1st Day of Preschool!

So, my little baby Calvin, my youngest noodle, has started preschool. This is kind of a hard concept for me to grasp. How can he possibly be old enough? He is going twice a week for two hours to the same little community preschool that both Max and Sophie attended for some time.
The funniest part? My little daycare girl, Natalie is in the same class with Calvin as are three other kids from church! It's like and extension of primary! For two hours twice a week, I only have Johnny to take care of - weird. Usually we spend the time grocery shopping which I must say is easier with 1 child than it was with 5.

Calvin had to have a Thomas backpack and it took mommy four trips to different stores to find one without wheels (hooray TJMaxx!). Calvin has been wearing it for weeks whenever we leave the house. On his birthday my mom gave him a Thomas backpack full of Thomas PJ's and books, so now he has two!

Inside the little preschool with Natalie.

Need a House?

Our good friends, Gail and Andy are moving from New Hampshire to Nevada. Andy and Bryan were in Law School together and Gail was my visiting teacher when we arrived in New Hampshire. We immediately bonded over our shared love of singing!
Gail just shot me an email that their home is for sale. Do you know anyone moving to New Hampshire? If so, take a look here!

And We're Off Again - to Seattle!

Less than two weeks after arriving back home and Sophie and I packed our bags for a quick weekend trip to Seattle. My cousin Tam was getting married and Sophie was asked to be a flower girl! She was of course, over the moon happy about the prospect and has been practising for weeks. We met up with Heather and Ross and baby Soren (Soren has packed on another three pounds! He is just a bundle of cute chub!) at the Seattle airport on Thursday where they had rented a car for us to use during our stay. My Aunt Sherrie (my mom's sister and mother of the bride) had graciously offered to let us stay with her along with Mom and Dad who would be arriving on Friday.
We spent Friday touring some of the islands West of Seattle and picking blackberries at the beach. There was a rooftop reception on Friday night with beautiful view of downtown Seattle and GREAT food! Sophie at one point managed to take a big swig of someones glass of white wine. Evidently she was very upset about it and cried a bit before exclaiming "that tastes worse than a grasshopper!" (Should I be wondering how she knows what a grasshopper tastes like?)
On Saturday we spent much of the day at Pike Place market where Sophie got to hold a little fish (she was thrilled!) and where we ate even more fish and chips and clam chowder. We also tracked down Fran's Chocolates (Yum!) and I bought a bunch of her famous grey salt caramels! From there we met at the Arboretum for photos and then off to the wedding at the history museum. The reception/dinner and dancing were also held at the museum which was a really neat place. The kids loved running through the exhibits! The dinner was marvelous - fresh figs! quinoa salads! grilled salmon! heirloom tomatoes! Sooooo yummy!
On Sunday Sherri hosted a garden brunch which was my favorite event of the trip. The weather was beautiful, the garden looked amazing and she had this great jazz band playing on her deck! The buffet was incredibly tasty (the lemon cheesecake - wow!) and I seriously overate - I think this is where I put on most of the 4 pounds I gained this weekend!
I took so many photos that I decided to make a slide show. (OK, the slide show is on the right side of the blog on the top. If anyone knows how to put it in this post, PLEASE tell me!) The nice thing about this site is you can order prints right online if you want them (mom).
Sophie, Koo and I flew home on the red-eye and I seriously felt like I was going to die for the next two days! I was soooo tired - I felt pretty old after that trip but we had a lot of fun!

The Start of School!

Hooray! It's that time again when every mother in the nation suddenly starts smiling uncontrollably at the prospect of their kids going off to school again.

Sophie with her teacher Mrs. Corrigan on open house night. Her teacher struggled with cancer last year and it is amazing she is able to be back at teaching this year. There was a front page story about her in the paper here.

This photo was in the Pioneer Press (look it is Sophie in the corner!)

Their school (Sophie and Jillian on the 1st day of school!)
Look at our handsome 2nd grader!

Sophie and Max are both "walkers" since we live a couple of blocks from the school, but Sophie takes the bus home as she is in half-day kindergarten. The bus stop is one block down and she rides with her new best friend Jillian. Here we are walking to school on the 1st day.

Sophie and Jillian


Max with Mrs. Heinrich, his 2nd grade teacher, on open house night

Ms. Rue is Max's 3rd grade teacher. He goes to her class every day for reading.

Sophie's school backpack. It is the pinkest, tackiest, sparkly backpack she could find and she LOVES it!

Labor Day Ward Activity

On Monday of Labor Day, the Ward had a pot-luck at Blackhawk park with lots of games for the kids and adults. It was extremely hot and muggy, but the kids had a great time!

Here are some of my favorite photos:

Johnny, Calvin and Luke - they kept running off, so I sat them up on high stools with a plate if ice - genius!




Kally and adorable Evelyn

Sophie - Soccer Star

Sophie is finally old enough to play in EAA Fall Soccer. She is on the Stingrays with her new best friend, Jillian, and could not be more excited! She has been going to every one of Max's soccer games since he started kindergarten and is thrilled to finally be able to be on a team as well! The one catch for Mommy? Both Max and Sophie have soccer on the same nights, same time on different sides of the city. Convenient.

Our sweet Calvin is three!

We arrived home on Calvin's third birthday so we did not celebrate until the following Sunday. Koo came over with a Thomas the Train cake she made for him. We also had our friend Kelly and her kids over for dinner.

Calvin actually gave us a gift this year for his birthday by potty-training on our trip! I have never had a kid do such a thing! It started our first night at the hotel when I asked him if he wanted to go swimming. He was very excited, so I said, "OK, Calvin, if you want to go swimming, you need to do a poop on the potty." He looked at me for a minute and then walked into the bathroom and did what Mommy has been trying to get him to do for the last 9 months!! Ever since that night, he has been wearing underwear all day AND ALL NIGHT! A little miracle!

Calvin LOVED the cake and tried to put more trains on it! He blew out the candles and opened his Thomas related gifts (a bucket which I have since found out has been recalled for lead paint, Thomas underwear and a Thomas book and train) but flatly REFUSED to eat and cake or ice cream! "I don't like it!" he yelled at us as we tried to give him some cake. He did the same thing last year on his birthday. Odd, as on other non-birthday days, he likes cake just fine!



He was so tired after his hard day of partying, that he did not even make it up the steps before falling asleep! Let's all pretend that we do not notice the pile of dirty laundry on the floor and the smudge of something on the wall!


Happy Birthday our little man!

Aaaaaaaahh! It is so good to be home! I feel like we have been gone for a year! The kitchen table is piled high with mail, the answering machine is full and there is enough laundry to bury our entire family alive! What a fun trip! I am so glad we were able to take this trip as a family and show all of those neat places to our children. We really are grateful. The sky welcomed us home with this great view as we pulled in.


These are some gorgeous pumpkins I picked up in Mitchell, SD and stuffed into our car because they make me happy!

Look what we found when we got back! My neighbor gave me these every blooming strawberry plants and they have been amazing! The kids are out eating strawberries in September!

The Wonderous Corn Palace!

OK, it sounded cooler while driving down the South Dakota interstate. Truth is - the whole thing is not made of corn. It is a normal brick auditorium with corn art on it. I believe when it was first constructed, it was made entirely of corn and the photos of the original are really interesting. We stayed for about 10 minutes and were done.

The Badlands . . . aptly named.

Female Western Bluebird



Eastern Kingbird
Antelope
Prairie dogs - there were lots of them


Really, you only need to go to the Badlands once. They are interesting, yes, but I really have no desire to go back again.

Does everyone go to Wall Drug?

So, we stopped at Wall Drug for gas. Sophie and Calvin were asleep so I took Max in for a quick peek around while Bryan went to fill up the car. Max was impressed with the new Dinosaur roaring thing. I find Wall Drug to be revolting really. It is all overpriced junk that you could buy at the Dollar Store, but why would you want to?