Our little toothless wonder…

Our new out door dining room!

1st grade Giraffe

Sammie painted this giraffe in first grade art class.  A friend gave me this frame when she moved and I knew the perfect thing!  On the old mat of this one it said: inspired by Henri Rousseau

I love it.  It has been stapled to my kitchen wall for all of these years and now you really notice it.  Dad and I had fun with this little project while he was here.  Sammie is amazed that we care so much about something she did when she was 6 and Tyler is waiting for us to start framing more of his stuff.  We have a hallway dedicated to the art the kids are most proud of.

I love kid art. 

First Day of School

Sammie started middle school today.  She was nervous and excited and just ready to start this morning.  It’s fun to see her so grown up. 

Here’s a picture of her at her meet the teacher night next to her very first locker.

Here’s her first day:  She rode the regular bus with her friends today.  Off and on she’ll probably ride Spencer’s bus, but not at first.  She was super tired this morning- couldn’t sleep because of the excitement plus the earlier start time.  She use to roll out of bed about 8:00 and now her bus comes at 7:45!  That’s going to take some adjustment for this night owl. 

Tyler was a little later: Off to First Grade! We are super excited about his teacher this year.  She was Sammie’s 2nd grade teacher and is so good.  He will have an awesome year.

Tyler’s second trip to the bus stop:

I didn’t even bother with Spencer’s picture before school- no need to traumatize him before he even gets there!  He has a great team of teachers working with him and he’ll adjust well to the more structured routine. 

Last night I was reminding him that school started today and he was a bit conflicted about it.  When I asked if he was excited about school tomorrow he said “Yes! School tomorrow!  Ride the bus!”  Then almost immediately he started to fake cry and say “No, I don’t want the school bus.”  It’s hard on everyone to get back into a full day of school after a great summer.

Maybe I’ll try to sneak a few pictures of him after school. 

Holiday Lake Part 2

 

I took the kids to Holiday Lake by myself at the beginning of August and man alive I will think twice before doing that again.  Thomas told me I was nutto before I left, but I thought it would be ok.  Honestly, it wasn’t that bad, but Spencer was one huge mood swing and it just put us all on edge.  I think the beauty of going at the beginning of summer is that the kids are not sick of each other yet!  They say they still had fun even though I was pretty crabby.

Tyler and Spencer were playing in the mud/beach that wasn’t there back in June.  They have been hit hard by the drought.  Wish I would have had a picture of them after they got out, but I wouldn’t let them in the golf cart that muddy.  It was caked on from the knees down.  So gross.  Sammie didn’t last long with this activity- she was back at the trailer showering after about 15 minutes.  The boys stayed close to an hour. 

I just like to see him with some energy.

We also went swimming at the country club, hung around the shops in town, played a lot of card games and visited with Dave and Wanda.  It was pretty fun even though I will have to be reminded about how stressful it is to go on extended trips with the kids by myself.

Uncle Thomas and Ella

This has been a summer of visitors for us.  Especially toward the end of the summer.  It’s fun for us to have company rather than to always be the ones traveling.  We had my family all down to go to Aqua Port for a day and then Darrin and his family stayed the night in a near by hotel and visited for breakfast.  Then another time we had Cherie and her kids and David and his boys came by for a bit too.  My dad came down for a few days last week to help out with the many back to school meetings as well.

This is the only picture I got of all of those trips.  All well, at least it’s a good one!

Scared

Tyler and Spencer share a room and every now and again I go in there to find them asleep together.  Tyler told me that morning that he got scared and Spencer made him feel better. 

(By the way, that hose thing is hooked to Spencer’s feeding pump which is outside the frame of this picture.)