Hummmm....hummmmmm....

For several months now, (not sure when it started but also thought that I might have been hearing things, too, when I heard it), Collin hums to himself when he is thinking or relaxed. The sound is more like a light grunt or could be considered a quick hum.  I asked him why he did it and he does not know he is doing it...or does not want to talk about it.  Most of the time, it does not bother me.  However, it can be distracting when  I am reading to him before bed or if it's quite because it's a consistent noise.  Dad had not noticed this until we were in the car on the way to visit cousins and friends up North.  Collin was doing it while watching a movie.  I knew the part of the movie he was watching and knew there was not music....so this must be a habit or a "tick" that he does not know he is doing. 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  We started the morning at our house.  First, Collin walked out and wanted to know where his new XBOX was but then did not mention it again when he saw the massive soccer goal in the living room.  He loved the Burke gave him a new soccer ball.  I was surprised but he did not get mad that we gave him socks, underwear and PJs.  He thought it was funny that Dad gave him a set of socks and then so did I. 

We looked through our stockings next.  Dad got some funny things like stick-on mustaches.  These looked really good on him.  Collin got "snow"....or at least a tube of powder that can turn into 6 cups of snow.  Santa knew he wanted snow so that's what he got.  Collin was satisfied with this...and then moved on to the next thing in his stocking.  I got some hand sanitizer and Post-It notes with funny sayings on them. 

Collin then piled the presents up for each of us.  He went first opening a gift and then we went around the room until we had opened all of our gifts.  I LOVED that I got a lot of athletic clothes from Athleta.  Dad got the Stars Wars DVD s ( all 6 of them) and wireless headphones.  Besides what I already mentioned, Collin got some games, books and play guns that shoot  little disks.

Just a few presents lined up and ready to be opened

Redneck Christmas for Chris

Stocking stuffers unloaded

Collin's handmade ornament from school

Just a little excited about his soccer ball

Guns!

Running shirt for Mommy

My own water bottle...for now until Collin claims this one too

Daddy's wireless headphones

Daddy's Christmas Letter

Mommy's Christmas letter.  Hmmmmm.....maybe he got tired when he was writing mine?

More running clothes.  Yeah me!!!

Burke did not like it when it was present opening time

Yes, more athletic clothes

We then went to our neighbor's house to have breakfast.  I brought Monkey Bread because it's our tradition to have this on Christmas morning.  I was happy to share this so it would not be leftover.  We also had chocolate chip pancakes and bacon.  The kids opened gifts from each other.  We stayed awhile until I had to get back and start cooking lunch for the family.

The family arrived around the same time including Dustin.  We ate and then the kids opened gifts and then played with each other.  They rested and then wanted to build gingerbread houses.  I was surprised that Paul helped Timmy with his house.  The details were great!  The kids never did decorate the structures because they got too tired waiting for the icing to dry. 

Tyson opened his gift first to keep him occupied.  That did work for about 10 minutes.

The kids opening their gifts

Timmy got a baseball net to practice throwing the ball

Not sure if Collin is excited about this gift or not

Even Dustin was there opening his presents.  He got kitchen stuff....just what a college kid on his own needs.

Shocked that I got a smile out of this guy

Mimi happy to be with her family

Collin's house

Leah's house

Timmy's...I mean, Paul's house

Mimi and most of her grand kids.  Tyson was napping.

This was the scene watching Star Wars

Wow, Burke was cuddled up to Mimi...or maybe it was that Collin was next to her

We all then sat down to watch one of the Star Wars: The New Hope (the original one).  Paul and Pappy took their annual Christmas nap as the rest of us enjoyed the movie.  I was just happy to be sitting down.  :)

Great Christmas so far.  We head to a friend's house for dinner tonight and then get up in the morning to head to see family and friends North of here.  Should be a lot of fun.  I love this time of year.

Collin's Christmas Party and Toy Drive

Because we had an adult "Ugly Christmas Sweater" party on Saturday, December 13th, Collin wanted to know when he was going to have a party for his friends.  Thinking that was a great idea and another good excuse to have people over at the house, we hosted a Gingerbread Decorating party Sunday afternoon from 1pm to 4pm.  Admission were toys, DVDs and other gifts for kids to donate to Texas Children's Hospital.  I should not have been surprised to see the RSVP list at 43 kids and 24 adults.  Yes, we are crazy but we all had a great time.  Seeing the smile on Collin's and his friends faces as they either decorated cookies or made houses or when they were jumping on either of the two large bounce houses on the driveway, made it all worth it. 

I helped in the backyard with the cookie and gingerbread house decorating.  Because the kids came in three different waves, there were only 12ish kids sitting around the tables at a time which was really manageable.  It helped that we asked at least one parent to stay and assist their child with decorating.  Sometimes, the parents were more interested than their children which was fun to watch.  I could tell the Engineers and the creative parents from the rest of the group.  Collin was in the first batch of kids to build a house.  He did most of it by himself selecting candies based on color and size being particular about where they went.  When the roof fell to the side, he did not get upset.  He just said, "I like it that way.  This is much better than when it was on top."  Well, there you go!  Thank goodness, too, because I did not have time to nurture him and be a host as well. 

We also had Santa show up for the party.  He not only visited with the kids, he helped build a few of the houses.  It was cute to hear the kids ask Santa for help.  Collin loved that he had Santa at his party.  He was BMOC ("Big Man on Campus") because he was having a party 1) with bounce houses AND 2) Santa!!!

See the house in the back also

Love Collin's hair when he is jumping

Linden!

It's Santa!!!

More Running

Like last Sunday, Collin was signed up for another run, the Jingle Bell Run. There was a Kid's 1K, a 5mi run and a family 5K walk/run.  Unlike last time, I did sign up for the 5 mi run and planned to not run with Collin.  He did not find this out until we were on our way to the run.  He was excited to run again but wanted me to be there with him.  I explained that I could not run with him and then have the energy to run again when it was my turn. He said he was not going to run.  Dad and I agreed that this was his choice.  We were not going to push him to run if he did not want to. 

When we arrived and he saw all of the other kids there, he did eventually change his mind and wanted to run. He did not want to run with the bells on his shoes (hence the Jingle Bell run) but he said he did want to run.  He did want me to line up at the Start Line with him and stand there before the race started.  He kept asking when it was time for the race to start.  I said that the guy had to make a few announcements and then he would say that it was time for the race to start.  While waiting, he stood there and looked ahead not saying much. 



Smiling and ready to run

When the gun went off to start the race, Collin took off and forgot all about me not running with him.  He started towards the front and was at least 50 to 100 kids back from the front of the pack.  By the time he finished, he was in the top 20.  He did GREAT!  He saw me but wanted to sit down.  He was not even interested in wearing the medal he received when he finished.  That's when I knew that he was tired because he just finished running as hard has he could. 

Great form while running

Seeing an end in sight.  Ready to be finished.

This is what I got when I asked him to show me his medal.

Next, it was my turn to run.  I was a little nervous about the run because 1) it was warm and 2) the course included "hills" (under overpasses along the route).  I knew I could run the distance because I had just ran 6.7 miles last weekend and felt OK afterwards.  The other difference this time was that my family would be there waiting at the finish line for me.....and they sure were there smiling and excited to see me at the finish line.  Collin walked up to me and handed me water because "I needed water after my race so I knew you would want some".  He was right!

My favorite guy!

Vet of Dogs

Tonight while putting Collin to bed, we talked about our day. After we finished talking about what a great weekend we had, Collin said he wanted to be a vet of dogs when he grows up. I told him that was a great idea especially because he loves Burke so much. I said that he would need to also work with other animals. He said that was fine because he also likes other animals like birds, Cates and even alligators.  He said that he knows about alligators because of the book I got him about alligators.   I said that he would likely not have to see an alligator at his vet job unless he worked at a zoo. His face lit up and he said he changed his mind and now wants to work as a vet at the zoo.  I told him that doing what he really likes to do for a job is a good idea and will make him happy to go to work. He liked hearing that.

Academic Update

Collin has really improved on his reading in the last month.  He can now steadily read beginner books without stopping too much to figure out words.  He also does better at remembering what the book was about.  When the book is harder, he does take more time to read the page.  However, instead of slowly reading each word, he takes to to figure out the sentence in his head and then says the entire sentence out loud.  Then, he figures out the next sentences and says it out loud.  He does this for most of the book.  Tonight, I pulled out the words from the 50 Word List from Kindergarten that he did not know.  He breezed through most of these other than "could", "first" and "there". 

He is good at math.  Were he has trouble is switching from adding to subtracting.  He does not regularly pay attention to the mathematical signs.  He is getting faster adding and subtracting single digits.  He is slower adding double digits together.  He just needs practice and to gain his confidence.

His writing is more legible and he is more confident when he writes.  He does generally keep his letters on the lines and uses better spacing.  He now needs to work on not capitalizing letters within the word when not appropriate. 

He has a 10 word spelling test every Friday.  We work on the words generally two days a week mainly because of all of the activities after school.  I am happy to report that he usually gets 100% on his tests. 

Like prior years, he gets stickers or not every day based on how he behaved in class.  Other than one time that he was talking too much, he has gotten a sticker every day.  HUGE improvement from last year.  Dad and I make sure he knows that we are proud of him and his behavior in class.  I think he really likes Ms Davis and has matured from last year. 

Great school year so far.

Soccer, soccer, soccer!

All Collin wants to do is play soccer.  Even when he knows he has a game in 2 hours, he wants to practice outside.  Yesterday, he and I played soccer with a balloon because I did not want to go outside in the muggy weather (plus I was tired from running almost 7 miles in a race that morning).  That was the compromise.  It worked!  Collin was happy to be playing soccer even if we were using a balloon.  I actually had a good time with him and even worked up a sweat keeping up with the balloon.  We played this game several times throughout the day.

80s Party

One of my good friends, Bonnie, had an 80s themed birthday party on Saturday.  Dad and I had a great time trying to figure out what to wear and then getting the "costume" together for the party.  Dad went as John McEnroe and I went as a Valley Girl.  Kids were invited to the party so we made sure that Collin wore something from the 80s also. 

We had a great time dancing to 80s music.  The kids played with each other in one of the kid's rooms.  Occassionally, they came out and watched us dance.  When Dad was dancing, Collin thought it was funny and ran back to get his friends.  I think Collin thought it was funny because he is not used to seeing Dad dance.  He does dance really good!

We were having such a great time and hated to leave.  We needed to get me home because I was running as part of a team in a half marathon the next morning. 

Art in the Morning

After the race, we went to the school district art museum. I had know idea there was one until the monthly art projects was mentioned during the last PTA meeting. Saige and Linden met us there. The art project was to paint and tree and then cut out leave shapes from magazines. They were also to include words that described them. Collin really did like painting and even cutting out the leaves.

When he finished, he wanted me to take pictures of his art next to the sample art. More posing like he did this morning.

 

We then met Dad for lunch before running errands for the 80s party our friend is having tonight for her 45th birthday. Dad and I cannot wait.  We have had fun thinking of what to wear and then buying the supplies.