First week of school

One week down and this is promising to be a lovely year. The Friday before school we went to meet the teachers and check out the classrooms, and while Andi was excited and happy, Sammy realized then that neither Andi nor I would be in his class with him. There were no tears, but some definite chin quivering. I guess when I kept saying, you get to go to school with Andi, he took that to mean like with her in her class and everything, so he was a little nervous. Monday morning I was expecting tears and clinging, but he walked right in to class and never looked back. Andi of course wanted to drop her bag and run to the playground and didn't care to say good-bye at all. I do appreciate their independent  spirits, but sometimes it would be nice to think I was missed for like 5 seconds. Oh well, here are the obligatory first day of school photos.

3rd Grade, Ms. Norris class

TK, Mrs. Katavich class (none of the kids can pronounce that correctly)

So far they both love it. Andi has a few friends from last year in her class, and already loves her teacher. There is some sort of rewards program going on where they earn tickets to use for prizes later, and Andi is a sucker for that positive reinforcement/competition. I can't tell which she likes more, the praise from the teacher, or being able to say she has the most of whatever it is. Either way, it definitely works for her and the teachers love her for it.
Sammy is making new friends, and loves riding the bus. He goes with Andi in the morning and then rides all by himself on the way home and he feels like such a grown up.  He likes his teacher, and playing with other kids, but is still learning the rules of the classroom. Wednesday he jumped off the bus, "Mom, I did something bad today."
M:"Oh really, what did you do?"
S: " I was running in the classroom playing tag."
M: "We probably shouldn't run in the classroom. What happened? Did you get in trouble?"
S: "No, but it made my teacher sad, and we aren't supposed to make the teacher sad so I had to sit in the calming chair for a little while."
M: "I see. Did the calming chair help you settle down?"
S: "No. My teacher said it was a magic chair. But it's not magic, it didn't do anything."

Yep, he was thoroughly disappointed by the calming chair. Hopefully he'll stay out of it.
On the first day of school Andi was a kind sweet big sister and came to check on Sammy at recess since he was also having recess in the Kindergarten area. The next day however she didn't come to see him and he was irritated. "I was looking and looking at her on the playground, but she did NOT come to say hi to me. That was not very nice."  He doesn't like that they are on different playgrounds and that she has other people to play with. He'll adjust.
My mornings at home have become a lot more peaceful. Peter is so calm and happy when no one is around to get in his face and take his toys and bug him. He just roams around getting in to things and occasionally comes and gets in my face and smiles and then wanders off again.

He still isn't walking yet. He takes steps off and on, but isn't too interested in walking with a purpose. He also can't stand the grass on his legs, so he crawls around like Mowgli in the backyard.

So the other night I was doing dishes and thinking, "this is weird, Peter is not climbing in the dishwasher unloading everything as I put it in." So I look around the kitchen to find him and found this.

Yes, he pulled that out of the trash can, and yes I let him keep gnawing on it while I finished the dishes without his help for once. It had only been in there a couple minutes :)
He's also started a new game when it's time to eat. If it's finger food, he wants to feed me instead of himself. The funny part is that he's concentrating so hard on shoving food in my mouth that he doesn't realize I'm shoving food in his mouth and he's eating anyway. It works.

So that is the first week report. Dance and piano and karate all start next week, wish us luck!

Bulkeley Vaca

Sammy has been asking at least three times a week since June when we were going to the lake for vacation. Last week we finally did that. We headed to Lake Siskiyou again with Thad's family and now that we are back all Sammy can say is "I miss the lake house."  It's quite a drive, so we split the journey in to two days on the way there, stopping in with Tenille & Matt for a night. The kids were excited to be on our way and did really well traveling.

 Even Peter was a team player and took a nap in the car, which is pretty much unheard of. He does NOT sleep in the car.

 We spent a lot of time just lounging and hanging out, either by the water or in the house.  Peter loved to sit in the water and play in the dirt.

 Andi & Sammy spent most of their lake time building sandcastles and digging moats with the cousins.

 Peter may look unimpressed in this picture, but he really liked the water.

 There are a lot of girl cousins around, so these three spent a lot of time hanging out together and Sammy loved all the dude time.

 One day Billy & Matt gave everyone boat rides, and even let the kids and grandparents drive.

Cutest Grandparents ever! 

 We took a big family picture in our matching t-shirts one night. Hopefully the group shot turned out better than the one of our little family. This was seriously the best one. Peter was not having it, and Sammy was feeling like a pirate.

We went on a short hike one evening which might not have been the best idea considering all the babies and grandparents, but it was pretty. We had to keep moving, or keep feeding Peter or he wanted to be down in the dirt. Here we are on our snack break. See all those crumbs on his pants? He dumped just as many down my shirt ! lesson learned; no crumbly snacks while being held.

The last night was pretty rough with Peter. Sharing a room with a baby is never fun, but that night he was up a lot. In fact this picture was taken at 4 am after we put on baby einstein to keep him quiet and in his own bed. Longest night ever!

After the night we had I was really dreading the drive home. 10 hours in the car, and only a 30 minute nap, but we made it with very few problems and only one serious meltdown. But I have a feeling that if the older kids ever have to see another baby einstein video they might gouge their eyes out.

We had a good week, but we were all pretty happy to be back in our own beds that night.  And with that the summer is pretty much over. One more week till school starts, I can't believe it's starting so soon. I guess we should start gathering those school supplies.