Poppy Turns 6!

So Poppet enjoyed his yearly 4 day birthday celebration. It started on Friday with dinner at McD's. Saturday he opened gifts from us and his grandparents via skype followed by the grand finale on Sunday, a huge blow out with his friends in the backyard. The child got everything he wanted and more and was so excited to have many of his friends over to play.

Playing in the tree fort. The kids really enjoyed it!

Enjoying the slide.

The whole gang lined up for cake and ice cream.

Waiting for me to get the candles lit, in my defense, it was really windy. Once I finally got them lit we all sang and he blew all out by 2. I told him that it meant that he'd have 2 girlfriends this year. He said he was fine with it (I'm not, however. See previous post about potential girlfriends)

Opening presents, his buddy making sure that his lap was never empty

More presents, he loved all his gifts.

Covered in frosting. Just makes him extra sweet, I love that boy!

Show Me Your Teeth!

Poppy lost his first tooth a couple weeks ago. He's been wiggling it since his last dentist appt. when she suggested it was loose. There are a lot of things I don't mind but baby teeth hanging by a tiny little root is not something I want to see, ever. Of course, he had to keep showing me how loose it was to gross me out! When it finally came out we were outside on the deck and he dropped it. The fact that it didn't fall between the deck boards is proof that God does indeed take care of babies and fools.
We had to call everyone he could think of to tell. His first call was to his cousin Andrew. The conversation was short but Poppy was happy he got to tell him.
When it was time to go to bed he wasn't nearly as excited about the tooth fairy coming to his room to take the tooth and leave him money. He's not crazy about mythical creatures sneaking into his room while he's asleep. I think if he would have had it his way we would have left it outside so she wouldn't have to come in.


The first tooth.


His 2nd tooth! Right next to the 1st. Very excited to get more money from the tooth fairy. He says the best thing about having 2 teeth gone is that he can fit a straw in there without biting on it! BTW, that's a snake on his face... scary!

Poppet goes to Kindergarten

So my baby went to Kindergarten on Thursday. Wow, that was a hard sentence to write. What I'm realizing is that he's not my baby anymore. When I wasn't looking he grew up but I have to say I'm in awe of him. He's so smart and funny. We went to the dr on Tuesday for the kids school physicals and our Dr. always reminds him that he was tiny when she delivered him but this time he beat her too it saying "I know, I know, you were there when I got borned, and I was a lot smaller". She just laughed. He's in the 95% for height and 85% for weight, she says he's perfect. I know I'm bias but I agree!


Here's my big guy, ready to go. He was actually dressed by the time I got home from the gym. That never happens, usually I have to threaten to hide his DS in order to get him moving.


Letting his sister join (in her new Lighting McQueen t-shirt her daddy got her), the reason he's standing like that is cause that's how Mario stands. He's currently obsessed with anything Mario Bro's, as you can maybe tell by his first day of school t-shirt.


Running ahead with his sister trying to keep up. Doesn't take long to get to school, it's just up the block.


This picture is blurry but his face was clearly saying "Hurry up"


Standing by his table. His teacher seems very nice, it's her first year teaching. His room is really big and full of all sorts of fun things. There's a kitchen set and he thought it was great that there was fake sushi to serve. He has a folder that he'll bring home everyday, one side is for notices and the other is for homework. He got an award for having a great first day so that's a good sign. He enjoyed lunch the best and describe everything he ate. I'm just glad he got to eat cause I wrote a check to the school for his meal account but when I checked his account online was still at -0- so at 11:10am I was trying frantically to call the school to make sure he'd get food, I ended up just putting more money into his account just in case. If that child would not have been able to eat I would have NEVER heard the end of it. He'd be telling his children about the time Granny Molly didn't feed him. The kid takes food seriously.

Kate First Day of Pre-school

Today was Kitty's first day of pre-school. She was so excited, she's been waiting for it to come for months and I think she really enjoyed it. She is in the same room that Poppy was last year so she knew some of the kids and one of her friends from day care is there too. Since Poppy's school doesn't start till tomorrow he got to come along and spend part of the day in his new room, the Blue Room, where the big kids are. It's the place to be cause they have "real lego's". When we picked them up they both gave us a run down of the day and it sounded like her first day was a success.

Standing outside the house.

Showing off her new backpack, it's so tiny but it fits her great and she's proud of it. I have no idea what kind of pose Poppy was striking ;-)

Heading to school. If you notice she kept her backpack on, even in the car. Too excited to take it off.

Kitty carrying in her plant.

Poppy's new big kid room at preschool. He'll be there every day after school until pick them up time.

4 Years Old and Full of Fun

Kitty turned 4 today. It's been a long wonderful 4 years. She has definitely proven to be a challenging, sweet, fiercely independent little girl. She has come so far from the tiny baby she arrived as. Lets take trip down memory lane...


She was all arms and legs as an infant.


Here she is around a month and a half. Much more alert happiest when she was all swaddled up!


1st Birthday, a month after getting the ng-tube. She ate some of her birthday cake and started crawling shortly thereafter. Proof that chocolate can cure anything!


2nd Birthday, by this point she had her g-tube in and was living large! She did sooo much growing that year. Even her hair started to grow, slowly but surely!


3rd Birthday, see, hair! Isn't she pretty? She always had a personality but it really started to shine that year. We practiced potty training and eating in the 3rd year.


4th Birthday, so grown up and beautiful.

First camping trip

Over Memorial Day weekend we decided to break out the camper we bought last fall. After a bunch of packing and a couple trips to the store we were off. Thankfully there is a great state park nearby with campsites with plug-ins! The camper was really easy to set up, Matt said that he thought it was actually easier for us to set up the camper than it was a tent. I've completely blocked camping in a tent out of my mind so I don't know! I would say from the time we backed in till the air conditioner was on was maybe 20 mins.


All set up


Didn't take Kitty long to get comfortable


Poppy hanging out

Looking at the beds on one side (the table is wear the red sheet is)...

The other side

I did make the beds, took me at least 15 mins. It took Kitty about 45 seconds to unmake them! She got to sleep on top of the table. I think she got the best bed in the place cause it was windy at night and the pop-outs moved.


Matt and Poppet watching the sunrise, yep I said sunrise. Havoc woke us all up about 6am. He wasn't sure about camping but I think he'll get better at it once he gets comfortable. BTW, Kitty took this picture, when I was downloading the pictures I was surprised to see that there were 65 of them. She had quite a good time. I bet there was 15 of her tummy, face or legs and at least as many of the gravel. She did get a few good ones.

It was a really good time! We're excited to do it again soon.

Poppy's Graduation!

Today was Poppet's preschool graduation. It was lots of fun, the families got to sit on little kid chairs and listen to the kids songs and rhymes. After all the caps and diploma's were handed out everyone just mingled around and took lots of pictures. Poppy will stay there for the rest of the summer but he had to say goodbye to some of his friends who wouldn't be back. He say's he's ready for next year, I don't think I am.


Getting his diploma and cap


Miss Kamal and a few of Poppet's friends


Hanging out with his peeps


Poppy and Miss Davis


A quick pic of the graduate and the proud parents!


The happy grad!

New Train Table

Didn't take long to figure out that Poppy liked trains... a lot! Soon he had amassed such a large amount of trains that they no longer fit on the ottoman


Or his cute little table I made for him. I knew it was time for a new one when I realized I was taking furniture from other parts of the house to add to his table so he could expand his tracks. The final straw was Matt's late night ebay purchase of 'a few' buildings and tracks (it ended up being 2 big boxes).

I thought about just getting a bigger table but then I realized it would be better if it was just on the floor. Off the Home Depot Matt and Poppy went and they came home with a 4x8 piece of plywood. I still wanted to cut it down because I was sure I wouldn't be able to find fabric big enough to cover such a large piece of wood. Turns out it was an easy find and now I'm glad we didn't make it any smaller, as you can tell from the picture, he's filled it up! Sometimes it's even big enough so that he'll allow his sister to play too!

Angry Peeps!

Anyone who has kids or for that matter anyone who has access to apps on a mobile phone is well aware of Angry Birds. It just happens to be Poppy's favorite game. He's even figured out that there are videos on YouTube about them. Anyway for Easter we decided to take those peeps and put them to good use, plus it was a good mom-son bonding moment. Took us a while to build the structure cause he really wanted to just eat the frosting. I think it turned out pretty well.




Poppet showing you his angry face!

It's my screen saver at work. BTW, he did end up eating most of it... a week later. He said it was yummy. Good times!

Poppy Has A Girlfriend (this post is subtitled the day I almost pushed a 5yr old girl down)

Okay, I consider myself an adult, most of the time. I worry about Poppy's future, I do. I've asked him in the past what kind of job he wants when he grows up and he's always said 'none, I'm going to live with you'. This has both scared the daylights out of me and gave me a smug satisfaction.
Well today I picked him up from pre-school and he ran up to me like always and held my hand. All of the sudden this little girl saunters up and announces to me that she is his girlfriend. So, in my most adult voice I ask the little hussy what her name is... she tells me and then states that when they grow up she's going to marry him. At this point I'm seeing stars so I ask her how they are going to live? She says he'll have a job and they'll have a house. Poppy just grins and looks uncomfortable at the both of us.
Oh, then she hugged him... WHILE I was holding his hand! Internal mantra 'I'm an adult, I'm an adult'
Once I get him in the car, I asked him what he wants to be when he grows up and without hesitation he says he wants to be 'a Matt'. I didn't know what that was so I asked him to explain. He says he he wants to be just like Daddy. So I say, 'you want to work with computers?' He says 'yeah, work with computers and give out treats.'
I think this girlfriend has her work cut out for her.


Had to add a picture of us, cause I'm the mommy and he's my baby.

Christmas 2010

This year Christmas was spent in Mississippi at Grammy and Grampy Kuzinski's house. We were there with Greg and Becca and their kiddo's Samuel and Elizabeth. The kids had a ball (as you can tell from the pictures) I think a good time was had by all, we spent a lot of time catching up because we don't see enough of each other and we even watched a few home movies of when the boys were younger. Most of these pictures were taken by Becca and her awesome new camera. It takes pictures rapidly which is really needed with little kids. I swear sometimes it took 20 pictures just to get everyone looking in the same direction. Thanks to Grammy and Grampy K for putting up with us, it was wonderful.

The little ladies sharing a seat.

The boys, taking a break from playing Angry Birds.

Kitty enjoying the wind in her hair!

He LOVED this present!

Taking a break in opening presents to lay down on her new pillow pet (a unicorn from Grammy and Grampy)

Her new baby who is hungry all the time. She calls her 'Tinker' or 'Sister'

Poppy showing off his 'Stinky' the trash truck. It's loud and annoying so naturally he loves it!

The cousins, they all have such funny personalities!