Big lunch packing, bus riding, homework doing, all day school kids.

I couldn’t help myself and had to do a few formal portraits of her!

And a few more casual

And this is how she sleeps… couldn’t you just die–seriously its hard to keep our hands off of her.  Lucky for us the more attention she gets the better – as far as she is concerned!

Look at those droopy little eyes–we are so not morning people. We get up early but are not functional till after 8:30am …

This photo was taken before school on the morning of C’s big Betsy Ross presentation.  They all had to choose a famous American to research and do a speech about.  C choose Betsy Ross because well…she must be his great great great great grandmother of course.. after-all we have the same last name. It made him really excited to do the research so I went along with his assumption.  He had to bring a prop for his presentation and I suggested that I could help him sew his own flag, but like most boys and men it was only a good prop if it included food   C mixed the cake batter himself (spice cake, his pick) I baked it and he rolled out and cut the fondant himself.  I did the assembly (icing the cake with cream cheese frosting then applying the fondant).

There were lots of oohs and aahs from his classmates and C had a big proud grin on his face..totally worth it!

Oh yeah his speech was great too.  I was very proud of him. The video is hard to hear.  All the kids were were stationed around the room and the parents rotated from student to student.  All those speeches going on at once made for tough video recording,  but the bit at the beginning where he reveals his cake needs no audio …the look on his face was amazing!

iPod picture of C’s Betsy Ross portrait out in the hall on the second grade timeline:

One more cake pic

They are so fun, the kids are excited.  I am excited.

The new year is full of promise!

I love to look back at the year before and think how grown up they looked to me then, and how little they look to me now.

C was the only one off today, Beauty doesn’t start Kindergarten till Friday.

I was proud of how independent he seemed, excited but not scared of what was waiting for him in 2nd Grade.

Translation for those of you who don’t read First Grader:

My family it is cool and my dad is awesome. My mom is nice. My sister is sweet. We hang out.

Sums us right up I think

Every year my neighborhood starts Booing each-other.  It is like a Halloween version of secret Santa.

Neighbors make up little gift baskets/buckets of Halloween treats and leave them on each-others doorsteps.

You  leave a little Boo sign for them to post on their door so that others know they have been Booed.  And another note asking them to do it for two other neighbors in the next couple of days.

It is fun to see all the signs on your neighbors doors as you go trick or treating on Halloween. It also spreads good will as you are not sure which neighbor went out and did something for you.

My kids squealed with delight as they found our Boo basket this week.

It was full of goodies, but my favorites had to be the wax lips!  They were too funny.

I think my little ghouls looked great!

My little soccer stud has been a bit….spacey?….this season.

Watching other teams and girls pass by instead of getting after the ball at the game.

But this Tuesday night he had an awesome practice and was back to his ball attacking self.

He also seemed to really have a good time with the boys and reassured me that he was really into the soccer thing.

I just want him to be involved in something and have fun doing it.  I like soccer.   I like that he plays with a team and that there is a lot of running involved.

Boys need activity, especially him!

This time it was lots of love.

We took the kid’s on their first ever camping trip this past weekend. It was a lot of fun, great….. friends, food, and time shared.  We went with 6 other families from our hood.  There were 15 kids in all, they traveled like a pack from campsite to campsite giggling and causing trouble.

We had a fantastic time and we are still doing laundry trying to get the campfire smell out of all our belongs!

Indy had been asking me for a mohawk.  I agreed to do it for the summer.  He has had fun with all the added attention, promising to go back to a more clean cut look  for the school year.

I actually kind of like it…don’t tell him though.  I’m pretty sure he thinks it’s cool because it’s rebellious.

Hair is hair it grows back.

I love his snaggle tooth grin, it adds to the look don’t you think!  Soon enough his mouth will be full of grown up teeth and he will begin the awkward transformation we all go through till we start to resemble our adult selves.  I say celebrate this milestone with pictures.