A Look Back to 2015

I've done this the past couple of years - 2014 (there are links there 2013 &2012).  It is fun to see a summary of the entire year in one post.  And seeing how I am not the best on updating this it's a good overall picture to our year. 

January - Another New Year that we rang in with the neighbors - we went to Southside for dinner, and then came back  hung out here and across the street.

We officially went diaper free in our house! 

February - We took a trip to Pittsburgh to meet Brody & go to his baptism!

Spent lots of time outside - whether it's playing in the backyard, going over to the high school

March - Ben turned THREE!!!!  Grandma & Papa were here to celebrate with us & Ben's Paw Patrol Chase themed birthday!  Went into the city to the Air & Space Museum and lunch at the food trucks with them. 

April - Celebrated Easter - with an Easter egg hunt in Old Town with friends...

A visit from Aunt Ali (who drove with us up to NY!!!)

An Easter Egg Hunt & Brunch with neighbors!

 Then we made our way up to Buffalo - where we celebrated Jim's 5th Birthday!!!!

 Ashley & Kevin got married!!!!

 

May - Took a weekend getaway to Lake Anna with neighbors!  In the beginning of the month.

And a trip to Ocean City with the parents at the end of the month. 

We made a trip up to Albany for Papa's funeral, and getting a chance to visit with family. 

 Spring soccer season came to an end

...Just in time for the pool to open

 Of course we enjoyed lots of playdates with friends, strawberry picking...

June - The big event from June was Jim's fractured collarbone! 

 With my mom's group we did our own version of a summer camp - which was a lot of fun!  Got to go on a tour of the Firehouse, did a gardening themed day, and an under the sea day.  Our pool time was a limited with Jim's arm as it was hard for him to do any swimming, but we made up for it with lots of park fun & fun with friends!

July - We celebrated the 4th hanging out at home, Jim & walked over to Mount Vernon for the fireworks!

Enjoyed lots of time outside, whether it was out back doing jobs, hanging out with friends, or spending time at the pool!

And Jim attended his bridge to kindergarten at school.  It was a good preview of what's to come in September!

Ben had his little procedure done and was a champ through it all!

August - Was our trip up to New York, a great 2 weeks up there!  Niagara Falls, playing with cousins, a trip to the zoo, bounce house, a night at Kevin & Ashley's land, a trip to the fair, riding rides, tractor pull, fishing at the lake, just to name a few of the fun adventures!

September - Was a big month for us with Jim starting kindergarten!!!!

 And of course we kept busy doing stuff outside, soccer, playdates.  Ben & I adjusted to just the 2 of us during the day!  And we took our first camping trip - lots of fun, can't wait to do it again!

October - We made it to the pumpkin patch on one of Jim's days off of school...Ben started a little in-home preschool with a couple of other 3 year olds which is great!  He has fun going to playdates and playing with his friends.  And a Spiderman & Ninja Turtle had a lot of fun with Halloween, going trick or treating with the neighbors!

 C is for cat from his 'school'!

Making ghosts with his friends!

Jim's first field trip to a pumpkin patch!  Too bad he had a rough bus ride there and got bus-sick, but once he recovered from that it was a fun day!

November - We're settled into our school routines now - with Jim in kindergarten & Ben's weekly get together with friends.  November was also filled with soccer games, leaf fun, celebrating friends birthday, and get togethers with friends.  Mark & I took the boys to the National zoo for the first time.  They've been to the Buffalo zoo, we just never ventured into D.C. to that zoo.  Boys had a lot of fun checking out all the animals. 

We made our way up to NY for Thanksgiving.  Ended up taking Jim out of school on Wednesday & drove to Mark's parents then.  Spend Thanksgiving there, and then on Friday drove to Buffalo.  A short trip as we were back to VA on Sunday.  We made our yearly trip to see Santa!!!

December - December was all about Christmas time.  It's such a fun month with 2 little boys who are so excited about everything!  There was decorating, Christmas cookie swaps, gingerbread house making, wrapping presents, so much fun!

 

We made our way into Old Town for the Scottish Walk parade, and then later that night for the boat parade -

Christmas party with a  visit from Santa!

Christmas up in New York!

Family photo time!

All in all 2015 was a great year!

 

A quick update

Hard to believe that it's November, and Thanksgiving is next week. And before you know it, Christmas will be here. Things have been going good. Jim has really been enjoying school!  Seems to be learning lots, and he's getting better with reading!!!!  It's amazing to see how far he's come in just the first couple months of school.

We had parent teacher conferences the other day. We got a great report!!!  She really didn't have a bad thing to say. She was very impressed with his drawings, I loved looking through is drawing journal!  They do an assessment, and have a benchmark for where they want them to be. I think it was 65, and Jim scored 130+!  (He recognizes letters, beginning letter sounds, ending sounds, rhymes, just to name a few of the categories.). She also said he's a very friendly person, and his classmates look up to that. Mark & I were both very impressed with his good report.

It's so cute to see him pass his classmates. We will cross paths when we walk over to the playground after pickup. Everyone is saying 'bye Jim' giving 5s, giving hugs!  Really does show that he's a likable person!

Mark, Ben, & I went and had lunch with Jim on Veteran's Day!  Mark had the day off, and the school had their Thanksgiving feast. Was fun to see the lunch room environment!
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Halloween was a lot of fun!  It fell on a Saturday this year. We went over to Steve & Renees first, had pizza for dinner and then went out trick or treating. The boys loved it!  Made it to more houses this year. And the boys came home with a ton of candy!
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Enjoyed a visit from Grandma & Papa after Halloween. They were in Pittsburgh so they drove here on Sunday & stayed until Wednesday. The timing was perfect because Jim had Monday & Tuesday off!  We went out to dinner to Southside Monday night & Ben was not feeling well, and proceeded to get sick in the parking lot. So I was a little bummed out Tuesday plans (donuts & Old Town) were cancelled. But we all had a great time hanging out together!  Lots of time spent outside.
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I'm updating this on my phone, and I'm hoping if I get around to it I will add some photos to this post. We shall see though.

Kindergarten

How is it possible that I have a kindergartener now?!  It's hard to believe that Jim is off at school everyday - and he seems to be really enjoying it!  There really aren't many complaints, so that's always a good sign! 

He has the same teacher and assistant he had over the summer for the Bridge to K program - and I think that really helped him with the transition!

We enjoy walking him to school every morning, and picking him up in the afternoons! 

Can't wait to see what this year has in store for him!

Summer Overview

I really wish I was better at keeping up with this.  I love having something to look back on.  But I just never can seem to find the time to keep up with it.  So here's a brief overview of the Summer of 2015:
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We spent our fair share of time at the pool this summer, having lots of fun there.  It was a little limited, first with Jim's fractured collarbone...then Ben's procedure...and Jim's Bridge to Kindergarten program.  But everyone seemed to have lots of fun when we went!
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Jim attended a 3 week Bridge to Kindergarten program at his school.  He got to ride the bus, which he absolutely loved!  I think that made the first day pretty easy for him because all his excitement was about the bus & not about going to school.  He had a great teacher/assistant, met some new friends, and did great!!!
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We spent 2 weeks up in New York. Aunt Ali flew down here for a couple of days & then helped us with the drive up to Buffalo.  Lots of fun there including a walk to Pautler's for ice cream, Paula's donuts, fun in the hot tub, a trip to Niagara Falls, car show with Papa, a bounce house place, playing outside, water balloons, the zoo.  We attempted to go downtown to the food truck Tuesdays, but we got rained out & had to settle for Anderson's instead.  Mark flew down on Thursday, and we wanted to go to canal side, but Friday was a rainy day.  He did get to enjoy wings @ anchor bar with every one!  Jenna spent the week up in Buffalo too, so it was a lot of fun having the 4 boys playing together!

Saturday morning we drove out to Kevin's land & spent the night there.  The boys loved it, gators, tractors, fishing, campfire w/ marshmallows, it was perfect for them!  Sunday we drove to Mark's parents & had a great week there with hiking @ Letchworth, splitting wood, visiting the fair for the fireman's parade, the tractor pull, riding rides, sitting on tractors, seeing animals, we took the canoe out again!  All in all it was a great 2 weeks. 
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Lots of fun with our weekly drinks in the driveway with the neighbors!  Love that it's become a weekly tradition with everyone. 
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Jim learned how to ride his bike with no training wheels!!!!  He's a pro at it now.  At one point we took the pedals off his bike to make it a balance bike...he was doing great with that, but then fractured his collarbone so he took some time off from riding his bike.  Then he got back onto it, and one day I told him we should try putting his pedals back on, it took him about 10-15 seconds, and then he was off!!!!
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Lots of playdates and fun with friends, whether it was at a park, playground, or going on a nature walk. We were busy, busy, busy & definitely enjoyed our summer!!!

Fractured Collarbone

So it was Jim who took his 2nd visit to the ER (well not quite the ER, but Kaiser's version of the ER, a mix between a hospital ER & a Urgent Care).  I thought for sure Ben was going to be the next one to go there but I was proven wrong. 

2 weeks ago Jim was running around outside with Parker, and just tripped over his feet and landed shoulder first into the sidewalk.  He eventually settled down & stopped crying, but then would start crying again.  He did take a good fall and it was hot outside so I told him to sit down & drink some water to cool off.  We then made our way inside to eat dinner & he couldn't use his right hand to eat...then he was in tears when he tried to get up on the couch...and wasn't even able to put his PJ's on he was in too much pain.  I ended up calling the advice nurse & the suggested bringing him in since he can't do any of his regular activities.

Ended up being the 4 of us going.  I was just going to take him but Mark felt bad, so we all went knowing we may have a late night.  The appointment was for 9:20 and we got home at midnight.  An X-ray showed that he had a crack in his collarbone.  The doctor sent him away with a sling to wear and a follow up appointment on Thursday with an orthopedic. 

Poor guy couldn't even use his right hand at all.  He definitely knew what would bother him & he didn't use it.  The doctor Thursday told him he didn't have to wear the sling anymore, that it would just heal on it's own.  And slowly but surely he's been using his arm more & more.  With a couple of 'ow's' here and there depending on if he moves the wrong way. 

He's been a champ though!  Barely complaining about it - was a great patient when we took him in.  One tough boy!

A look into the past month

A whole month since I've last posted.  I feel bad that I haven't been keeping up with this, but with 2 busy boys, I don't really have the time.  Everything is going great though - the pool is open so we've been busy spending time there...also been very busy meeting friends at playgrounds, or nature parks, or their homes.  Been very busy on the weekend, boys are always helping Mark do his jobs.  They sure are busy little boys.

Hard to believe that it's the middle of June already & that Jim will be starting kindergarten in the fall!  He seems to be pretty excited about that. 

The last time I did post it was Jim's birthday...Let's see a quick recap of what we've been up to. 

We drove out to Burnside Farms - to check out their daffodils & tulips! 

 We spent a long weekend at Lake Anna with our neighbors - lots of fun!

The following week we met Mom & Dad in Ocean City for a couple of days!  It was a little chilly when we were there, but we all still managed to have a great time! 

They came back to VA with us, and spent the weekend hanging out - it was a great time! 

Sure do love these happy 2 little boys :)