First Day of Kindergarten

Well, here it is folks, the BIG DAY... the first day of Kindergarten. Joey was up and ready to go. I, on the other hand was a little more than stressed, sad, and well absolutely terrified. I was not sure how in Gods green earth I was going to take my son, the child I hardly ever am away from, the baby who I held for each nap the first year of his life and drop him off for 6 hours at a school where I don't know anyone. I was petrified of many things, him not eating his lunch and being hungry or even worse with 100 degree temps, not drinking enough and getting heat stroke (Don't even say it, I know, totally silly) worst of all I was terrified of bullies and mean teachers. As many of you know and saw, I was pressuring Joey to be home schooled and we DID try it over the summer, and although he did and has always excelled at schoolwork... Bill and I both could see something was missing... Joey is just a highly social child. And the first day of school and every day since is proof of that, he comes home very happy, content and excited. He just LOVES being around all kinds of people.

With this said, my fears were realized and Joey has what I will call a "mean" Music Teacher. For starters let me say, how can you be mean to MY SON in MUSIC, a five year old who has memorized over 280 measures this summer alone (only the 12 yr olds have memorized more in his Piano school) and can sit down and play such beautiful music. However, knowing him, I have no doubt he WAS talking and he admitted to me that he was. But, Time Out for A 5 yr old on his first day EVER of school may be a little harsh and humiliating. I had a nasty letter all ready to go to him (to be quite honest I was so mad I could have been very mean), but I talked to Bill and Joey, together we all agreed to give it one more week. More importantly I thought it through and as much as I would like to, I cannot protect Joey from mean people and doing so would be a handicap for him later in life. Part of school is learning to deal with different personalities. If I step in too quickly now, how will he ever deal with that horrible Boss he is bound to have in the future. So only time will tell...as I write this Joey should be headed to Music, I pray that the Teacher is kind (God help him if he is not, my Zen attitude may change very quickly) and that Joey follows all the rules, as he should. Okay, now onto my beautiful boy ; )

All ready to go with his rhino shirt and cool flame chucks

Walking with all the big kids

He needed both hands for his lunchbox...I have since let-up on the five course lunches, teehee

Here we go, at his classroom

At his table and ready for Mom to stop with the pics already!!

BTW, Joey was chosen as the first student of the week, we spent this weekend making an "All About Me" poster and he got to take in his favorite things ; )

Turtle Talk

Joey and Da rescued a Turtle, so we let Joey play with him in the backyard for a while. We fed him some of my grape tomatoes and he ate them all up; )

Chasing him around the yard

What a cutie pie!!! After a while we all walked him into the woods and released him into a stream.

Spring Piano Recital

I am catching up, sorry to still be so behind ; P

Joey's Piano Recital was in May and he did AWESOME! Some people brought a baby sibling and it cried a lot during his performance and threw him a little off (of course) you can hear it whaling in the background of the video below...what drove me double nutso was it screamed during EVERY performance and when it was time for their son to play the people took the baby out of the room....so rude. Anywho, he still did so great and was still the youngest to play by 2 1/2 years. So PROUD of my boy!!!

With Mrs Holmesly, the BEST piano teacher in the world!!!!!!

Here he is playing his songs

Jedi Camp - Disney Hollywood Studio's

Not long ago, we took our last trip to Disney before our yearly passes expired. Joey had been wanting to participate in Jedi Training Camp. So we waited over an hour for the opportunity. It is VERY popular!! Here is the video of him taking the Jedi Oath and then fighting Darth Vader. More pics of this coming soon!

Frogs and Butterflies

When Target ran their Christmas toys on sale, they had a butterfly habitat on 75% off clearance, so I snagged it and we ordered our caterpillars.... it was only a week or so and we had 3 nice cocoons.


They were soon 3 beautiful butterflies. We fed them flowers, oranges and watermelon

Pretty from the side, such an awesome thing to get to watch them transform from ugly little caterpillars

Here is Joey letting the butterflies land on his hand before we released them. You are only supposed to keep them for 7-10 days, after that they can no longer lay eggs and will die.

One of the butterflies on Joey's hand for release ; O)

We have been hearing lots of loud barking on the front porch and thought it was our neighbors yappy dogs...but turns out our culprit is much smaller. A tree frog living in our front garden...and it loves loves loves crawling on Joey...In fact it was hard to get it off

what a cutie

big green eyes and big green frog

We thought he may jump off if we left the porch

Nope, he loved Joey!!

Diamond D Ranch

This March, Joey's class took a wonderful field trip to the Diamond D Ranch here in Florida. It was a great trip...other than the fact that it was FREEZING!!! The middle of March here at the beach is typically shorts weather...but we had to bundle the kids up ; )

First the kids got to feed all kinds of animals, Joey started and finished with the goats....he did not like their "spit" on his hands ; )

Here is Joey and his pal Timothy, Joey didn't want to feeds the cows so he was watching his friends do it ; )
During a class about milking cows, this little Shelttie Pony kept approaching Joey. He loved it...and so did the rest of his class ; )

Joey and his pal Michael TRYING to ignore the pony after being told they needed to pay attention to the demonstration. They are trying poor boys ; )

Joey on the barrel roll. he loved being upside down

Joey and Michael "The Cowboys"

Joey, Emma and Michael being pushed by Angel (who Joey says he is going to marry)

Joey and his lovely girlfriend Angelina...not to be confused with Angel who he says will be his "wife" while Angelina is still his girlfriend ; )

Butterscotch

Joey was recently Star Student at school and that meant in addition to lots of other VPK 4 Year old honors, like being line leader,etc.... ; ) he got to bring home the class pet,. Butterscotch (a stuffed Monkey) Joey was SUPER excited to bring him home. First thing he did was show Butterscotch his playground

Then he joined us for our nightly game of Sorry ; )

The next day we took Butterscotch to Joey's School Carnival where he saw his Teacher's Husband, Mr McCubbin and son Ethan (Joey LOVES Ethan, he comes to class sometimes and heps his Mom. Joey just thinks he is the COOLEST boy on earth...well besides Nick & Ben of course ; )

Then he rode his school train and told the other passengers all about Butterscotch. Poor Joey, he is so shy and never talks....NOT!!!

Doing the obstacle course with Butterscotch

Then at Walmart of all places we saw Joey's favorite girlfriends from school, Angelina and Arriana!!! They were so excited to see each other on a weekend ; )

more on the way...I promise

Valentines Day 2010

Let me say UP FRONT that I am well aware of what a terrible blogger I have been recently. However, our family has been going through some struggles lately and it takes a while to get back to normal during hard times. I would ask that if you are reading this blog and you are a person of faith, please say a little prayer for us. We have a lot of hard decisions and trials in our future and a little divine guidance is sure to help : ) Thanks in advance and I will try and update more regularly. Now on to what really matters!!!

Valentines Day!!

The Valentine's Box filled up by the "Cupid", the dog was from Mom and Da!!

He loved it best of all, we knew he wanted it!!! He named her Daisy, isn't that sweet!! It really seems to have helped with his sadness and mourning at her (our real dog Daisy) passing

Ohh look at those goodies!!!

Yay, he got his power miner legos!!!

Joey also had a Valentines Party at school and I volunteered to help. Here he is eating Valentine goodies at his assigned table, YUM!!!

Me and him in his class. I felt so extra-special blessed to be able to be there for him during his school party!!! My Valentine!

Christmas Day 2009

I am finally doing Christmas Day (sorry) we have had A LOT going on on our lives right now. So without further delay here is Christmas Day 2009!!!

Joey had us up at the CRACK of dawn, and as you can see from this first pic taken, he was READY!!!

So while Da went to see if Santa came yet, Joey opened his Elmo stocking (Santa fills two at our house, one upstairs and one down : ) Joey was partial to the dump it all out method this year : )

Turning the corner around the stairs and first seeing that Santa came!!!!

Most important!!! Santa came with his Toy Machine...what a happy kid!!! Joey had been saving and saving quarters in anticipation, but Santa also brought him 2 extra rolls of quarters, woohooo!!! He emptied the entire machine in a little over a day!!! Let me say when Joey put this on his list Santa just about had a coronary...but actually they are pretty reasonably priced ; )

Only one per quarter??

Joey got a great little tool kit and wore his safety goggles almost the entire rest of the day, too cute!!!

Yay, he got his fishing pole!!!!! Him and Da have even been fishing already, more on that later!

Again with the dump it method of stocking stuffer removal

A Fireman costume from Mom and Da, it has become a tradition for us to buy him costumes, good thing too, all the stuff from his dress-up box was too small!