Another Phone Dump: September, October and Novemberish

Boy, I don't know if I've ever been so far behind.  It feels real annoying.  At any rate, here's a bunch of regular old life from our phones, in no particular order and spanning September-November.

A friend of ours actually knew where we are in this picture.  Can you figure it out?

That's me, at a really hot, muggy outdoor birthday party.

Miles and I reading the Book of Mormon in bed.  I'm looking pretty cute, no?

Miles is a great reader.

At church.  We go every week.

Dave likes to play hockey and it went crazy one night.

Totally blurry, but still made the cut.

Dave.  At work.

Miles has been taking ice skating lessons/hockey lessons for the last little while.  It's been challenging for sure.

Toothless.

Roller skating on pajama day.  Check out how skinny Miles is!  Also, he looks like a total goon.

So far, Miles has thoroughly delighted me with his Halloween costume requests.  In 2013 he wanted to be a "homeless person" and in 2014 he wanted to be a hockey player.  Those are my kind of costumes (AKA minimal work and time)!  

In-n-out in Dallas on Halloween.

Trick or treating with cousins in Dallas Halloween 2014.

The same weekend of Halloween, Dave and I went to Chive Fest Dallas.  One of our favorite bands was playing so we pretty much had to go.  The festival itself was nothing special, but we went 100% for the music so it didn't really matter anyway.  The music, however, was great.  So loud, but so great.  My ears were ringing for 3 days and I was a little scared I ruined my ears for life!

Playing a little big game of connect 4.  Party.

Emily Wolfe was the surprise of the day.  I really enjoyed her show.

The very band we went to see.

And John Butler Trio, who were also really good.  John Butler did play this song which is so crazy good and it was pretty rad to see it live.  There were other bands and the main guy was some country singer, but we didn't stay.  Country music literally makes me irritable. 

Miles and I made this bat mobile thing to decorate for Halloween.  Let it be known that I despise crafts.

Good ol Houston traffic.

Miles drew a hockey game complete with the score board thing in the top left.  It's got the Calgary Flames logo and the Avs logo and the Altitude Network (the Colorado sports network) logo, among other details... the kid is a FAN of hockey.

Awesome.

Kindergarten and 1st grade pictures.  I couldn't believe how much older he looked!

That's all for now.  More to come-- I will get caught up if it's the last thing I do (which it very well may be the last thing I do).

Little Bits of 1st Grade

Let's start with the best of all:

 I freaking laughed my head off.

 His haunted house.

 His constructed compound word.

 Can you guess it?  The thing on the left is a letter and the thing on the right is a box.

He was supposed to write 5 addition problems with the sum of 12.  He mostly stuck to addition and I love that he has complicated problems and then 10+2 and 2+10.  Haha, he's great.

Now check out this video.  I didn't take it to always remember Miles roller skating like an athlete, but to get his teacher.  She's the black lady with the big hair dancing.  Check it:

Ms. Gates from DAM FAM on Vimeo.

Fun Run

This really isn't an important life event or something we would be sad if it didn't get recorded, but Miles was pretty stoked about it and it was an excuse for me to get out the camera and practice again.  I have been extremely uninspired with photography lately.  I feel like I don't really have anything to take pictures of and my house is wretchedly dark (as in, lack of natural light.  Don't get me started.  When I grow up, I want a house with WINDOWS.).  I should get some sort of project going so my camera doesn't collect dust and my skills rust.

Anyway, I busted out the camera for this event and took pictures so here they are.  It was Miles' school fundraiser this year.  A fun run that the kids got pledges for how many laps they ran.  Miles was way in to it because they got prizes for how many dollars per lap they got pledged.  He wound up getting a whopping 4 dollars per lap!  I didn't let him ask very many people to pledge (Dave and I pledged one of his four dollars) because the whole fundraiser/asking for money thing just makes me extremely uncomfortable.  Is that just me?  I really dislike it.  My problems aside, THANKS to everyone who pledged!

Anyway, the whole deal was put on really well and you could tell it was really fun for the kids.  And Miles really, really loves it whenever I come to school events.  

Miles gave me a five as we went around each lap.

Miles' 1st grade class and teacher, Ms. Gates.

The silly face picture.  I love Miles' silly face.  It's so him.

Popsicles to celebrate their accomplishment.  Way to go!

The Power of a Compliment

Waaaaaaaaay back on Mother's Day, Miles and Dave made some paper link chain decorations for me.  On one of the chains, they wrote things they like and/or love about me on the inside and outside of each link.  I literally just took it down like a week ago, and only because Miles begged me to.  He was tired of it being up and is chomping at the bit to decorate for Christmas.  So it had to go.  But I couldn't bring myself to throw it away!  Just so you know, I LOVE throwing stuff away.  I've moved enough to know what is truly valuable enough to stay out of the trash and I know I'll still have to throw a bunch of stuff away if we are ever lucky enough to move out of here.  Anyway, I'm not keeping a paper link chain forever, but I want to remember it forever so I'm writing their notes down here.  Done and done.

Dave wrote (not in any particular order):

-Stylish
-Hugs
-Nurturing
-Laugh and smile
-My best friend
-Love and support
-Open heart
-Kisses
-Healthy
-Family values
-Sense of humor
-Beauty
-I love that you're my wife!
-Testimony
-Eyes

Miles wrote (not in any particular order):

-Love!
-I love that you're my mom!
-She makes me happy.
-Best friend.
-I like that you take care of me.
-You let me take off school yesterday.
-You play with me.
-Kisses!

No wonder I wanted to leave it up forever and ever!  Wowzers!  Those are some good boys I've got.  Thanks for loving me, guys.

Ripping Out Teeth

You can go ahead and judge us.  We pulled Miles' two front teeth.  They were half out and his permanent teeth were coming in on top of them so we felt like they had to go.  Call me vain, but I didn't want to risk his permanent teeth coming in weird because they had nowhere to go.

Anyway, it was brutal since Miles is so unbelievably pain adverse.  He would barely let us touch a tooth before he'd close his mouth so I held him down and Dave ripped them out.  We did one per night, so Miles looked ridiculous missing just the one for a whole day.  As usual, he was totally fine and happy after all the ridiculous drama.

I was so ready for those suckers to come out, but after it was all said and done, I had the weirdest sense of regret and loss.  It was like I didn't think about how this is another step away from little kid land, how it's the start of the ugly duckling years and all of a sudden I didn't feel so ready for that!  It was weird.

Then the next day we ripped out the other one:

Miles was pretty stoked because he planned to be a hockey player for Halloween and missing teeth is very authentic for that costume.  That's why he wanted his picture taken in his hockey helmet.  Anyway, as soon as both teeth were gone, I felt better because it seems/looks so much more kiddie to me than just missing one.  He won't have those holes for long, though!  His permanent teeth are already coming in quick!  Yikes!  Ugly duckling here we come!