Meet the Teacher & First Day of School 2012

Last night the boys had the opportunity to go to school and "meet" their teacher.  Of course, they know most of the teachers at school already but it is still fun for them to see where they will sit and know exactly where to go on the first day.  The teachers always have a sweet little treat waiting for them there too.

burrito the third grader with his bag of special treats

burrito checking out his REAL textbooks with his buddy

noodle with his sweet 1st grade teacher mrs. s

i can't believe my baby is a 1st grader!

my husband really loves that i INSIST on taking his first day of school pic too!

and here are my cute men before we headed off to school this morning.  this is their chapel uniform because they have chapel on wednesdays.  aren't they handsome?!?!

here we are walking into school.  that's burrito and john ahead of us.  i made john come for my emotional support! :)

burrito outside his 3rd grade classroom

noodle outside his 1st grade classroom

when i picked them up this afternoon, they both said they had a really great day and loved their new teachers.  burrito had his textbooks because we had to put covers on them tonight.  i had to conjure up my book-covering abilities from years past.  i can't believe he has real textbooks.  does this growing up thing ever slow down???  noodle talked about how they can earn tickets for good behavior and then cash in their tickets for little prizes.  they both talked about seeing their old buddies at recess and not having any homework for this first week.  hooray!

i was not as emotional about leaving them this year.  i think i am finally accepting that they are growing up and learning new responsibilities and that's a good thing...even if it's hard for this mama.  i just love them so much.  such a treasure and gift from Jesus.

praying sweet blessings on them this new school year...

school memories from this year

here are a bunch of fun shots from various school activities this year.  i can't believe i will have a 1st grader and 3rd grader next year!

reformation day.  noodle's class could dress like an animal from God's creation.  he was a parrot!

burrito dressed as a roman soldier.  his class could choose a bible character.

burrito on egyptian feast day

me and burrito at his thanksgiving party

noodle as an indian chief

noodle singing with his class at his christmas party

noodle decorating a christmas cookie

burrito being silly at his christmas party

western day plus the school jackets because it was cold outside :)

noodle's valentine's day party

burrito's 2nd grade program "through the old testament."  he was nathan.

noodle's trip to sea life aquarium...the view through the tank!

noodle and some of his kindergarten buddies

i would say we had a most successful and fun year!

happy thanksgiving

thanksgiving blessings from our family to yours!

halloween 2011

halloween 2011 brought a new tradition to the rutherford household:  carving pumpkins.  neither john nor i could recall ever having done this as a kid and so we felt pretty uneducated and inexperienced.  however, with a little online research, we had a great time!

we bought two really great, big pumpkins.  they were so cute i hated to cut them up!  noodle's class had carved a pumpkin a few days earlier so he was our go-to expert!  after sawing off the tops, the boys were so excited to reach in and remove the guts!  noodle was totally obsessed with removing all the seeds so that we could roast them later.

love these two!

the perfect pumpkins

john and noodle

burrito

the finished products

this is their scary pumpkin faces!

aren't they cute?

and here's their spooky side!

the trick-or-treating crew

 and we had a blast on october 31 with our friends from church.  we made an interesting group:  a knight, a snow princess, a football player and a parrot!  nonetheless, we all had a blast and have 10 pounds of candy to prove it!

thanks friends for hosting us that night and letting us raid your neighborhood!

and for some regular traditions, the boys participated in a reformation day party at school.  they are asked to come dressed as either an animal from God's creation or a bible character.  we've been a frog and a lion, a penguin, and as abraham and titus from the bible.

noodle as a parrot

this is what he looked like when he actually wore the bird head part!

 

burrito as a roman soldier.  i know it looks more like a knight but use your imagination! :)

all in all, we had a great time dressing up and being with friends and having lots of fun!

making memories

i saw this quote earlier in the week, and i am making it my new mantra:

don't cry because it's over.  smile because it happened.  ~ dr. suess

i am trying to remember this as my children grow up way too fast.  i am extremely nostalgic, i don't much care for change, and i don't want them to ever leave me.  i just love them so much.  but i know (deep down inside) that i will have to let them go at some point, and that it is good to do so.  but until then, i want to make as many sweet memories with them as possible and treasure every moment.

so that's what this post is all about.

as i let these thoughts settle into my soul over the past few days, i tried to think of some creative ways to spend time with the boys.

so on thursday i packed a lunch and a blanket and headed up to school.  we have a beautiful pond by our grammar school building so i met the boys in the lunchroom and out we went to have a picnic by the pond.  burrito and noodle eat at different times so it was a good opportunity to spend some individual time with them.

the beautiful pond.  it ended up being 101 degrees this day (sept 29) but in the shade it was pretty nice.

my sweet noodle

my growing-up-too-fast burrito

this is one of those hold-the-camera-out-and-see-what-you-get sort of pictures.  i wish i would have thought to do the same with noodle.

the boys are already begging me to come up again this thursday for a picnic date.  who can say no to those sweet faces?

for more fun making-memories moments, i had friday's activities planned a few days in advance, and it was torture not telling them my plans!  the boys have been begging us to go camping.  for maybe an entire year.  we bought a tent last april for burrito's camping themed birthday, and we have been either too busy or it's been WAY TO HOT to even consider sleeping outdoors.

well this weekend was going to be a perfect opportunity.  the boys did not have soccer and the overnight temperature was going to be a glorious 54 degrees!  so friday afternoon, while they were still at school, i set up our tent in the backyard.  i figured we better do a trial run before officially camping somewhere just in case my little campers changed their minds about how much fun camping is, ha, ha!

i bought the necessary ingredients to make s'mores, i rented a movie to watch on the laptop, and we planned on attending our school's football game to ensure that we had two sleepy boys on our hands!  and things went just as planned!

here are some sweet friend pictures from the football game.  it was perfect weather!

noodle and his reading buddy caleb

burrito and his new friend diego, who is one of john's students.  they came over to tell me that they were bff's so i told them i better take a picture! :)

and they were so excited to come home and see the tent set up!  these first two pictures were taken in the afternoon before we left for the football game because i knew it would be pretty dark before we would get home.

our home away from home (but not really!) and yes, all 4 of us crammed into this tent for the night!

this is supposed to be their really excited and shocked faces!

burrito eating s'mores

noodle with s'mores already all over his face

we realized rather quickly why most campers do not eat s'mores inside their tents, and because the mosquitoes are crazy bad in our backyard, we decided we better head indoors to finish eating our snacks.

we retired to the tent around 11:30pm.  the boys watched the movie for about 15 minutes and then were out.  they slept all night until i woke them up the next morning for a breakfast of donuts.  we never get donuts for breakfast so i think they were shocked and thrilled at the fun time we were having.  i don't think any of us slept very well because we did manage to nap for a couple of hours this afternoon.

both boys said several times today that they had an awesome time and want to do it again.  and i would semi-sleep on the hard ground again to make these types of memories with my boys.

i love them so much.