He's very excited...

He FINALLY has a loose tooth!! It's barely loose but that little wiggle has made him super excited!

Ainsley left this morning all happy too... she has an all day field trip to a local farm where they will harvest potatoes and do a corn maze.

Mondays are officially called Monday Madness! It's a jam packed day for us. Kiddos have early release... homework/snack then we take Ainsley to the Strings program... she decided on playing the violin and was beyond the moon excited about it.

After her drop off we normally will head to the gym for Walker's youth fitness class and a work out for us parents but yesterday we went shopping for Halloween costumes. Back to pick up Ainsley (she loved it!)..grabbed a burger at McD's and then right over to Religion Education classes! Us parents usually breathe a sigh of relief but yesterday had to run to the music store for a shoulder rest for the violin and music book. We were a tired bunch and we still had spelling/reading/piano practice and showers before bed. Whew... the madness will only continue as they each grow... crazy but a good crazy!

We love the Minute to Win it show. The kiddos are always practicing some game... lately it's the Oreo challenge. Goal is to use only your face muscles and move an oreo cookie from your forehead to your mouth... in 1 minute.

Ready... Set...

GO!!!...

Ainsley can actually do it... makes a mama proud.

Thursday after school Ainsley was all but screaming through the door... it was student council time again and she wanted to give it another go!

She has a full schedule... besides school there's homework, constant reading to achieve her reading goal, piano lessons, swimming and other activities at the Gym, plus she recently begged to join the strings program (more on that later). So needless to say she's booked... more to my liking but booked nevertheless. So I was temped to flat out say "No... you've got a full plate." But it's hard to say no when she wants to write a speech and stand in front of her peers to deliver it!...who normally likes to do those things??? She does.

So off to the dollar store and $5 bucks later the poster was made. Friday morning she was very excited...

with poster and speech... she headed off to school.

She didn't win this year..(silently whew... from me) but she was happy and glad she tried out again this year. The only boy running won against all the girls.

Walker left me with this today...

and some instructions... along with a 5 minute conversation about said instructions before leaving for school...

For the past 2 weeks she has been learning about the scientific method used in science...

The teachers came up with a song to help them remember all 7 steps. For the past 2 weeks we have all been singing the scientific song as well...

Sung to the tune of 10 little indians...

Ask a question, gather information, form a hypothesis

test your experiment, analyze data, draw a conclusion..

accept or reject the hypothesis... woo!

It's pumpkin pie time again at Costco!!..Love this stuff.

We will never forget 9|11.

The past weekend we did a little hike in Montana. How cute is he?? Our little hiker boy.

So we took off socks and shoes and dipped our toes in... they didn't stay in long as it was freezing. Shortly after socks got back on the cute lil' Bug from up above decided that it was much better to stand and put on shoes while balancing on log. Hmm... anyone else besides Mommy see this as not a great idea?? Needless to say he fell ankle deep in mud... and it was all Mommy's fault! Little Stinker! Good thing he's a cute stinker!

Last night the kiddos had "Back to School Night" a chance for them to show us their classroom, meet teachers and sign up for volunteering.

First up was Walker's classroom and his teacher Mrs. Reed... whom we all think is wonderful!

He had this cute little letter on his desk when we came in...

I love that his favorite thing is writing... this was beautiful!

I still am having a hard time wrapping my head around that he's a 2nd grader... isn't Ainsley just in 2nd grade?? Especially when I took this picture of him by Mrs. Reed's tree...

I remember crystal clear the day I took Ainsley's picture next to it...

Oh man... life could you slow down a bit??

Miss 4th grader absolutely loves her teacher... Mrs. Satterfield.

And in her classroom we had to find her desk by looking at the pictures they drew of themselves...