Back to School!

 Michael started 2nd Grade and Sadie started Kindergarten at the end of August. They are both doing great and loving it!

First day of school, toting their school supplies.

A few weeks after school started, Michael's teacher sent home a reading evaluation that said Michael was starting the year already reading well past the level at which regular second graders end the school year. He has already finished reading The Hobbit and has started The Lord of the Rings, which I didn't even start reading til Middle School. He is also excelling in math. What a smartie!

Here he is dressed up as a detective for the library's "Character Parade."

Sadie is also excelling in class and has already moved into chapter books. Her teacher says she can always count on Sadie to come up with thoughtful questions and highly reasoned answers. She is definitely one of a kind!

While visiting for dinner one night, Aunt Lisa was blessed with the opportunity of using her nursing know-how to pull Sadie's first tooth. Awesome!

With the two older kids in school, Ada and Joseph have become good pals.  They play together very sweetly (most of the time) and are great helpers entertaining each other while grocery shopping or running other errands.

Adelaide started preschool again too, Sadie isn't with her this year, but she has two other friends in her class, so it made going back easier.  She knows all her letters and can put them together to make simple words. . . . Mom needs to get with it and start teaching this girl how to read.

Letting off some steam . . . .

The kids have come to love making "pillow piles" to jump and tumble in. The best was jumping from Mom and Dad's bed onto a huge pile of cushions . . . .  which Dad has since outlawed.  But other areas of the house are still open --as long as they put all the pillows back when they're done.

The park is lots of fun too. Rolling down hills is a perennial favorite.

As is playing in the mud.

The girls still love dressing up as princesses . . . and Joseph has learned to play along.  He will probably hate me for posting this picture in a few years, but for now, it's just so cute!

Aside from the occasional cross-dressing, though, he really is all "boy." He loves jumping, and climbing,and kicking, and throwing. I love my "little Buddy!"

And, he's turning into such a big helper!

Just before school started, we went on a quick visit to see Grandma and Grandpa in San Antonio. While there, we all visited "Aunt Mary" who is the kids' oldest living relative.

We also paid a visit to the Houston Children's Museum and had a blast!!!

And Sadie tapped into her inner entrepreneur by setting up a smoothie stand in our front yard. She made quite a bit of money within the first hour and has wanted to set up shop numerous time since . . . but Mom isn't quite up for all the "behind the scenes" work involved. Maybe next summer?