4 1/2

Guess who is officially 4 and a half...

 Seriously, have you ever seen such a cute little boy? That hair is enough to melt anyone's heart! I can not believe he is half way to 5! When he starts school next year I'll officially not have any more preschoolers. Just "big kids" :(

 Tanner, You make us so happy! You are so cute and loving! I love your "signature" goofy pose!

 Happy half way to 5 birthday Tan Man!!

Tired

We have had so much going on lately. Paw Paw and Paw Paw Barnes have both been in the hospital last week and the week before. Thankfully Paw Paw is out and doing much better. Paw Paw Barnes is still in the hospital but is doing much better than he was a few days ago.

It's taking us a few days to get back into our school routine. I will say though that it has gone much better than expected. They have been getting up in the mornings the first time I wake them up. Which is huge! I have been luring them out of bed with sugar infested cereal! (Before this year they've never really had cereal. I think I may have bought 5 boxes in all of their life. Now we go through 5 boxes a week). I know it's insanely unhealthy but it is what's working for us right now. :)

Football is in full swing and thankfully Tanner is starting to like it better. I wouldn't say he loves it but he doesn't cry all the time. Ryleigh starts soccer tomorrow and is really excited about it. She didn't want to cheer because it's too hot and she didn't want to sweat. Well I've got news for you Miss Priss, you are going to sweat in soccer too. I'm with Courtney, I give you 4 weeks until you are begging to be back in that air conditioned dance studio! (My friend Courtney, Ry's dance teacher said she wouldn't make it in the heat, Lol!)

This past week I was out of town for work in North Carolina and was involved in my first ever earthquake. It was crazy! We were completely fine but it was just crazy seeing the water in the pitchers sloshing around like crazy. This weekend we just laid low. I  felt like I couldn't catch up all weekend since I was gone all last week. Ryan did a good job at holding the fort down but I came back to mountains of laundry.

Saturday night we did go out with friends. Ryan and Courtney kept the kids and they had a great time! They talked about it all day long on Sunday. Our sweet friends Leslie and Blake are moving to Enterprise, AL. He got accepted to flight school. We went to Tacky Jacks and had a great time. 

 I look like I am newly engaged and trying to show off my ring....not the case. But isn't it a beautiful ring! :)

Sunday we just laid low and went to my friend Paige's daughter, Pearce's birthday party. The kids had a blast. They were even more excited about the party favors. Only Paige would have full fledged presents for all the kids as "party favors!"

Well I hope everyone has a fantastic week! I know we plan too!

Friday's Letter

Dear Ryan, I love how you said I'll do the dishes tonight. So I went and got in the bed to wake up to the dishes still in the sink. Not cool. You did unload the dishwasher though which is the only other thing I refuse to do in our house. (Taking the garbage out is the other one. I've never done it once and I never plan to.) Dear Ryleigh, I thought I would love you wearing uniforms I however do not like it at all. They make you look too grown up! I'm glad you've had a great week and have and have gotten a smiley face everyday. I'm also glad that you are the teachers helper everyday! You are such a sweet girl and I love you. Dear Tanner, you have 13 years of school left so learn to love it. Mrs. Carter, I love that Tanner hates school when he's at home but loves it when he's there. I loves the text that I got from you saying Tanner said "I love school 60 times around the world!" Dear Paw Paw and Paw Paw Barnes, you both need to get to feeling better and come home! Our family is to big to all fit in a hospital room! :) Dear week, you have been the death of me. Seriously. I haven't gotten home before 8 all week long. Plus it's the first week of school so we are still settling into that routine. Maybe next week will be better. Dear Weekend, I heart you. Dear Erin Condren, I need to write an entire post about my love for my planner you made. It's a deep love! Dear Ryan, I love you for many reasons. Near the top of the list is the fact that you are the official garbage man at our house. I pay all of the bills but strangely I don't pay that one, you do. :)

K4!

Today was Tan Man's first day of K4! He was actually really looking forward to it and jumped right out of bed this morning and kept asking how much longer until we leave for school.

At ABC you don't walk them in you just pull through the car line. Even on the first day! That's the one thing I don't like about that school. Everything else makes it the best school ever! Anyway though we were early and had some time to kill so we went in Curves. So I ended up walking him to school and walked him into his class. He was really excited about that since we had just walked Ryleigh to her class that morning too.

 He walked right in and sat down and didn't cry or whine at all! He was just happy to be there and he was happy to have Mrs. Carter as his teacher.

 Tonight when I talked to him though he had changed his tune. He did not have fun at all and the only things they did that were even kinda fun were going outside and eating lunch. Everything else was "no fun at all!" He drives me crazy!! I am not looking forward to battling this all year long. Please say a prayer for us.

Tanner, Even though you said you didn't have a good first day I know you did. You always say stuff isn't fun even if it is. You even say you didn't have fun at Chuck E Cheese after the fact but while you were there you were laughing and playing the whole time. I really hope you come around to liking school because you have a heck of a long time to go!

I looked back at when he started K3 this morning and noticed that he wore the same shorts both years. That wasn't planned at all. Here is the link to K3. He has also gotten so big since last year.

Kindergarten Here We Come!!

This morning was Ryleigh Claire's first day of kindergarten. It is a big change for her. She is used to her very small private preschool and now she is going to a very large public school.

She took a while last night picking out what she was going to wear today. She wanted to wear shorts and I told her she had to wear a skirt or jumper. (I'm not a fan of shorts or skirts on little girls, ever. Especially not the first day of school!) Whitney was over and said we would flip a coin for skirt or shorts. Thankfully it came up skirt. (I'm not sure if Whit rigged it or not but I won!)

 She got up this morning and ate pancakes and got dress and it was off to school we went!

 Ryan of course took the morning off. He takes off for their first dentist appt so I don't know why I didn't assume he would take off for school .We walked her in and met her teacher and gave her the present we bought for her. (Like I said, I'm not above bribing teachers to like my kids! :)

She walked right in and sat at her spot and started coloring. She did kiss and hug me bye but she didn't even look twice when we walked out the door.

Last night we read 2 books about starting kindergarten and afterwards we took turns praying for the upcoming school year. This was her prayer word for word.

Dear Jesus,

Thank you for giving me a fun mommy and daddy. I hope at school my teacher is nice. I hope we have lunch before my stomach starts making noises. I hope I make lots of friends and look really cute in my uniform. Thank you Jesus for school and my mom. I love them both!!

It was so sweet!! I love that girl!! Good luck Ryleigh on your first day of school! I'm sure you will make lots of friends and you sure did look cute in your uniform this morning!!

The things they say...

I just wanted to record a few of the crazy/funny things the kids have saved lately.

This morning at church I got to smalltown to pick the kids up a few minutes early. They were still in service so I snuck in to watch them. There were around 50  preschoolers all seated on the floor. They were talking about Jonah and the whale. Mrs. Letha asked the class "What do you think it smelled like in that whales belly?" I'm sure she was expecting them to name off some gross smells. The first answer was from Tanner. He shouted out "Gravy!!" Mrs. Letha was just like, well ok Tanner!

Ryleigh said yesterday in the car every time I get an eyelash I wish on it that you would have a new baby. That's sweet Ry but I doubt it's happening!

One of my best friends Tina had a new baby boy this week. Fisher is the cutest little baby!! I was showing Ry and Tan the picture of him and I said now Maddie (Tina's daughter) is a big sister like Ryleigh is a big sister to Tanner. Tanner said "I hope Maddie is nicer to Fisher than Ryleigh is to me!"

Today while we were getting uniforms ready for the big day tomorrow Ryleigh looked at me and said "I just really think I need to go back to ABC. I'm just really not feeling these uniforms every single day!"

I love this time in their lives. They are old enough to say whatever but sometimes it comes out in the funniest way! Can I please freeze them at 4 and 5??? I need to take a picture of them and post it. We have been at the beach all week and they are seriously so tan. Tanner looks like a little surfer with his curly blonde hair and tan body. We had a great week and are looking forward to all the craziness coming this week!

We are alive and well!

Lindsey called today to make sure we haven't upped and moved to Canada! She said I hadn't updated my blog in forever. So what have we been up to??


Enjoying out last bit of summer before our baby girl starts real school and we no longer have the luxury of missing school whenever we want her too.


We've been busy with football practice, engagement parties, swimming, swimming and more swimming.


We got to the beach on Saturday and have been here since then. This week we are doing all the touristy things we usually don't do.


We've gone to the track and Waterville. They loved Waterville. We were literally there from when they opened until they closed. They both rode all the big slides and loved them. They even did the adult body slides all by themselves! They also rode the rollercoaster. Ry loved it, Tan hated it.


Ryan went back home and to work this morning so it's just me and the kids the rest of the week.


We hung out with Ryan's aunt and her crew today and stayed at the beach all day long. I normally put like SPF 70 on them but today I just put 15 and they look so cute and tan!


We are finishing up the week with a lot of the same thing and are looking forward to it!


I'll be back to blogging on Monday.


It'll be a big day at the Stokley house. I can't believe my baby girl will be in kindergarten.


I'll leave you with a few more pictures...I love this one of them. He looks so tall in it and she looks absolutely beautiful!

Football

Tanner said he wanted to play. We went and got new cleats, pants, mouthpiece, chinstrap and everything else. He picked it all out and was so happy to be playing a "real" sport so he said.

Everything went so good the first 3 days of practice. They weren't in pads yet and were just running easy drills.

Insert real practice and real pads...also insert lots of tears. Lots and lots of them. He hated it. He cried the whole time. Granted he wasn't the only one but still.



Last night he did much better and was so proud of himself when he tackled someone and out ran everyone else.


So I had high hopes for tonight...major let down. He cried for the first 30 minutes of practice. Once he finally calmed down he was having fun again.


He said "before I didn't know football was fun. Now I do!" we'll see how much that changes between now and tomorrow.


But I'll sat what I always say..."he may not be the best player and he may be the biggest crybaby but he is BY FAR the cutest!!!!" :)