Today is the first day of Christopher going into the first grade and of Emmy moving into her preschool class. In honor of that, I thought I would do a side by side comparison of some of the pictures, just to see how they’ve grown…
Emmy
2013 vs. 2014
Chris
2013 vs. 2014
The kiddos together…
2013 vs. 2014
Christopher starts back to school (FIRST GRADE!) on Monday, and it just blows me away how fast summer flew by. However, we were still able to pack a ton of fun in a few short weeks, so here is a recap of Buckner Summer 2014…
They went swimming – A LOT…
At the McCullum’s pool…
Relaxing poolside…
In the lake…
We lived outside, even though it was a chilly summer…
Riding bikes after VBS
Taking her brother’s old bike out for a spin
Park fun
Splashing in puddles
Sliding with Cousin Sophie
Ziplining with Cousin Ava
Enjoying popsicles and PERFECT weather at the Carmel Farm Market
We celebrated birthdays!
Christopher’s SpiderMan birthday
Sean’s splash pad birthday party!
America’s birthday!
It was the summer of baseball and ballet…
Before his first ball game of the season!
Manning the bases…
Ballet recital day!
See the bunny that’s the fourth from the right? That’s Emmy!
We went to Holiday World and Splashing Safari!
Dancing before the water fun began!
All dry and ready for a ride!
And the grand finale? The Tooth Fairy came to visit for the very first time!
Here’s my tooth!
It was a great summer, we are sad to see it come to an end – but we are also excited for first grade to begin!
Tooth Fairy Time!
Christopher’s first tooth wiggled right out of place last night (and happened about 45 minutes after bedtime, so everyone was up extra late last night). Once we got everything cleaned up and secured the tooth into his Tooth Fairy Box, I settled them back into bed. The house was quiet and I heard Emmy walk to Christopher’s bed and whisper “Christopher, can you believe it? You’re a really big boy now.”
“I know Emmy, but go to sleep so she comes for my tooth!”
On the way to camp this morning, I overheard the following conversation:
“Chris, I saw the Tooth Fairy last night. She hugged & kissed me while I was sleeping.” (This is very true)
“You DID Emmy?! What color hair did she have?” – Chris asked while clothing his $2 for dear life.
“She had yellow hair, like me. And she was beautiful.”
“What time did she come, did you see?” – Chris
“She was there at 11:30 when I went to sleep.” – Emmy (This is a lie, the Tooth Fairy was very tired & swung by around 9:45)
“Yeah, well, I saw purple sparkle wings Emmy, did you see those?” – Chris
Emmy’s big brown eyes widened and she nodded.
He’s already asking about losing tooth #2, but I think I’m ready for time to slow down again – mainly because the Tooth Fairy only has so many dollar bills.
The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. Food, sunshine, fireworks, parades, festivals. I just love it. This year, we went to CarmelFest (where ran into Papa Karlos – while he was driving IN the parade!), and had a blast. 🙂
Dancing in the street before the parade…
Selfie!
They thought standing in the street was SO cool.
Look who we ran into!
Mother’s Day was nice… The weather was perfect, the kids were happy, and I had a little wine hidden in a green solo cup while playing at the park. My kind of Mother’s Day.
Ahhh, the sunshine…
Warm air, green grass, bare feet, shining sun = absolute Heaven for a kid.
Kids safely happily entertaining themselves within my line of vision, sun shining, green grass, wine in cup = Heaven for a Mom
Christopher played baseball for the second time in a week on Wednesday night – and while he played, Emily & I worked the concession stand. It was fairly slow, so we helped a few customers (Emmy would get drinks and collect money, I made the hot dogs) and we sang a lot. I have the Frozen soundtrack on my phone, so I turned on Let It Go and Em felt the music. Below is my most favorite series of photos ever taken in the history of photos.
Sitting on the counter, looking cute…
Yelling out the window for customers…
And then I turned on Let It Go.
Getting into character
I’m pretty sure she was demonstrating how the cold doesn’t bother her anyway.
The pointed finger emphasized the “don’t let them in, don’t let them know…’ lyric.
No clue
Singing her damn heart out
By the way, she introduces herself as Elsa now.
As the song started to wind down, she sat down, but still sang it…
It was when I took this picture that she realized I was photographing her…
And… song is over, time to rest I guess.
Oh dear Emmy, how I love that you sing and dance like there is no tomorrow. Please don’t ever change. And it’s cool if you only want to be referred to as Elsa, I get it, she’s cool.
Christopher is playing baseball this summer and it is adorable. I love watching the kids play in the dirt, fight over a ball, slide into base for absolutely no reason, and race to the post game snacks. On Tuesday, I caught Christopher completely ignoring his first base duties – who cares about baseball when there’s a girl to talk to?! It was too cute not to share.
Picture caught through the fence…
Last weekend I took Emmy to have a garden tea party with a bunch of fairies – and I wrote a blog about it for Hamilton County Tourism. Here is the link recapping the fun afternoon on that blog: visithamiltoncounty.com/blog
Here are a few quick things about the day (in addition to the post above):
I took Emmy to the fairy party an hour early because she desperately refused to do anything else.
“Lunch Em? Or maybe a little walk?”
“NO, I GO TO THE FAIRY TEA PARTY!?”
I am happy we did because we had time to create a cute little fairy house (although one of the fairies at the tea party told her to expect a fairy to move into the house so now I have to go buy one and I keep forgetting).
Our creation!
The tea party was the best hour of Emmy’s life. She insisted on dressing like a fairy (black ballet leotard, pink tutu, pink sweatshirt, her Tinkerbell wings, two pink headbands, her Cinderella shoes). We sat together at the table and drank tea (she had orange tang), and the fairies came around to chat with her.
Just hanging with a garden fairy…
Sipping on “tea.”
The biggest news of the event was Emmy’s deep, dark hatred of the Unicorn fairy. The Unicorn didn’t speak, she was all white, and freaked Emmy out. Em kept her eyes on that Unicorn as she hobbled around the party and at one point had the following conversation with the Queen Fairy:
“I don’t like your Unicorn.”
“Why not? She is a verrrrry nice Unicorn, we love her.”
“She scares me. Can you send her away?”
“No, we need our Unicorn, we can’t send her away.”
“Could you send her to a BAD place?”
Shame and horror, I felt shame and horror.
Creepy Unicorn at the party..
Taking a fairy garden tea party selfie (obviously) with Em, but she could see the Unicorn in the camera on my phone & wouldn’t take her eyes off her.
Emmy didn’t speak to the Unicorn, but if she had, she would have said “Back up off me…”
Beyond that, Emmy loved the pretty tea cups and sitting outside and talking to the fairies and strolling around to see the homemade fairy houses. She smiled from ear to ear the entire time and, at the end, she tugged my skirt and sweetly asked, “Mama, is this better than Disney World?” I obviously told her yes.
A few more pictures…
Emmy with the Queen Fairy. I can see the judgement in her eyes “What kind of mother encourages her daughter to send Unicorns to bad worlds?”
Me and our fairy house, Emmy and her tea cup – but all eyes were on the Unicorn.
The Fairy that told Emmy a fairy would CERTAINLY move into her fairy house.
Sweet, girly, beautiful Emily…
Christopher turned six on Monday. SIX! How did that happen so quickly? To celebrate his big day, I decided to show up at his school for a little lunch (um, cafeterias still smell the same 20 years later and the food is as gross as ever).
Ew
Duh, we had to have a birthday school cafeteria selfie showcasing the applesauce.
“Chris, take ONE bite of your pasta.”
“OK Mama, I will take one bite when you take one bite.” DAMN IT, Chris won that battle.
After the school day was over, I took Chris and Em to the happiest place on Earth. McDonald’s, obviously.
Chris was happy because they had Spiderman toys in the Happy Meal, Em was happy because they had Spidergirl headbands, I was happy because after they ate, they ran for 45 minutes and didn’t ask me a single question – they didn’t even want me to see their faces for fear that I would drag them out of there.
Eating chicken nuggets like they’re going out of style…
“CAN WE PLEASE GO PLAY?!”
After we ate and played, we went home and all went straight to bed. Happy sixth birthday Chris!
Oh and have no fear, the boy ate cake. The night before his actual birthday, my parents had us over for a very last minute surprise party for the little guy. He ate cake and enthusiastically ripped open a present or two. He was a happy happy happy boy!
Cake
Obligatory candle blowing out shot…
Duh, a surprise birthday party family selfie. No gathering or moment is complete without one.
WAIT, there is more! Sentimental moment I don’t want to forget… After lunch wrapped up, we were waiting in line to walk back to Christopher’s classroom and he said “Mama, will you hold me?” It was his birthday, so there was no way I was going to say no. I scooped him up and he wrapped his legs around my waist and laid his head on my shoulder. I immediately got choked up because I realized that the days of him wanting me to hold him in front of his entire school are numbered. The days I am actually able to hold him in my arms are numbered. The time just went too fast. So I rubbed his back and felt his eyelashes tickle my neck and held him so tight. And if anyone saw me cry a tiny bit, it was the teachers and they’re probably so used to crying in the cafeteria (usually by the 6 year olds though) that they were able to act business as usual.
Happy Sixth Christopher James Buckner, you are my love!
“Mama, do you know who were the first men to walk on the moon?”
“Neil Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear.”
“No, that isn’t right mama.”
“Yes it is Christopher! Neil Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear were the first men to walk on the moon.”
Twenty minutes later and it is just now hitting me that I’ve seen Toy Story way too many times.
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