on out on the field.

Here is Chris in the midst of the draft.
Ethan enjoyed standing on the sidelines with all of the coaches. He and his friend, Spencer, put themselves in charge of getting the balls between drills.
Will and Noah were happy to get to kick the ball around while the draft was going on. (Noah had an interesting day at school. I involved locking himself in the bathroom to avoid going to class and then crying and burying his head when I dropped him off. Luckily, by PE time he was in much better spirits.)
While Chris was locked in the drafting room with the other coaches, I took the boys to Banana Split Republic for a treat. Ethan and Will both raved about the chocolate brownie flavor. Noah got vanilla and took about two bites.
What went down after the draft is better left undiscussed. Thankfully, I have Melissa to vent to. I will just say that Chris cut out all of my rockets for school without complaint!!!

We went to the beach last night so Chris and Melissa could jog. I rode my bike there and got there a little late thanks to this hold up...

Paige knew I was going home to do the Carmen Electra workout. She was showing me her best Carmen moves. I will tell you, they are better than my moves!

Noah was burying his feet. For some reason they spent most of their time burying feet.

Emma and Ethan chilling out!

This bird was quite brave. He was right next to us.

Here are Sophia and me taking a self portrait. Mike snapped this one.

Here is how it turned out.

Chris after his jog. I was kind enough not to post Melissa's picture. She was in her cool down phase.

After the beach we came home and polished off the rest of the delicious brownies left over from the pirate party and started the bedtime routine.

Noah was not at all thrilled with going back to school today. He kept saying that he wished that it were vacation and that he didn't like school. He hugged me a million times to delay my departure from his classroom. When I ask him what he doesn't like about school he has no explanation! I visit him everyday during lunch and he is in good spirits. I guess he gets over his school day blues quickly.

Last night we had a little pirate party. The kids put on a Pirate Adventure Dinner Show for the adults as our after dinner entertainment. I actually have some cute videos of the whole thing, however, Blogger's fancy new video feature is not working! So, here we go...

Here they are introducing the show.
Here they are eating their brownie sundaes. A nice "End of the First Week of School" treat.
Some "Pin the Pirate on the Treasure" fun.

Um, Melissa, it is not called "Pin the Pirate on the Wall."

Fridays are school spirit days... go Rockets!

We all had a great first week. Things have been busy, but that is sometimes a good thing. I'm looking forward to not hearing an alarm tomorrow morning! Will and Noah really like kindergarten. Mrs. Walton told me today that they have been lovely boys! Ethan has adjusted beautifully to second grade. Next week he will have his first 2nd grade spelling test and reading test.

We have decided to celebrate the close of the first week of school with a little pirate party... don't ask! We've got all of our pirate gear out and the boys are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the girls. All three boys already wanted to invite some friends from their classes as well. I suppose that is a good sign that they are making new friends.

Chris has to go out of town for work. He will be back late Saturday afternoon. So, the boys and I will get to chill out and relax in the morning. Ah...

(BTW... Mike and I designed the new school logo that you see above. Pretty awesome!!) Now if anyone can think of any good rocket chants, let me know!

All of our boys are officially public school kids! Will and Noah enjoyed their first day of kindergarten! Noah was nearly in tears when I left the room, but he bravely held it in. I peaked in the window 10 minutes later and he was happily chatting up Mrs. Walton. I, too, was nearly in tears. I went to my friend Donna's room and said the Pledge as a distraction. Will and Noah even had their first fire drill today!! Exciting stuff. I stopped by during lunch and said hi to the boys. They were giving away all of their dessert! I fixed the whole food sharing thing and said goodbye. I visit Ethan during lunch each day as well. He normally just tries to figure out what friends can home with us!

Here are Will and Noah with the lovely Mrs. Rosemary Walton.
Noah in his place with his bright shining face.
Will went straight to work with his new box of crayons.
Mrs. Walton already has their beautiful bears hanging in the window. It is their very first kindergarten assignment! Love it!

Today was Ethan's first day of school! He is a proud 2nd grader this year. His teacher is Mrs. Zois and he said that he had a fabulous first day. I went to visit him during lunch and he was in good spirits. This week is filled with diagnostic testing for me. I won't start groups until next week. Testing kids is fun. I enjoy the few opportunities to work one to one with kids.

Ethan and Mrs. Zois!
Chris has a soccer coach meeting tonight. He is planning on coaching Ethan's 8 & under team. Melissa is planning on coaching Will and Noah's 6 & under team. It should be a good season.

Well, it is officially the last day of summer break for Ethan! I think he is looking forward to starting school tomorrow. I'm excited to have the kids back tomorrow. Yesterday morning Melissa and I rode our bikes to the beach. It was very nice. We stopped at the new coffee shop on Flagler Avenue and were impressed. It is really cute inside and we got to sit down and relax with NO children! Melissa needed to relax after she crossed those big, scary grates on the North Causeway bridge! She says she was paralyzed with fear, however, she made it across both times so clearly her paralysis was only temporary. I went to get my haircut while the boys napped in the early afternoon. They stayed up late on Friday night and woke up at 6:20 to play with Paige and Sophia since they had spent the night. Saturday evening we went to the Art and Science Museum to see the laser pop show. It was a neat experience and I am now certain that none of our children are epileptic or they would have definitely had a seizure watching it! On the way home we stopped at Long Doggers for dinner. Ethan joined the foot long hot dog club. Will only got through a third of his and Noah didn't even attempt to join. He went with his staple, chicken fingers! When we got home the boys and I rode bikes to Blockbuster. Noah was complaining that we were going too fast at 5 mph! Needless to say, it was a long trip there. On the way home he stepped it up a notch and went a bit faster. Chris claimed that Melissa and I tried to kill Hanzie last night. He is still alive and kicking. We took him rollerblading with us. We didn't even take him a third of the way! Apparently he panted and left puddles of drool all over the house because he was so tired. He did sleep well last night and is still sleeping now!

Here we are at Long Doggers. I made Mike take a picture with his phone! I must note that our table was the OBX table and had a picture of a Brew Thru t-shirt on it.

We are in the midst of the traveling High School Musical 2 Party! The first third of the party was held at Bobbie's house. Melissa made some delicious party punch and got pizza for the kids. So, they swam up an appetite and had dinner there. After swimming, the party moved to Melissa's house. They watched the dance version of the original High School Musical and then ate some of the cool cake Mike made for the party. Emma has lots of her girlfriends over and after watching High School Musical 2, they are all going over to one of her friend's house for a sleepover. I felt bad for Sophia and Paige since they were going to miss out on the sleepover part so I offered for them to come over and spend the night here. I thought for sure they were going to hurt my feelings and choose the "girl party," but they decided to come home with us! They are all watching it right now. Sophia takes breaks to play with Chris and then heads back over to the TV. She has resorted to wrestling with Chris and have a light saber fight with him since none of the other kids will play with her. You see, they are all wrapped up in the movie.

Tonight we went to the beach to watch the lifeguard surf competition. The waves were pretty lame, but they managed to get up on them anyway. The boys played some soccer on the beach while they waited for it to start. The girls were there so I was able to see their fancy new haircuts and Sophia's beautiful new pierced ears! I biked to the beach and for the first time I got stuck at the draw bridge on my way home. Luckily I didn't have to wait the whole cycle since they were lowering it when I got to the top of the bridge, but I still had to wait a while. By the time we got home it was already bed time for the boys! Big Brother was on tonight and I was happy to see Dustin go! Ha! Right now I have Chris watching the 1970's made for TV movie, Sybil. You know, the one with Sally Fields. I personally love that movie and he has never seen it.

Mike snapped some pictures while we were at the beach. Here I am keeping Melissa entertained while she glows with her fancy new haircut! I'm going Saturday and I have no idea what to get done to it. I'm certainly ready for a change though!

I promise, Chris and I are just watching the lifeguards surf.

It has been a busy, but good start, to the new school year. Enough said about that! The boys are in a state of excitement mixed with anxiety about the new school year. Ethan finally visited his classroom today and got excited. His teacher is Mrs. Zois. He knows her as a friend, sub, and mom to one of Will and Noah's old preschool classmates. She had a previous career in nursing and made the jump to teaching this year. She is very excited about the school year and is fully motivated to make the best of her first year teaching. Will and Noah have Mrs. Walton as their teacher. They have visited with her several times. In addition to regular visits when Ethan attended kindergarten with Mrs. Walton, they have been stopping by throughout the summer and the last week of preparations. Today their name plates were affixed to their desks and they had piles of papers ready to go home tomorrow with them at Meet the Teacher Day. Mrs. Walton is such a wonderful person and the boys will have a terrific year with her. This is not her first year teaching, I believe it is more like 25 years or so, but is just as eager to begin the new year.

I have not yet got back into the school year schedule. I'm trying to cram far too much into my days, but in time it will all catch up. I have kept up with daily biking and have also kept up with staying up too late! Just like with everyone else~ so much to do, so little time!

We are looking forward to the weekend. The Eagney girls are having a High School Musical 2 party on Friday. Then on Saturday we are taking the boys to the planetarium. They are having a laser show set to music. It is a double feature. The first half will be set to pop music (Noah and I are excited) and the second half is set to The Beatles (Chris, Ethan, & Will are excited). Sunday will have to be a low key day to prepare for school, perhaps the beach in the morning and then a relaxing afternoon at home.

I was just looking at pictures from my niece's birthday party. Yesterday was Alina's 4th birthday party. Her party was at Chuck E. Cheese and she chose a Strawberry Shortcake theme. Some days I am sad that we don't live in Maryland anymore!

(I tried to upload some pictures, but Blogger is not cooperating. Stay tuned...) There, it finally worked...

The 4-year-old Princess!

We had a busy, but fun weekend. We spent all Friday morning in the pool. Friday afternoon we headed up to school to pick up my keys so we could go back over on the weekend. After our trip to school, we headed over to Bobbie's to swim with the girls. Melissa had recorded some Big Brother After Dark so I was able to watch a bit of that while the kids were playing. Interesting stuff, you are right Michelle! I actually watched a scary movie with Chris. I never watch scary movies so sitting down and making it through Disturbia was amazing. Chris was ready to kill me with all my jumping. He got even more annoyed when I looked away and refused to watch. I think it was more of the fact that I stared at him to see how he was reacting! I tried to gauge when the scary part was over by his face. To top it all off, after the movie ended I drove to Bobbie's to meet Melissa. She is watching Kiki and had to go spend some time with her at 11:00 pm, so I met up with her to keep her company. We swam for a bit and then watched some more Big Brother After Dark.

Saturday morning we went to school to work on my classroom. Chris installed some hooks for me and helped me move my super heavy desk! The boys had fun running around my classroom destroying it! It was so beautiful and clean- no longer. Here they are modeling in front of the chalkboard.
After working at school, we headed off to do some exciting shopping for the boys. Our first stop was Hallmark to pick up their Webkinz. Will got a monkey and named him Curious, Noah got an elephant and named her Lilly, and Ethan got a tiger and named him Tie. Then it was off to Target so Will and Noah could pick out their new backpacks and lunchboxes. I had already purchased all of their other school supplies, but knew it would be a big deal for them to do this part of the shopping. Will and Noah got matching backpacks and lunchboxes. Luckily they are in the same class so if they get mixed up it won't be an issue switching them.

The Eagney's came over for dinner. Well, the kids had Williams-Sonoma shape pancakes. They had airplane, train, truck, cat, and bat shaped pancakes. You see, the kits only come with three molds and with six kids we decided that we needed to break out the Halloween molds as well. You see, cats and bats can work year round. I didn't make the ghost one though! The girls ended up spending the night and woke up in the morning to watch some TV while they waited patiently for Chris to get them Dunkin' Donuts! After the kids went to bed Saturday night I watched another scary movie, Zodiac. It wasn't nearly as scary as Disturbia. Today the boys spent the better part of the day playing with their Webkinz online. Sadly, I think we need to get some more computers in our house so they can all play. There was a lot of switching going on and also a lot of frustration having to wait around for the computer to free up. After dinner it was off to the beach. Chris and Mike drove the kids up to the beach and Melissa and I biked up there to meet them. We didn't stay long at the beach since we had to get back home, but Chris and Mike played there for quite a while with the kids.

Here are the girls striking a pose.

Noah and Will posing for their dad.
Ethan did not want to be in any pictures so this is the best that you get!
My man Will!

Noah Bean!

Last night we went to the beach to watch the shuttle launch. There was some thought of driving to Titusville to see it. When I was coming home from Orlando before noon there was already traffic backed up trying to get into Titusville. I guess a lot of the tourists in Orlando were driving to the beach to see it. We decided that we would just watch it from our own beach. We got a pizza and headed off to the beach to eat and watch the 6:36 launch. We met the Eagney's there and the kids were more into playing with each other and hardly glanced up to watch the shuttle.