Pink Is In The Air

As hard as it is to believe, we are only four days away from having our baby girl, assuming she doesn't have other plans and decide to come early.

We have the c-section scheduled for 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning and we will be welcoming Alyssa Brooke Wester into the world.  The boys are so excited about her coming and getting to see her.   Well, I guess the parents are too...

Recognition Galore

Over the past few weeks, Colin has been recognized at school for several things.  Which of course, makes Mom and Dad very proud of his accomplishments.

First of all, he was recognized for Responsibility, which is the character trait they are focusing on for the first 6 weeks of school.  He received this recognition last year as well, so I'm proud of his constant focus on being responsible.

This past Friday, Colin was recognized for reaching 50 AR (reading) points.  Last year, he reached 205 points by the end of the school year.  He set a goal this year to reach 300 (or at least more than 205) and he's well on his way.  He's actually already above 70 points now, but he wasn't recognized until this past week.  He's such a speed reader....

In addition to this on Friday, he was recognized for the A Honor Roll, which is quite an achievement.  However, he did one better and was also in the Principal's Club, which is for those who have 95 and above in all subjects.  Quite the scholar....

 

A Scouting We Will Go

Colin has officially joined the Cub Scouts.  He has several friends who were in Cub Scouts last year (Peter, Dylan and Adam).  This year, Colin was very interested in joining and I think this will give him some great extra activities and interests to pursue.  We've only been to one den meeting so far, but there are lots of activities coming up such as a pumpkin unloading at a church here in Wylie.

Here's a picture of our handsome Cub Scout:

First Day of Second Grade

Colin started second grade last week.  He think his new teacher, Ms. Fox, is really nice.  We would have to agree.  He was disappointed that one of his best friends from his class last year, Eduardo, had apparently moved to another school in Wylie (Akin Elementary).

The first day, when Ms. Fox brought Colin out to the car, she told Tammy, "I wish I had 19 kids just like him." 

Baby Pictures

Okay, so the title of this post is a bit misleading - no, we haven't had our baby yet.

But we did go and get a 3D sonogram, which gave us some great shots of our little girl.  We think we are settling on the name Alyssa Brooke, but need to wait on an indecisive pregnant woman....  Did I say that?  Quick, gotta delete this blog!!

Click here for some additional pictures of the baby, but below is one in which she appears to be smiling a little.

Fun At Great Wolf Lodge

We went to Great Wolf Lodge last week and had a blast.  It's located in Grapevine, about 45 minutes from our house.  The place is huge and there are lots of water activities to do, an art/craft place and an arcade.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed their time and were completely worn out after two days. 

Click here to see more pictures.


Below is a fun video I took of Colin on a ride called The River Canyon Run.  It's actually quite exhilarating to hold the camera and go down this ride backwards.

Super Reader

During Colin's year in First Grade, he really proved to be an awesome reader.  Many of you with kids are probably familiar with AR Points.  If not, basically they are points given for reading books and taking comprehension tests.  For example, if Colin were to read Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and make a perfect score on the test, he would be awarded 1/2 AR point.  If he read the full unabridged version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis and made a perfect score on the test, he would get 6 points.  The kids are then recognized for reaching 25 pts and 50 pts.  Once they reach 100 pts, they get the special recognition of receiving a cool shirt.

Keeping in mind that Colin was in the First Grade (when I remember reading See Spot Run), he was recognized in February for reaching 100 AR Points, which was a tremendous accomplish.  I would estimate that from September-February, 90% of his books were 1/2 point each, meaning he read close to 200 books.

It took Colin 6 months to get to the first 100 points, but he had begun reading much more difficult books.  For example, I bought him the book "How to Train Your Dragon" after seeing the movie and it's a pretty significant book.  He read it in less than 4 days.  It has 240 pages and here's an example of one page:

He has completed the first 6 of those books in the series as well as some other challenging books.  He is working on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe now, with my help (as C.S. Lewis was from Ireland and they were written back in the 50's, the grammar makes for a more difficult read).  Within 3 months, Colin had read enough to reach 200 points and so in May he was awarded a 200 point shirt at a recognition in front of the school assembly. He also got to participate in a 100 Point Club Party at the end of the school year, which was very exciting for him.

It boggles my mind how he excels at reading.  I always have loved reading and we've tried to instill that in our boys as well, but I know I wasn't anywhere near this level at his age.  We just found out last week that he was accepted into the GT (Gifted & Talented) Program for next year.  It's great, as it gives him an opportunity several times a week to be in an advanced class and get additional learning challenges.

He's already set his goal for Second Grade to get a 300 point shirt.  Even though he will start over at 0 points at the beginning of the school year, I don't doubt that he will make that goal based on how he did this past school year.

Big Brothers!! (Update)

UPDATE:  For those who don't know yet (as I had forgotten to update this post), we are having a girl!  The good thing is that both boys have said from the start that they wanted a baby sister.  But what am I going to do with a girl?!?! 

Colin is a big brother today, but Noah is very excited as he will soon be a big brother as well. We are expecting, with the due date mid-October!!!

Both of the boys have stated that they want a baby sister, which we found a bit surprising. Actually, to clarify that a bit - Noah says that it IS a baby sister. Definitely amusing, especially when you consider that Noah stated the following a few days before we even knew we were pregnant (and we hadn't mentioned babies at all to the boys): "Mama, I don't know what you're going to name the new baby."

We will find out in about two weeks whether we're expecting another boy or a girl. Just five months to go until we are back in diapers!!!! Yeah!!

Comments Finally Fixed

Ever since I've been doing this blog, I have had issues with the Comments option.  Today, I finally got it to work.  So on the blog site, at the bottom of each post, there is now a link to add comments to our posts.

For those reading this on Facebook, the link is www.thewesterfamily.blogspot.com
 

Little Thinkers Inquisitive Humor

Here's another addition to my series called Little Thinkers to highlight some humorous comments and thoughts by our kiddos:

For those reading this on Facebook, you can find past issues of this series at our blog site: www.thewesterfamily.blogspot.com

Since we are now expecting a third kid, we thought it would be fun to ask the kids what we should name the new baby. Noah gave us some names of kids in his class. But Colin decided to be a bit more creative and said, "If it's a boy, we should name him Tom. If it's a girl, her name should be Jerry." Someone has been watching too many cartoons....

Noah told me the other day that he's glad he isn't a grown-up. When I asked why, he said, "Because grown-ups don't have piggy banks."

We had a discussion with Colin about grandparents and grandkids. I told him that Grandpa is also my dad. I then asked him what his kids would call me when he grew up and had kids. He thought about it a moment and then said, "Grandpa." I congratulated him on getting that right and then I asked him if he knew what his kid's kids would call me. He gave me a puzzled look, so I told him that I would be their great-grandpa. He kind of laughed at that and said, "No they wouldn't, because you'd probably be dead."