Preschool Programs

Trying to catch up on some past events....

#1: Preschool programs
We learned from Lyla's Christmas program that she does NOT like performing or even being in front of an audience.  I don't think she opened her mouth once during that program.  She had the same somber look during her spring program, but as you will see she did sing a little this time.  No smile though, and her face is definitely not showing happy!
Funny story.  She happen to be front and center for this program, and she often will pick her nose when she is nervous.  Sure enough, during the first song there was Lyla with her finger up her nose.  THANKFULLY, she did not lift up her dress up at all during the program, which she also often does when she gets nervous. See, when I got home after the program I saw her going to the bathroom and noticed she didn't have any underwear on underneath her dress. When I asked her about it she just said, "I forgot."

Lincoln's program and friends:

The picture is not good but he is actually quite the performer.   I hope he keeps it up, although he told me  he didn't like practicing for the program because "it takes too long and I have to sing really loud."  He didn't ever look like he didn't enjoy singing loud to me!

The friend to his left is going to the same Kindergarten as him.  I am so thankful because they got to be really good friends this year.

Thanks Ms. Caroline for all your hard work! Lincoln had a great year!

Baby Emmit

OK, this post is LONG overdue but I am just starting to catch up on things!  Emmit was born on June 6th at 12:31 p.m.  I was figuring an 81/2 pound baby since he was a week early and Lincoln was almost 9 1/2 at 40 weeks.  Nope, he was 91/2.  So far he has been a very good baby and the only time we really hear from him is when he is hungry.  The kids are good with him and get a kick out of watching me change his diaper because he almost always pees or poops while I am changing him.  The conversation will often be: Lyla: "ooh yuck, Lincoln Emmit just pooped all over, come look!" or vice versa.
The nursing thing has also been an interesting new thing for them.  Lincoln has of course had some questions about it, and Lyla has asked, "is he done sucking on you yet?"
I don't have enough room or time to post the many many pictures I have taken but here are some favorites:

Happy Father's Day to a GREAT Daddy!

Celebrating Father's Day and Grandpa Doug's Birthday!

The sleeping pose

Lincoln getting Gp Ed to smile!

I hope I look this good when I am 92!  Love that Grandma Doris.

It's pretty easy to keep him entertained with these two around.

Lincoln took this pic for me.  Had to capture the moment!

No training wheels!

Lincoln's training wheels broke this last month so we decided to give it a try without them.    His bike  is pretty big, and he can barely touch the ground so he wasn't making much progress.   Thanks Steph and Andy for letting us borrow this smaller bike.  He tried it out today and as you can see it did the trick!  A neighbor who we have never even met before saw us out, and said he would video tape us and send me the video.  He said he remembered chasing his kids behind their bikes too.  It was really nice of him!

A song for Grandma Brenda

I just showed this to Lyla one night and she sort of took off with it.  One of the blocks was missing so I copied the ending of the song for her.  I told her we had to show Grandma Brenda!

Snow Days!

We had two rounds of snow which ended up getting the kids and I FOUR days off of school.  It was awesome!  I have never seen so much snow around here! 

Some fun things we did over the break: 






Sledding at a park with a hill made just for sledding I think.  It is about the only place to go in Wichita if you want to go down a big hill!  I made the kids stay on the less steep side so it wasn't terribly busy for us.  The steep part was PACKED!




Joel's girlfriend Bethany got us tickets to a KU game-thank you Bethany!  Lyla stayed with Gp Doug and Gm Brenda while Lincoln, Matt, and I went to the game.  She was very excited to go to Gp and Gm's and could care less about missing the game!



KU game



AWESOME SEATS!





We were the second row up. Lincoln has his back turned here, and Matt is standing next to his friend Josh.



Making snow ice cream.  I had never done this before but a couple of my friends posted they had done it on facebook so I tried it.  Lyla said she liked everything but the snow!  I guess she didn't like the ice chunks.  When it all melted together she liked it.  Lincoln liked his with chocolate syrup.



This was alot of work for this pregnant mama.  I have to say I did not get much help from these two, although the younger one at least gave it some effort...   Good thing I like playing in the snow as much as they do!







When Matt got off work we had a snow fight.  It took him 15 min. to build his wall vs. my 2 hours.  Lincoln told me later that "next time he wanted to use Daddy's "fort" because his was bigger and worked better."






Painting









Lincoln's 1st basketball game

Lincoln is on a team with mostly older kids this year, one boy Lincoln told me, almost in awe, is SEVEN years old.  He seems to enjoy playing for the most part, although he has said several times that he is "not very good at scoring."  During the game, it was obvious he knew they were losing and did not like it when the other team scored.  He would jump up with his hands in the air when his team scored, or put his head down and hunch his shoulders down when the other team scored.  Afterwards I asked him if it was hard to keep track of who he was guarding and he said, "no, well not the first guy." I said why, and he said, "because I was WAY faster then him."  I was a little worried he was going to feel bad since it is pretty obvious he is one of the least experienced on the team. Guess that won't be a problem!

Christmas programs and Christmas

Decorating cookies

Lyla sure looked cute standing up and singing at her preschool program, but I am pretty sure she didn't open her mouth once to sing the entire time!  The most action I saw out of her was when she raised her finger up during one of the songs (one of the actions) and turned and looked at us and smiled...one time.  She was pretty somber looking all the rest of the time.  Still pretty adorable if you ask me.

Grandpa Doug, Grandma Brenda, and Grandma Pam with Lyla after her program.  She is holding a plate she made for us with her handprint on it. 

I didn't get to go to Lincoln's program, but I was told he was a real singer for his entire program.  He told me himself that he "was the loudest," and after watching it on video, I realized this was not too far from the truth!   He sung his little heart out the entire time, as well as some of his classmates.  It was pretty obvious there was some major competition going on to see who could sing the loudest! I didn't post a video clip b/c it was recorded with our video camera, and is a pain to convert to put on the blog. 

Lincoln and his teacher

Schroeder Christmas/cousins

 Yea for snow in NE!  We had a beautiful day to play in the snow.  Matt's dad pulled the sleds with the truck, and it was alot of fun watching everyone take a turn.

Lyla is much more of a trooper about being out in the snow then Lincoln is, so I had to coax him a little to come out and give this a try.  He liked it once he did it, but still didn't last outside very long!

Tofteland Christmas-Grandpa and Grandma and Cousins

This is all we could come up with back home in KS for a snowman.  It was hard to make the snow stick with all the leaves in between! Lyla had the idea to put ears on it and make it a "snow puppy," and she was pretty taken with it after that.  She kept petting it and giving it side hugs. It was pretty cute. She is really into her suffed animal puppies right now-won't go to sleep without what she calls "little puppy."