With our first kiddo, I consistently shared products we were loving throughout her first few years. Since we relied on so many of the same favorites for Shep, it hadn’t felt necessary to share the same – until now! Our newly-minted three-year-old is growing into his own interests and preferences, and so in honor of his recent birthday, I thought it would be fun to share a few things he (and we) are loving right now!
Clothing favorites for three-year-old boys:
Mini Boden tees | Y’all know most of our kiddo clothes come from consignment sales or hand-me-downs, which is why I give myself permission to splurge on a few fun pieces each season! Shep looooves the fun designs from Mini Boden, which usually involve dogs doing things like driving construction trucks or blasting into space. We just got him this shirt and this one for his birthday :)
Cat & Jack shorts | I prefer a shorter length for little boy shorts, and these ones are perfect! At $5-8 (!!!), they’re not too precious, either. I find they run a little big!
Shady Rays sunglasses | At $32, you surely could find a pair for less – but these ones are great quality (they have the right amount of flex and actually stay on the ears!), AND they include lifetime replacement if lost or broken! Shep has the royal blue polarized.
Needlepoint baseball hat | Harding Lane has the absolute CUTEST designs – everything from dogs to dump trucks, planets to puppies, and fire trucks to alligators. I bought Shep’s triceratops design last Black Friday for 50% off, and he gets compliments everywhere he goes!
Natives | I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about Jeffersons, but they are our go-to three seasons of the year! Shep most often wears the Regatta color.
Toy and gear favorites for three-year-old boys:
Balance bike and scooter | Shep switches back and forth between his Kazam balance bike (which he received at age 2.5 for Christmas) and his scooter (a second birthday gift). We love and highly recommend both of them! He happily wears this helmet with both.
Playmobil recycling truck | This was his gift from Annie, and it has been a MASSIVE hit. Despite some of the pieces being a little fiddly for three-year-old fingers (the listing recommends it for age 4+), he loves it and plays with it constantly.
Fire chief costume set | It took him a little time to warm up to this dress-up kit, but once he did, it’s made daily appearances around the house. If only the fire extinguisher actually squirted water!
Jellycat stuffies | All of our kids have Jellycat stuffies they love – they are the sweetest designs, and so soft! Shep’s most beloved are two identical dogs. One was supposed to be the back-up in case of loss, but he found it in the closet and has had two tucked under his arms at night ever since :) Jellycats come in a few sizes, and I find the “small” to be perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.
MagnaTiles | And especially the cars and trains expansions!
Okay-to-wake clock | We introduced this clock when he moved to his big boy bed a few weeks ago. Shep is our early riser, and we were hoping this would encourage him to stay in bed a little longer in the mornings. It absolutely has! He instantly cottoned to the cute design, calling it “his guy” and unplugging it from the wall and carrying it downstairs like a stuffed animal post-nap the first few days, ha!
Welly band-aids | Our kids, and especially Shep, LOVE these band-aids with their fun and colorful designs. They’re the cure for what ails you, whether that’s a scrape or a stomachache :)
Love our little three year old :) Hope his favorites give you something to tuck away for future birthdays or holidays!
It’s crazy to think that this time last month, we hadn’t met our second daughter yet, and now, she’s here! It has been the sweetest month, marked by several moments – reading to all three kids on the bed, taking our first car ride as a family of five – when I’ve had the sweetest (that word again! It’s the only one that fits!) feelings of completion, wholeness, and happiness. Just a few weeks in, five feels just right, and I am so grateful.
On my calendar this month: — All things kindergarten! We are looking forward to a neighborhood breakfast for rising kindergartners, a popsicles with the principal event, and of course, the first day of school! — Our newborn photos with Graham! Still need to choose those outfits :)
What I’m loving right now: — My friend Kayte Fry makes genius-level charcuterie boards, and we were lucky enough to have a breakfast-themed one delivered by her crew! (Above!) Locals can order through her Instagram here. — After borrowing a Nap Dress for our family photos, I finally pulled the trigger on ordering my own a few weeks ago. It was not inexpensive, but once I de-precioused it in my mind and decided it’s just a part of my wardrobe that’s meant to be worn, it has been glorious. I have worn it 2-3 times a week since Annie was born, and yes, I have indeed napped in it. I highly recommend it for pregnancy and post-partum, and I assume just normal life, too :) — I thought this review of research showing what parenting practices were common in families where young adults remained in the faith was fascinating. All the more reason to blast Mission House!
You can see all the things I’ve loved in my goal posts over the years right here!
What I read in July: — American Royals | I forgot that this novel is YA, but once I adjusted my expectations, it was enjoyable! I thought the characters were memorable and the concept creative. Talk about a cliffhanger, though! Basically none of the storylines wrapped up by the end of the book, leading me to add the sequel to my hold requests… — The Self-Driven Child | Holy cow I LOVE THIS BOOK! I am on a streak of fantastic non-fiction and this one is no exception. I’ve been taking notes for a book review post because it’s just that good! More to come…
My reading list for 2021, if you’d like to follow along! I’m a little out of order but have read 13 out of 24 so far.
Revisiting my July goals: Buy the last few things to get ready for baby girl’s arrival Finish out our Big List for baby girl Choose newborn photo outfits for baby girl and older kids Lay out 2012 in family album Prep for kindergarten Edit June in June, Volume 6 Enjoy our first few weeks with our new family member!!(Most definitely.)
August goals: — Edit June in June, Volume 6 — Lay out 2012 in family album — Choose scripture theme for the school year and plan and enjoy our back-to-school dinner — Prep for our Florida vacation – first road trip as a family of five!! — Take a morning walk with Annie every day the weather allows — Do a Peloton exercise every day. Stretching, yoga, weights, barre, meditation – it doesn’t matter! Just a good challenge to get back into the habit :) At the six-weeks-from-delivery mark I should be able to incorporate easy rides, too.
In July, afternoon naps won out over goal progress most days, and I can’t say that the same won’t happen in August :) Committing to just a few things, and a few daily habits, to make this a great month all around! (Naps very much included!)
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2021 goals!
The Instagram story I posted asking for kindergarten prep ideas may have gotten the most responses of any story I’ve ever posted… ever. Y’all wrote in with lots of good ideas, yes (see many of them below!), but way more of you simply wanted me to share the responses I received.
I was so tickled by this kindergarten cohort! And I get it! Heading back to school, whether for the first time or the twelfth, is a big transition. As mamas, we want to prepare our families well for it, emotionally and practically, and to celebrate well, too. The start of a school year gives us so many opportunities to do this, including renewing, refreshing, or beginning family traditions – because for all the time kids spend in school, I firmly believe that the foundation we lay at home matters even more.
Today, I thought I’d share some of the ways we’re preparing for our first kindergartener, as well as back-to-school suggestions from many of you! Some items are particularly unique to our family, but hopefully even those might spark an idea for yours.
Things we’re doing to prepare for kindergarten:
— Transition June’s clothes upstairs and begin picking out clothes the night before. As many of you may remember, June’s and Shep’s clothing has been stored in our bedroom. With Annie’s arrival, we moved June’s clothing up to her room and began the practice of laying out her outfits the night before. She thinks this is super grown-up :) — Buy an adult bike. We live in the walk zone for our elementary school, and plan to bike to school most days for pick-up and drop-off. John’s road bike has clip-less pedals and is not ideal for short, casual rides, so we bought him a Priority bike for the days he accompanies her. (June has a Priority bike, too – more on hers here!) — Pull backpack options and order backpack and lunch box. To facilitate choosing a backpack option we both will love for several years, I narrowed down options from State, Pottery Barn, and L.L. Bean. We scrolled through the screenshots together and she chose this one! I gave her free rein over the lunchbox choice and this is the one she chose :) — Buy matching bracelets. As a special back-to-school gift, I ordered a mini monogram bracelet for June and a stack of bracelets representing each family member for me from Pearls & Prosecco. I think they will be a reassuring physical connection on those first few days! It would also be fun to make your own beaded bracelets. (Not just for girls: a mama I know makes friendship bracelets with her boys the night before the first day every year!). — Go on school supplies shopping date. I’m planning to print out the school supplies list from school so June can follow along and plan an afternoon browsing the aisles at Target with my girl. We may also hit up Parker Paper Company for a few fun extras. Our church is collecting supplies for a partner school, so we’ll plan to buy two of everything. — Fill out and return health forms. Simple enough, but still something I need to set aside time to complete! — Play at the school playground. Our school playground is open during the summer, so we’re planning to head over and visit sometime in August. Since our chances to explore inside the school have been limited with COVID, I think this will be a fun way to gain some familiarity! — Choose a scripture theme for the school year. As they head off to school, our desire is for our kids to be grounded in the Gospel. Choosing a short scripture we can all memorize and refer back to throughout the year is a simple way to do this! John and I will choose it together and we’ll debut it at our back-to-school dinner. — Plan back-to-school dinner menu and decorations. Considering the success of our Octonauts premier party, June and I will work on this together. The dinner itself will be held the night before the first day of school! I plan to write about ours after it happens, but if you’re looking for inspiration now, Stephanie and Merrick have made me look forward to these dinners for years! — Choose a first read-aloud book. June and I are just getting into read-aloud books, and I’d like to choose one for first-day-of-school bedtime reading. — Bring lunch to preschool teachers. June’s preschool career will end a week before kindergarten begins. Even though her graduation is not the end of our relationship with their preschool (Shep still attends, and Annie will eventually, hooray!), we wanted to do something to thank them for how absolutely wonderful they have been to her for the last three years. She and I will take the teachers’ orders and deliver lunch one day that week, which I think she will think is the most fun. — Get clear on morning and afternoon transportation plan. We’ll be easing into drop-offs and pick-ups, as I’ll still be on maternity leave and Annie won’t yet be in school, but John and I need to sit down with our schedules and the time boundaries in front of us and make a plan for each day of the week. — Make a rough plan for my schedule. This will shift when I go back to work, but I’d love to wrap my brain around what my days will look like in September and how to make the most of our time together outside of school! — Do a dry run on bikes to school. This will help everyone feel comfortable on the big day, and will help us know how much time we need to budget for little legs to get to school and back. — Choose a first day of school outfit. Very important :) — Mock up the letter board for first-day-of-school photos. We’ll put our scripture theme for the year on the board after the photos are done! — Prep snack tray favorites for first-day-of-school after-school snack. Snack trays have taken a hiatus with pregnancy and summer, but I’m excited to bring them back this fall. — Begin to think about how we might organize school supplies and papers. Not going to make any purchases or decisions until school actually begins, but it’s on my mind!
Like I said, y’all had lots of good ideas about how to start the school year in a sweet way. If nothing we’re planning strikes your fancy, here are a few other ideas!
Fun back-to-school traditions:
— From Jessie: “We always have a ‘kids choose day’ before school starts – usually the park and pizza and ice cream.”
— From Shannon: “We did ice cream before the first day of school always! Even when I started grad school, we got ice cream the night before, ha!” (Others suggested ice cream as a first day after-school treat!)
— From Rachel: “We do a mom or dad and kid date night, a shopping trip for new school clothes, going to the library to pick up some new books, and for my daughter, a trip to get our nails done the weekend before school starts! We also cook their favorite meal the night before. Finally, we tried to find other families who had rising kindergarteners [Em says: try your neighborhood Facebook group] and invited them over for playdates.”
— From Lauren: “The day before school started, the kindergartener and mom would do a ‘practice morning’ that would end with just the two of us getting donuts.”
— From Brittany: “We did a one-on-one overnight trip to a fun place [could just be a local hotel!] with each kid before beginning kindergarten!”
— From Laura: “We prepped his school supplies together! I bought name stickers on Etsy and then spent the evening labeling everything together and talking about the fun things he’d do using the supplies.”
— From Erika: “My husband does a video interview the evening of the first day and asks who his teacher is, whether he has a friend in his class, and something fun he did that day. He’s going into third grade and it’s been fun to go back and watch them together!”
— From K: “We have two traditions: my husband gets our daughters flowers on the first day of school, and we have cider donuts and apple cider for our after school snack.”
— From Kerstin: “We do the German tradition of making a ‘Schultüte’ – a cone made out of construction paper which is decorated and filled with treats and school supplies.”
— From Courtney: “We made a paper chain so our daughter could count down the days to kindergarten! She loved it.”
— From Robyn: “After experiencing some emotions that popped up a few weeks into school (later than I expected!) when our daughter started kindergarten, I’m planning ahead for regular, intentional one-on-one time in the first month or two to support my son as he starts. I’m also preparing myself mentally for behavior shifts that might be coming and reminding myself it’s a temporary adjustment period!”
I hope this post was helpful, friends! Sending hugs to all my fellow mamas sending littles to school soon, whether for the first time or the last :)
I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks the attention we give to choosing our children’s names is a little over the top. And they may be right :) But for me, someone who believes so strongly in the power of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, a name is more than just an identifier: it is the first lines in a story. And as parents, we get the honor and privilege of writing them. John and I can’t determine the ending of any of our children’s stories, but we can set them in a direction and give them supplies for the road – roots and wings, as I’ve said before. With that, here’s a little more about the name we chose for our daughter…
First, Annie. After we bestowed the name June, which had been my number one since high school, I kept a loose collection of other favorite names in a note on my phone, should we have another daughter. As I added and subtracted options over the years, one sifted to the top: the sweet but not saccharine, feminine but feisty, friendly and optimistic Annie.
True to form for my favorites, it would be at home on any of our grandmas (it was a top 20 name from the 1880s to 1910). It is simple to spell and pronounce, and is familiar but not too common.
Annie Banks-MacKenzie is a central figure in two of my all-time favorite movies, the ones that helped to set my expectations for a loving family and set me on a course toward my future career.
Annie originates from the English Isle and has a definite Scottish feel to it, which is appropriate given my ancestry.
And most serendipitously, Annie Jane is the name of John’s grandmother, which I didn’t learn until years after I fell in love with her name. I never got to meet Annie Jane, but love that we’re able to honor her through our daughter!
So, Annie. But the most common formal name for the nickname Annie – Anne – was just a name for me, without any further meaning or significance (and you know we couldn’t have that, ha!). I puzzled over this for years, until I finally realized that another name on my short list – Susanna – was emblematic of my maternal grandmother’s name (Susanne). Even if our Annie may not use it too often, I was thrilled for another family connection.
I think it’s important to remember here that we don’t name our children after perfect people, but after imperfect people who are a reminder of the story from which they come – one that’s far from perfect, but filled with people who try, who have integrity, who are kind and smart and humble and face challenges and pick themselves back up again and again. As crystallized for me in this essay, I strongly believe (and research backs up!) that one of the best things we can do for our children is develop a strong family narrative. (I wrote more about this in Shep’s name post!)
I’ve written about my grandmother before – she was a deeply layered person, and not always easy to understand. But so many of the things that define me were passed down from her – my love of garden bouquets, boat rides, singing in church, and reading and writing; a belief in thank you notes, correspondence, and a beautifully-set table; and the importance of standing up for the flag at parades, giving back to organizations, and supporting your alma mater. I look forward to introducing Annie to her in the years to come :)
Finally, Liberty! Our other two kiddos’ middle names spoke to our love for America and our love for our faith, respectively, and this one actually combines both. For a Fourth-of-July-week baby, we love that Liberty speaks to the hope, possibility, freedom, and opportunity that’s found in our country more than anywhere else in the world. America is not perfect, but her ideals (including “life, liberty, and happiness”) are beautiful, and we feel lucky to have the privilege of living up to them – and to help our kids do the same.
The idea of liberty and freedom is woven throughout the Gospel, too. Jesus sets us free from death, but even more than that, He has set us free for freedom! When we live with Christ, we don’t have to be weighed down by the comparison, guilt, envy, anxiety, or fear that are so common in our world. We love that Annie’s middle name will remind her about the life that is truly life – a life of abundance, obedience, contentment, joy, and freedom.
So there you have it – much more than you ever wanted to know about our little lady’s name, ha! Thanks for listening, friends, as always.
