A Big Step

I am so excited to announce that my little Tanner has taken his first steps!!! We are so excited and he is having quite the time with this too. Last night, David & I sat on the floor and he walked back and forth between us. Now if given the option between crawling (which he is speed crawler) or walking - he is still choosing crawling - I bet that changes soon! I am going to try and take some pictures or a little video of him walking today and I'll put that one here later.

Sunday night update: Okay - I'm posting this little video I took of Tanner walking today. Just a little disclaimer: I am used to taking photos, not videos and didn't think about the fact that I was holding the camera vertical - seemed okay until I put it on the computer! I'll take another one soon - so to watch this one, you'll have to turn your head sideways. :)

Have a great day!

Dawn

Ready for the Weekend

I love Labor Day weekend - not only do we get an automatic three day weekend, but I always look forward to attending Santi-Cali-Gon Days here in Independence. It has been a tradition the past few years where my mother-in-law and I go and check out the craft booths. I hardly ever buy anything, but it's always fun to go and get ideas for things that I "may" make someday. I am looking forward to heading to the tents tomorrow night for another evening of browsing. Here is one of my creations from an idea I got up there. Zach and I spent quite a bit of time looking for "letters" and are still on the hunt for some.

I was going through some pictures earlier when I came across this picture of my siblings and I from a few years back. It was taken on Labor Day weekend and we had the best time together taking these pictures. Although, I have to say that I am extremely fortunate to have such a great relationship with all of them. We are not all five together too often since Carrie lives so far away, but try to coordinate our visits at mom and dad's so that we can see each other often. Carrie - you need to move closer so you can be a part of this! I can only hope and pray that when my children are grown that they have the same type of closeness that Brian, Carrie, Matt, Jon and I have.

On the school front - everything is going good. Hunter has stopped crying and is enjoying school now. He came home today with the news that a little girl is in love with him and has been trying to kiss him. Dang - it starts early! I think Zach got his first "love" letter in Kindergarten too! How fun.

Zach is really enjoying school this year and seems to be doing good. He is making several new friends and seems to really like all his teachers. He told me that the first week of school some kids put graffti all over the 8th grade bathroom wall - it really is a slap in the face to all the wonderful volunteers who worked so hard to get the schools ready for the new school year. I hope they are able to determine who did this and punish them appropriately. Zach was quite disappointed as were all the teachers and other students.

Peyton starts preschool on Tuesday and is quite excited about that. I think he will enjoy it. Everything is fun to Peyton - I'm sure this won't be any different.

Have a great day!

Dawn

A New Week

The first week of school had been completed and it wasn't all a bowl of cherries, that's for sure. We had a lot of crying that happened, but was looking forward to a new week. Everything seemed to be on the up and up...well, kind of. As I got Hunter ready for school this morning, the first thing he asked me was - is it going to be as long again this week as it was last week. OH NO! Not again! David and I had a long talk with him this morning and a lot of bribing went on - it's pretty sad that we are having to bribe our child not to cry during school.

I promised him that if he had a good day that I would take him for an ice cream cone after school. His dad promised him if he had a whole week of no tears he would play soccer with him in the backyard AND a trip to the movies. Well, it seemed to have worked - he agreed that he thought he could go with no crying. Needless to say, I put him on the bus - tears and all.

I worried all day about how his day was going and got a phone call about 2:00 from the school counselor that everything was going great today - no more tears and he was on his third star for the day! The stars have really been what has kept him going I think. Plus, he seems to enjoy the fact that he was one of the only ones in class who could follow the rules. He got a sticker for being the only one in the hall who was quiet - I can only imagine that Peyton will be the one who will be stirring things up.

Today was the first day that Zachary had to pick Hunter up from the bus stop after school - we have such a nice neighbor Rick, who agreed to walk with Zach and the kids to pick up Hunter. I told Zach to tell Peyton & Aubrey if they cooperated that I would get them an ice cream cone tonight - well, let me tell you what - ice cream works! Luckily, we only have to do this once or twice a week.

I got a call from Zach that they were home and I guess my dear Peyton - anyone who knows Peyton can only imagine where this is going...they arrived at the bus stop a few minutes early and Peyton decided he needed to go to the bathroom - so right on the street corner of Winner Road - Peyton pulled it out and proceeded to pee on somebody's yard. What could I do? Just shake my head and say - that's Peyton! Of course, we had a discussion that he can't just do that.


Have a good week!


Dawn

The Week of Firsts

Since I am a crazy addict of blogs, I thought it might be fun to create our own family blog on the adventures of the Bass Family.

Monday was the first day of school for Zachary. It was different in that Zachary has started his 8th grade year in a new school. We have moved over to the public schools in the new Independence schools that were part of the boundary change battle. We are very excited about this change - the option to send our children to public schools, knowing they will continue to receive as good as education that they received in private school, as well as, our property values potential for increase. I really feel like this is a great move for Western Independence.

Hunter's first day of Kindergarten was Tuesday and it was quite exciting. I took him to the bus stop and got him on his way. Of course, I needed to make sure that he was doing okay, so I arrived at school before he did and was able to get some pictures of him getting off the school bus and walked him in to class for his first day. I think overall he had a good day.

We had a little mishap at the bus stop - David arrived to pick him up and the bus pulled up, but with no Hunter. He called me in a panic and we, along with the bus driver, was trying to reach the school when my cell phone rang and it was Hunter's teacher. They had put him in the "Parent Pick-up" line instead of the bus line, which was okay - just a little nerve wracking wondering where he was on his first day!

Hunter loves riding the bus and looks forward to riding the bus. As I stated above, he had a really good first day of school, however, days 2,3 & 4 were not quite as good. When he got home from school on Wednesday, he had a card that he made for his dad that just said how much he missed him throughout the day. We thought it would be better on Thursday but another card comes home from school - this time the sadness was even greater and it turns out he had a rough day and cried throughout. He is very homesick. I guess this is a disadvantage of not going to daycare every day, but I still wouldn't change it. He told his dad and I both that if he had known how long school actually was going to be, then he would have given the teacher the wrong answers at the Kindergarten screening in order to stay home for another year.

So...here comes Friday, I decided today that I was going to drive Hunter to school and go in a little early to talk with his teacher. We got Zach off to school on his bus and then had our special time together by going to McDonalds for breakfast. Everything seemed to be going well and we got in the car to go on to school when the tears started.

The talk with the teacher didn't go so well as Hunter cried the entire time and my short little visit ended up getting me to work by 10:30. As I was leaving, I could hear him crying clear down the hall. I ended up going back and he wasn't the only one crying at that point! My tears were just a rolling too - I ended up going back into the classroom with him (as the teacher didn't know what to do at this point either) and I watched as he practiced his name (again, he didn't understand why he needed to work on this, as he already knows how to write his name). He got through this paper and ended up participating in the next activity and then I was able to leave without incident.

I received a phone call at noon from Hunter and the school counselor (she's pretty busy this week with crying Kindergartners and helping the teachers). He had a pretty rough morning, but the rest of the afternoon was great! I think maybe we reached a turning point - he made a new friend and seems to be okay with going back Monday. Keep your fingers crossed!

The enrollment was quite higher than they had expected and so the classes right now are at about 33-34 per class - so, they have added an additional class and Hunter will be moving to that class on Monday and his class size should be around 23.

No news to report on the Peyton, Aubrey & Tanner front - status quo is good at times!

We hope that you enjoy our new family blog and will try and update it as often as possible. This was pretty long - so I'll try and keep the rest of them shorter. We had a lot to report this week with school starting.

Dawn