First Day of School (1st grade, 3rd grade)

Zac reports that Simon had no problem getting on the bus for the first time this year.

Simon's teacher sent me this picture.

Jump Party

The day before all the kids had to head back to school, Lukas had his 8th birthday party at a jump place.  I love that the daycare set of friends is still going so strong. Since Alice and Simon only have two cousins in this whole world, and they live all the way up in Ohio, I like to think of this crowd as their local extended family.  

Here is Simon playing with Felix in his favorite place: the soft cube block pit (it probably has a better name?).

Later, they had a pizza lunch in the party room. I don't know the kid to the left of Simon, but I love the calm disdain with which he gazes at Simon, who is having a slight meltdown and screaming at me not to take his picture (he's hungry).  Meanwhile, Izzy, Alice and Anna are in the proper party spirit.

Simon being Simon

Simon is really developing his goofball persona lately, and continues to keep us entertained with his antics and interests.

Here he is being goofy at the greenway, while checking out the flooded creek after a particularly hard rain.

He always loves playing in the creek, constructing pools and damns.

He tried on some of Alice's fake hair.

He went through a brief phase where he constructed hummingbird nests.

He likes watching his crawdads eat their bedtime snack.

He always loves snuggling with the cat.

The cicada love still runs deep, and he was particularly excited to find this one fresh out of its shell.

He spends as much time as possible playing with Ellie, sometimes fueled by ice pops.

And let's not forget his continuing joy in building forts and hiding in them.

The secret to it all is starting every day with a proper breakfast. The kid loves his berries, bread, and cold sausage. He tolerates the cup of milk.

Grandparents' Visit

Nelson and Stana came down to watch the kids for a week and a half when I went back to work. I always start about three weeks before the kids go back to school, so I filled the gap this year with my parents covering nearly two weeks and then YMCA camp for the week right before school, to get the kids back in the habit of getting up and out of the house in the mornings.

 One Saturday I dropped them all off at Marbles while I went into work done to get a few more things ready for the start of school.

The rest of the time, as far as I can tell, their days consisted of bike rides, playing in the creek, collecting apples, catching critters and (not pictured) watching some movies.  I'm so grateful that Alice and Simon have such involved grandparents and get to really build a relationship with them!

Alice in between

Meanwhile, I'm still coping with the fact that I have an 8-year-old daughter.  She's some weird child-teen hybrid right now.

Here she is at her orthodontist appointment (she'll definitely need braces, but this appointment determined that we could wait a couple of years.)

"Mom, I'm a burrito!"

I love finding the remnants from her play.

"Mom, put my hair in a bun!....Ok, yeah, that looks weird. How about just a pony tail for today?"

Alice got some hand-me-downs from her cousin that she's really enjoying.

She rocks the purple.

Battleship

Well, at least it's better than Snakes & Ladders!

Red Ripe Tomatoes

Simon gets so excited EVERY SINGLE TIME he gets to pick a ripe tomato.

And he's so generous. He always wants to cut the little thing into three parts so we can share it. (Alice doesn't like tomatoes).

The Mess Makers

Simon and Elli play really well together. They are never bored, never fight, and never expect me to provide any sort of entertainment for them. The only problem is that most of their projects involve giant messes. If they play inside, they build forts and traps and things that always seem to involve the displacement of a lot of furniture, the dumping out of toys, and lots of scotch tape. If they play outside, it usually involves mud or water or chalk--or all three. They will clean up--when prompted and to the best of their ability--but it's hard to keep up with it all. So for the most part, I've just given up.

  

Here they are, right after an outfit change because they both got completely drenched doing who knows what.

A few minutes later, they were covered in mud from their next project...

...which I made them clean up before coming in for the night.

More and more, Simon can't make it all the way until bedtime before needing a shower.  But who am I to interfere with this wonderful childhood?