First day of school...and Elly's in kindergarten!

The boys started school this past Tuesday...


Waiting for the bus. Mac starting 4th and Nate 3rd. The boys lost a couple of their buddies at the bus stop to Middle school this year.

For kindergarten, there was a staggered start. So Elly only went to school on Thursday of this past week. Here's Elly's first day of school..


Her first day!


Waiting in line to go into her classroom.


Elly's teacher, Mrs. Hersh. She was also Mac's second grade teacher, we're excited for Elly to have her!



Elly was fine until she sat in this seat. While Mrs. Hersh was giving directions, she would not take her eyes off me. Whenever we made eye contact, she said "I do not want to stay here." We then sat with her while "The Kissing Hand" was read. Seriously...not a good book to read to the parents! It was a good thing Elly was having a tough time, because I knew I had to put on a good front for her! After the story, I let Sam try to talk her into staying, but fortunately it just took a teacher's aide to talk to her and she let us leave with a tear. Whew, wasn't expecting this from my confident little girl!

Bauder does not have a 1/2 day class, so all the classes are full day. If you only do 1/2, you pick up your kid at lunch. Not the ideal situation for 1/2 day, but we're going with it. I'm not ready for Elly to go full day, nor do I think it's necessary...so I pick her up at lunch. She gets all the academics in the morning, but misses specials. Ah well, she has the rest of her school career for that! I'm hoping the year goes well with the early pick up!


Elly's first day on the bus was today. All morning, she was adamant that she would not go to kindergarten. Fortunately a light switched about 1/2 hour before go time and she let her brother's take care of her. I thought this was sweet with Mac holding her hand.


Not entirely positive about this!


Here comes the bus...


And she's on! She sat between the boys and they said she was hanging her head on the bus. They talked her through it though and she happily held Nate's hand as he walked her to her class line, played with her until the bell rang, then walked with her back to the line. I'm hoping each day gets easier in the morning!

Here's a couple other funny shots I found...

The boys braided Elly's hair



Nate got Elly all decked out before practicing some baseball with her.



Mac was cutting onions for me for the first time and got to experience his eyes tearing up. When I turned around next, he was wearing these goggles. Goofy kid!

Take me out to the ball game!

What a Summer?! It's been a busy one. Lots of baseball... Fort Collins doesn't do little league (which I think I prefer), they have their own thing and kids only play with their own age...so the boys were on separate teams. We had baseball 4 nights a week, which is fun, but I'm glad it lasts 1.5 months. We're heading out on vacation this Saturday for two weeks, so Nate is missing one week and play-offs (which isn't really a play-off format) and Mac is missing his last two weeks.


This was Mac's second season. We encouraged him to play when he wasn't so sure, because he was just seeming to get it at the end of last season. However, this season was a toughie. None of his friends played and this is the first year that it's only kid-pitch, and like I said before, it's only their grade, so it was lots of walks. They just keep going until there's 6 runs in an inning. We had one game that was two hours and 3 innings. Walk after walk. For a boy who was hesitant to play because he thought it was too slow...this did him in. We told him, just keep doing your best and have a good attitude and if you decide you don't want to play next season at the end of this one, that's fine. Right after his last game, the first thing Mac said to me was..."Mom, I've thought about it and I don't want to play next year." We're fine with that...:)


Mac got a hit his last game, so we were excited he went out with a bang. I think he got hit with about 5 pitches and walked a lot the rest of the season! He's not the strongest hitter and after getting hit and walked a few times, he started looking for walks which drove his mom crazy watching him take a strike when there were so few...so I made him a deal. Every time he swung the bat (I'd rather see him swing at bad pitches then lay off a decent one)...he got a quarter, every time he watched a strike go by...I took a quarter back. That got the boy swinging!


Nate's a different story. You don't have to convince this boy to swing the bat! Sam was his coach again and had a lot of the same players from last year, which includes a couple of Nate's really good friends. They were a great team. Nate's grade rules with pitching is kid-pitch one inning, coach-pitch the next. With the kid-pitch inning, the kid is relieved if they walk 3 batters, so there is much more hits at his level.




Nate's favorite position this year was pitcher. He did a good job. I personally love watching him at short though!


Our little entrepeneur decided to have a lemonade stand at Nate's last two games. He made $17 one night and $12 the next. He's been saving for a suitcase...I know random. Elly wanted one for her birthday, Nate just bought a nice duffel bag and we're heading to Walmart today for Mac to buy his suitcase. Not sure why they are so into suitcases besides the fact that they are super-excited for our trip to Montana and Washington!


And not to forget this little chickadee! She finds a friend at every game we go to, climbs a tree or plays at a playground close by. I'm not sure she's actually watched a full inning of a game...but is that a surprise for this mover?! We let her go off our zipline into the pool this year. She loves it!

Besides baseball, we started the Summer with a week-long sports camp for both boys, then the next week was VBS. So started off kind of busy. We've also gotten a lot of swimming in and had family reunion in Denver. We're having a couple slow days, then we're off to Montana and Washington on Saturday. We'll see a lot of you soon!

Little Entrepeneur

We woke up to a beautiful snowy day...and it just keeps on snowing. Nate, our early bird, was up at 6:30 this morning and by 7:30 was out shoveling.


He started by shoveling our driveway and sidewalk...something Sam has been dreaming about for some time now! :)


He went on to shoveling the sidewalks down 3 neighbors, then hit the driveway and sidewalk of our next door neighbors. They gave him $2, which put a light bulb on in his head. Who else would pay him to shovel their driveway? He went to some other neighbors and asked if he could shovel their driveway and sidewalk for $2. They agreed...then paid him $10. Well, that jumpstarted this kid! He continued on to more neighbors...



This driveway was a little more than he bargained for!


By the end of the morning, Nate was up $18. Not bad...when his allowance is only $3/week! The good news is...it's still snowing! If there's a snow day tomorrow, this kid could get some major business!

A Beautiful Day for a Hike...

One of the biggest parts of cub scouts is getting hiking miles. Every month there is an organized "pack" hike, as well as a hike that your den organizes. When you hit 50 miles, you get to choose a pretty sweet hiking stick. Well, Mac and Nate are a ways off from achieving this goal. We're not the best at prioritizing them. However, the boys are now eager to get a hiking stick...so we'll be going on more hikes. :) The boys and I hiked at Gateway park up the Poudre Canyon today. It was a beautiful day.


We hiked up to Seaman Reservoir. Here's the kids that made the hike in Pack 90.


There's my handsome fellas! They got their cub scout jackets for Christmas. Patches they've earned our sewn on the back.


We went on a trail afterwards to a "scenic view". It was a bit sketch and the boys were way ahead of me. I had to take some deep breaths!


We made it down though...and I think Nate was happy about it. :)

After we got back to town, we hit TCBY for some frozen yogurt. It was a great afternoon! I'm loving the warm weather, although I could use one more dumping. We'll see if we get it!

Flag football!

Wow...it's been a really long time. I'm hoping to have some short and sweet ones so I can catch up.

Nate just finished up his first flag football season. He wanted to play Fall baseball, but knowing some buddies were playing flag football, I talked Nate into giving it a try. I like baseball...but he was getting a bit fanatical about it. Well, now he's fanatical about football. :) Not only did he love playing with his friends, but he'd be running routes with Sam in the backyard any chance he'd get. Now he's not sure if he likes football or baseball better. That's a lot coming from a kid who's been swinging a bat since he was two (probably earlier!).


He's going with the Clay Matthews look...


Conspiring on the sidelines...

These last two are videos...I'm having camera issues at the moment, which would be only having a phone to take pictures...doesn't work too good for action shots. So this first one is Nate scoring a touchdown. He loved running and "juking" defenders!


His last is playing quarterback. When asked by his coach what his favorite part about the season was, it was playing quarterback. I loved that he had to yell to his team to start the play. Nate's pretty quiet, and the first time he did this the coach got on to him for not being loud enough. From then on out he was loud and clear...good to hear him pipe up in a populated situation. :)


He says he wants to play tackle next year...I don't think mom's up for that just yet.

First week of school

It was a good first week. The boys are very tired by the end of the day, but we've been getting used to that with each school year. There's definitely a transition.

Nate would still like school to be half-day, but I guess that's to be expected from a kid who always rises at 6am. He's my early bird. The first day of school, he was dressed by 6am and had his lunch made by 6:30. I've always made their lunches. Anyway, here's their first-day-of-school pics.


First ones to the bus stop. Nate our big second grader and Mac, a third grader.


Here's all their buddies!


This cracked Sam and I up, as we read it after the kids went to bed. Nate was filling this out for his teacher, and notice what he put for needing help with? The boys do not go to a bilingual school and no, they don't take a foreign language as second graders. :)

This week is starting off a bit rough. Elly has had croup since Thursday and has slept horribly the past couple nights. Tonight her coughing is keeping everyone up. Nate finally fell asleep at 9 and Mac is still up (it's 9:45)...only 2 hours past their bedtimes. Arghhhh! Tomorrow is a new day. :)

Battle of the Bros!

Mac and Nate have been playing soccer this Spring on a U8 and U7 team. Each of these divisions only have 3 teams, so Nate plays a U8 team twice and Mac a U7 team once...and you guessed it, they ended up playing each other this past Friday night. It was a great game! :)


Can you find them both intensely watching the ball?! Nate is always intense...and Mac upped his intensity this game playing against his brother.


Go Mac Go! Mac was worried that Sam wouldn't cheer for him since he's Nate's team's assistant coach. Of course Sam cheered for him, and I think both teams thought it was fun that two brothers were playing each other.


Gotta love the headband... :)


Mac hit his teammate on this one... It was hot and Mac's team in particular seemed out to lunch for most the game. Bummer for them, but it did even out the playing field for a younger team!





The boys started off the second half both playing up front. THAT was really fun to watch. They came up against each other quite a bit...just like playing in the backyard.


After the game, they were all smiles and very hot. So after a goofy picture, we went out for some ice cream!

March madness!

Life is full! We love it! It's definitely a new season of life with two grade school boys in the midst of sports and everything else. I rarely keep up, often think of what I meant to get started with two months ago...but it's alright. That's life. Here goes....


We hope you had a nice Easter! We had a quiet Easter, spending some much-needed quiet time after a busy week. I hope my legs didn't really look like this!




We got a dog! A chocolate lab named Hudson. He's fit in well and quickly became part of the family.


He hasn't been around kids much, so he hangs out in Sam's office when really little ones are over...but he sure loves Elly. She often lays down by him.


We had a great time with Beth, Bill and Gus. Can't wait to be with all the Glasers in North Carolina!


The boys are enjoying cub scouts. This is Nate's tiger den, he's on the end.


Mac's group got to do the flag ceremony at their Blue and Gold banquet. Mac is in the front saying all the commands. I'll try to post the video of this one.


The boys started soccer about two weeks ago. It keeps our evenings busy. They practice on opposite sides of town on Tuesdays, together on Thursdays and then have games in the same place on Fridays. They've been doing great for their first season, (Mac played in kindergarten, but this is a whole new experience, as he had no focus then!) it's fun watching them and they're having a great time.

We're doing well and will send more soon!