Crazy Hair Day

My kids love crazy hair day!

Happy Birthday, Luke!

My birthday boy

Luke turned 7 back on September 2nd.
At first he wasn't so sure about traveling on his birthday weekend, but once he was hanging with his cousins, all doubt was gone and I'm pretty sure he had a fantastic time.
(His cousin, Caden was baptized on September 1st in Las Vegas, so we made the trip down to see family and be a part of that special day - that will be the next post. For now, we'll focus on Luke)

We love our Luke! He is a ball of energy, so smart, and loving, and a boy through and through.

Some of his favorites right now are; Ninjagos, playing Wii, soccer, building things, and doing pretty much anything with dad. He loves chocolate. For his birthday cake he wanted chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream on the side. His favorite dinner is spaghetti and meatballs. He loves telling jokes. He asks to wrestle about 5 times a day (like I said - ball of energy). His favorite primary song is "Army of Helaman" - sometimes it's "I love to see the Temple". His favorite scripture story is about the 2,000 stripling warriors.  At night before bed he likes to do his exercises - about 7 or 8 pull-ups, depending on the night, followed by 20 push-ups. He learned to ride his bike this past summer and now loves riding his bike to school when we have time. At bedtime he loves giving "to infinity and beyond hugs and kisses" for Matt and I, which is a super big kiss blown through the air at us to knock us back as we walk out of the room. He loves to snuggle as he falls asleep. He's become a really good reader, but is especially great at math. When he puts his mind to doing something, he is all in and works really hard at it until he succeeds. He loves growing things in the garden and picking our veggies when I need something fresh from our garden for dinner. Sometimes, the only explanation I have for his actions or words are "You are such a boy". It's my only explanation and way for my girl brain to process what this boy of mine has done. I love him like crazy and am so blessed and proud and excited as I watch him grow up.
Luke - you are pretty amazing!

Luke, 1 day old, 9lbs 12oz

Birthday celebration with family in Vegas

 The next weekend we had a birthday party with his friends. Ninja theme. We had a ninja training skills course, threw darts at balloons to find all the pieces of a map that led to the fang blades, attacked the evil Lord Garmadon when he tried to steal the fang blades, and a good old balloon stomp and pinata. We wore those boys out!

"Green Ninja" Ninjago birthday cake

First real true birthday party Luke had. Afterward, he said it was the best day of his life.

I think he liked his presents

First Day of School 2012

It's that time of year again. It seems to come faster and faster all the time. But this year is much happier compared to last year in the fact that we are all together as a family. So grateful to start this school year with my husband in the country. As a matter of fact, Matt got to be home in the morning on the first day of school.  So we all got ready together and rode bikes/jogged to school bright and early on a crisp, cool August morning - hence the coats. By the time we got to school it was already too warm for coats.

Luke learned to ride his bike sans training wheels this past summer (a big milestone in every kid's life) and is very excited to ride his bike to school like a big kid as often as we can.

Maya started 5th grade this year. This is the first year I requested a teacher for any of my kids and I'm so relieved that my request was granted. She has a fantastic teacher who will challenge this bright girl of mine. She is also so excited to have her best friend finally in her class. They've gone to school together since kindergarten (with 1 year apart during 3rd) and this year they finally get to spend together. Maya said her friend even sits right in front of her, but they don't talk. Don't want to get into trouble and ruin a good thing. It was so hilarious to see their reaction when we went to the school the day before to find out who their teachers were. They ran ahead, and so I listened as I walked knowing that if I heard screaming it was a good thing. If I heard nothing, then they weren't together and maybe Maya didn't get the teacher I wanted for her. (I felt so strongly about her NOT having a specific teacher that I even had dreams about it)

But all is right in the world of Maya.

My Luke started 2nd grade this year. The school put him in a combination 2nd/3rd grade class. I asked the office about this and they said I should be proud because it means the teachers who know Luke think he is strong enough of a student and independent enough to handle the combo class. Ok. But my main worry is, is Luke going to miss out on any of his curriculum because his teacher has to teach 2 of them. But I guess 2nd and 3rd grade learning has a lot of overlap. We'll see how it goes, but I am impressed with Luke's teacher so far (and it did put me at ease when I was told she has 4 boys of her own - if she raised 4 boys, she'll understand Luke and know how to handle him just fine). My other issue for Luke is his ears. He's been dealing with hearing loss all summer. We had an audiology appointment after the 2nd day of school and met with ENT on day 3. Looks like Luke will be getting tubes in his ears, again. This will hopefully happen by the end of September. I can't wait until he can hear us speak in regular volumes again.

Now, we can't leave out Seth. As you can see from the picture below, he was very excited to ride bikes to school as well. He was supposed to ride in the bike trailer, but Matt gave in and offered to ride slowly next to Seth while Seth rode his little spiderman bike the mile to the school.

 

Well - here goes the 2012-2013 school year!

Crazy Hair Day

This post is a little behind, but hey - that's how I roll these days.

Every year the schools have a red ribbon week where the kids all pledge to be drug free. This year they had a rock concert assembly that the kids all loved. They have assigned days for the kids to dress up; ie, twin day, wear red day, wear your favorite team jersey day. They always have a crazy hair day. So here are my kids on crazy hair day. Maya went for about 6 pony tails along with a bunch of barretts and luke went for a mohawk. Enjoy!

Halloween 2011 (Home)

Maya's pumkpin is on the left and Luke's is on the right. Both are their own designs (and Maya cut hers all by herself too)

Pumpkin guts!!

Halloween made a comeback this year in the Wilde household (though a big piece of the fun was missing - wish you were here to see all the cuteness, honey). Last year Halloween was on Sunday and so the kids didn't trick-or-treat (but they had a lot of fun handing out candy). This year they hit 2 different ward Halloween parties and got to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood to their heart's content (or until their candy bucket was full to the brim - Maya).

This year was Seth's first Halloween that he actually participated in. He's 2-1/2 now and pretty dang cute. He was a dinosaur. It was actually a costume that I made for Luke when he was 2 but he wouldn't wear it. So I was very happy that Seth loved his costume. I pulled it out on Friday afternoon to make sure it would fit and Seth was as happy as could be. He especially loved his tail. It was funny watching him try to reach behind himself to grab it. No chasing it like a dog though. Once he had the costume on he was ready to go. He actually walked out our front door (2 in the afternoon) all by himself declaring that he was going to a party. No concept of time yet.

My little witch, Iron Man, and Dinosaur

Tonight is Halloween. We went with some of our friends that live right here on our street. Seth was so funny. After each house he was so excited about the candy that he would come running to me shouting "Mommy! I got treat!" in his cute little high-pitched voice. That happy little voice tugs on my heart strings like nothing else. Unfortunately at the first house he was a little too excited and running a little too fast and totally wiped out face first on the driveway. But I turned it around by not even mentioning the fall (the big cries were starting) and just excitedly asked "what did you get? Show me!" He instantly forgot that he fell and proudly showed me his bucket. It is so fun watching the first-time excitement of a little kid on a holiday. He loved walking with the other kids and seeing the decorations. And he was so polite at all the houses wishing everyone happy halloween and saying thank you. We tried to get lots of pictures for Matt. That was the only thing missing this evening. So here are our halloween pictures (the ones that seth didn't delete off my ipod at least - that wasn't so cute of him)

Happy Halloween!

(Thanks Marlina for taking pictures!)

Soccer Season

Luke is #10 - to the left in this picture.

It is soccer season for this family. We lucked out big time on practices being at the same time and park - otherwise I had no idea how I was going to get my kids to practices. Luke's team is bright orange and so they named themselved the Smashing Pumpkins. (It's kind of funny to cheer for them because the name is a mouthful so I usually just shout the second word. "Go pumpkins" sounds a little too sweet.) Luke is one of the bigger/older kids on his team so he gets to be the strong player. He's a natural defender and loves to stop the ball and boot it away from the goal. He'll usually turn and give me a thumbs up afterward. He's had a turn playing goalie at the last 2 games and not one shot has gotten past him. So fun to watch him play!

(Blue jersey = goalie) Here he is throwing the ball back out into the field.

His team won this game 3-0!

Maya's team is named "Fury United". Her coach is absolutely fantastic. He's got the right balance of competitive nature blanced with wanting them to do their best and praising them for it. He teaches them so much about the game and is quick to encourage and praise their efforts. Maya loves the team she's on and always has a fantastic time. She tends to be a natural defender as well, but her coach is moving her around trying her out in more offense positions as well. Here are some pics from her game yesterday. They won 7-0!

Maya is number 6

It's hard to watch games and keep 2 boys entertained. So I brought out the big guns - video games. They only get to play these on Fridays and Saturdays.

First Day of School 2011

I need to get dinner started and fill out a million 1st day papers, but I wanted to make sure that I got this post done before time gets away from me.

Today Maya started 4th grade and Luke started 1st grade. I have no idea where this extremely short summer went. Maya was very excited and up at 3 am telling me she couldn't fall back to sleep. I wonder if she'll ever not be excited for the first day of school. I'm not complaining - I'm glad my kids like school. Luke started 1st grade today. This year I do not have to drop off and pick up kids at school 3 times a day, which I'm very excited about. Seth and I have the whole school day together all to ourselves. Handling 1 kid all day seems so easy!

Matt called this afternoon and got to hear from the kids about their first day. Wish you were here, honey. Miss you tons!

Here's some pictures of my kids, who seem to be growing up way too fast.

(Maya)

(Luke)

(Luke's classroom)

(Maya's classroom)

Couldn't be more proud...?

I'm a very lucky woman. I have an amazing husband who treats me with so much love and respect. Our kids see this everyday and will hopefully grow up to expect, have and do the same. I feel very blessed to have such an amazing marriage and I thank my Heavenly Father for it everyday. I have friends who even tease Matt and I a little with how lovey dovey we are.
But on the same end of all of that, we like to joke and have fun with each other. We have from the very beginning. Back when we first met we'd have ice/water fights and Matt even "Bobby Boushay"ed me in a snowball fight (Waterboy reference).
One thing that takes the cake, pun intended, was at our wedding. The tradition of the bride and groom cutting the cake and feeding each other the first piece. As Matt was preparing to delicately feed me the cake, all the sudden the whole plate was in my face! (Matt credits this to my sister Becky - my whole family was encouraging him, but when Becky said something along the lines of not worrying about the dress, he went for it)
The point of this post??
Matt and Luke and I were sitting down to snuggle on the couch and for some reason this made Luke think and say out loud. "When I grow up and get married, I'm gonna smash the cake like you dad."
Wait....what? Of all the things to learn from dad, that's what you choose? I honestly thought what Matt did to me was hilarious (and luckily the cake had fondant icing so it didn't make a huge mess), but I replied, as long as the girl is like Mommy she won't mind. He and Maya do love to watch that part of our wedding video, so it will not be forgotten. But, I figure we got about 20 years for him to grow and realize this may not be the best idea.

(For your enjoyment - here's our wedding cake memory)