Four Ring Circus

Come one!  Come all!  The Hacker Family presents . . . A FOUR Ring Circus! (imagine circus music playing in the background)  We are pleased to celebrate 3 years with our world class entertainers: Brooklyn, Gage, Westin and Kynlee Hacker.  Over the next year, they will be performing death defying feats that will bring you shear amazement as the family attempts to survive the fourth year.  There will be tantrums of unreasonable proportions, dangerous stunts, new skills learned, giggles enjoyed and all manner of crazy chaos.  It is sure to be an amazing year!!

The little ones turned 3 on September 1st and we had a fabulous 3rd Birthday party with a super fun Circus theme last month!  I have wanted to do this since Jackson was their age (but he had other ideas and then I decided to wait until the little ones would get it).  It was very fitting because, well, life is kind of a circus right now!  It was actually was even more exciting for the kids, because it just so happened that Granna and Poppo took them to the circus about 2 weeks before the birthday party, so they were all about the circus!

We had so much fun, we made "popcorn" cupcakes the night before (marshmallows cut and then dipped in yellow decorating sugar).  I thought making them was so fun, I'm not sure Aunt Kiki and Granna agreed, but what's better than sitting with your mom and one sister while you do something for the kids you love.  I enjoyed the time!  We played pin the nose on the clown, we made circus animal masks, we had a "fishing" carnival game.  And the two best parts of the party . . . Uncle Brian dressed up like a clown and juggled for the kids and Aunt Kiki put on a old drill team costume (that belonged to Jessica and kind of looked like a clown costume) and let the kids throw whipcream pies at her!  Do I have the best family or what?!  The kids LOVED it!  There is nothing better than a good birthday party!!
The Party is all ready to go . . .

 Our circus animals . . .

Kynlee the Tiger

Brooklyn the Liophant

Gage the Lion

And Westin the Tiger

The games . . . 

Pin the nose on the clown

Fishing

 The goofy big brothers . . .

John and Jackson: Ringmasters extraordinaire

Jackson, Cooper and Jackson

 The Clowns . . .

Uncle Brian and his amazing Juggling skills

Uncle Brian and Aunt Kiki

Aunt Kiki ready to be fired at

Post whipcream attack

Aunt Kiki and Uncle Brian

The family and the clowns!  (Almost impossible to get everyone looking ,but they're all there)

Brooklyn, Westin, Gage and Kynlee on their new bikes from Granna and Poppo.  They look sooooo big!  (Kynlee mastered this immediately, everyone else is still working on it!)

Happy Birthday to my amazing little foursome!  Go easy on me this year!

Kindergartener!!

I'm waaaaaay late on this post, but hey, better late than ever . . . . right?!

Jackson started Kindergarten on August 26th and he is LOVING it!  We had a short, rough patch the 2nd and 3rd weeks of school when he realized that he was going to have to get up early EVERYday, but the fun he is having at school has won out and he does a really great job getting up and getting ready every morning.  I'm so proud of him!  We are on our 6th week and it's going great . . .  except that I kind of miss him on days when I'm home with the kids.  I was doing ok with it until he was home sick 2 days last week and I really enjoyed having him home a little extra!  Oh well, Christmas break will be here soon . . .

Getting ready for bed the night before!

First week of clothes all ready to go (so far I have managed to do this every Sunday, it really helps!)

Going to bed as a "preschooler" for the last time!  Ready to wake up a Kindergartener.  We read "The Night Before Kindergarten" before he went to bed.

Can't open my eyes to eat my breakfast!

My big Kindergarten boy!

With Uncle Jacob.  Uncle Jacob's last first day of school and Jackson's first first day of school.

Obligatory picture with mommy and daddy.

Putting his stuff in his cubby

Mommy and Jackson

Daddy and Jackson

One last look behind him and then he just said bye, with a slightly nervous look on his face as he took it all in!!  He was so nervous, but SO excited!  This may be when the tears started to well up in my eyes!

Brookies!  An after school surprise for my big guy on his first day of school!  They are his favorite!

One funny story before I sign off.  The first week of school wore Jackson out!  By day three he was little snippy and irritable after school, just trying to get used to the routine and such.  Well, after school that day, I asked him to tell me how his day was and we had the following conversation:

M: Tell me about your day
J: I don't remember
M: Yes, you do, tell me what you did.
J: Later
M: No, tell me now
J: Later, there's always later!
M: No, there's not always later, the little ones are sleeping now, it's quiet, I want to hear about your day.

*This is where it gets funny, though he did get in trouble for this very snotty response, even though I was dying laughing on the inside.

J: I said later.  Do you understand what later means? Because if you don't maybe instead of going to work tomorrow, YOU should go back to school!!

I know it was fatigue talking more than anything, but man, I couldn't believe that I sent a Kindergartener to school and the teacher sent back a teenager ;-)

Looking forward to a school year full of fun, though we are hoping to avoid anymore adventures like last week when Jackson's lunch box was thrown up on at the lunch table!!  Seriously!  The lunch box disappeared never to be heard from again!

Oh the joys of school!