Another favorite

We went to Rochester for my sister's surprise birthday party this past weekend. Elizabeth discovered another new favorite thing, chocolate covered strawberries. I guess no one can resist giving a cute girl in pigtails chocolate!

Ready?

We have taken the supplies to school. He has a new back pack and lunch box. We met his teacher and he knows where his classroom is and what bus to ride. I know he is ready for kindergarten. But, is this mama ready for her baby to be gone all day? 8 hours is such a long time. I am going to miss all his questions, miss hearing "Hey Mommy" 1000 times a day, miss the random hugs and kisses and hearing "you rock mommy" when I do something totally cool, and I will definitely miss my favorite checkers partner. 5 years seems like such a long time when they are tiny babies. In reality, it goes by all too fast. Sure, I am excited for him to go and I can't wait to hear about his days, his new friends, and all he has learned. I am just not sure I am ready to watch the yellow bus take my first born to school in the morning. I know I will be standing at the curb wiping the tears as the bus leaves my sight. If the last 5 years have gone this fast then surely the next 12 will go even faster, and then I will be wiping the tears as I send him off to college.

The lone Packer fan

He is the only one in our family that is a true Packer fan. We surprised him on Thursday night with tickets to the Packers/Colts game. He went with Matt and had a great time. At least he won't get picked on in school for not wearing green!

Sand table

She loves playing in the sand (and her momma hates to clean it up!)

Blocks

He can spend hours building and is always thinking of new things to build with his blocks. Here are a few of the creations he has made this summer...

A Battleship

His fleet of fighter planes

Finger painting

In an effort to get more organized for the start of school in two weeks, I am going to be slowly adding some pictures that I have taken over the summer in the next few blog posts. This first set of pictures was taken at the beginning of August. I wanted to give the kids a chance to do some finger painting since I had been saving some large pieces of cardboard specifically for this purpose. Thank goodness for washable paint (although we did do this outside so I wouldn't have to clean paint off every inch of the kitchen island!)

Check out my dirty hands!

Nothing is better than a drink from the hose!

Cooling off!

Learning to Read

A friend of mine recommended the Bob series of books to help Jack learn how to read. We have already gone through the first four books in the series and I am very impressed with his progress.  I see his confidence grow as he reads each page and he gets so excited when he can read the whole book without any help from myself or Matt. 

Her new favorite food

Cooling Off

Thanks Grandma Ryan, we love our frog pool! It is a great place to cool off on hot days. Today, Jack and Elizabeth (and Misha) spent most of the day playing in their pool.

Our deck...finally!

Our deck is finally done. What was supposed to be a 3 week project turned into an 8 or 9 week project because of the record amount of rain we received this summer and a few other things beyond our control (the treated wood frame had to be torn out because it was sagging). All is good now and we are enjoying this beauty.....and let me tell you, it was worth the wait! I absolutely LOVE it!

Random Pic

Just a picture I snapped of our sassy Elizabeth the other day...

Robot

I found a neat art studio for kids that offers a variety of summer classes.  Looking at the class offerings, I knew I had to sign Jack up for the class "building a robot out of recyclable material" since he can spend hours a day building robots with his blocks. When I dropped him off for the two hour class, I stayed a few minute to make sure he was comfortable and would be fine alone. Miss Donna, his teacher, told him to start thinking about his robot and to look through her bins and piles of recyclables for items he wanted to use. The first two things he grabbed was two metal cans which he immediately knew he wanted to use as ears. I could just see his wheels turning as he thought of the robot and he was so excited to look through everything and decide what he wanted to use. When I came back at the end of class and he showed me his robot, I almost cried. I was amazed that what he envisioned out of all the garbage/recyclables that I would consider "useless" was this....

You probably can't tell from the picture, but the "legs" are the springs from a mattress and the "feet" are the inserts to a pair of shoes. The other item that really amazed me was that the "hair" is the fruit/vegetable sack. He decided what he wanted to use and where to put the items and Miss Donna used her glue gun and a lot of tape to get them to stay. The robot is standing proud in the corner of Jack's room. I smile every time I walk into his room and see what he created.