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?

July with a Bang

July started with a bang --literally --with having our good friends, the Mohontys, over for Independence Day.  We had a nice BBQ and then lit fireworks. Adelaide finally summoned up enough courage to try holding a sparkler this year. Joseph, on the other hand, has never had any fear of fireworks. Even as baby he has always been mesmerized by the glowing lights and loud noise. It was hard trying to restrain him to a safe distance.

Just a few days later, we celebrated Adelaide's fourth birthday with a pool party.

I made a beautiful "princess cake" because that's what she wanted. --I had to dig around for a frosting recipe that wouldn't instantly melt when we took it outside in the heat. (Meringue frosting worked great!)

It managed to stay together quite well.  Adelaide loved it, and everyone else was quite impressed.

Here is JoJo and his Beloved enjoying some watermelon together. (We joke that these two were betrothed at birth, because they were born only a few days apart. . . . And they're both so cute!!!)

Happy birthday, Big Girl! 

The very next day, we left for a family vacation to Galveston, including amazing Moody Gardens. We bought a membership so we could do everything there is as much as we wanted.  It was all wonderful!  

The Rain Forest Pyramid was amazing.  They have a special section just for butterflies, and apparently, they love people, or at least our family, because everyone had one land on them.

(Notice Sadie's sad face in the above picture when Michael got to hold one; then a look of joy and triumph when one finally decided to land on her.)

As always, Michael loved the reptiles and amphibians best.

Joseph's favorite part was watching all the fish.

My favorite part was getting to see the bird feeding when we were within a few feet of  a dozen or so scarlet ibises and all other kinds of birds were flying above our heads trying to catch a tasty treat.

They Aquarium Pyramid was equally amazing. They have huge tanks of seals, penguins, sharks and other tropical fish.

And all kinds of smaller tanks with sea turtles, octopuses, sea urchins, and seahorses. --They even had a bunch of teeny-tiny baby seahorses in a special hatchery. So cute!

Joseph enjoyed getting almost-eaten by a megamouth shark. And again, he loved the fish! He could have stayed in here all day, easily. We almost did.

But we also had to see the Dinosaurs!!!  Michael and Sarah were less-than-impressed with these animatronic beasts, but Ada and Joseph loved them. They insisted we go through this exhibit every day we were there. (Actually, JoJo was a bit scared and wanted me to hold him when we first entered the tent, but by the time we were done, he was in toddler-boy heaven.)

While waiting for lunch one day, Matt invented a new game for JoJo --Dino-Soccer.

Apart from Moody Gardens, we visited La King's Confectionery. Boy, walking into a candy store with four small children is DANGEROUS!

We also toured the Flight Museum and got to see a few antique planes take off.

And of course we played at the beach, but I didn't want my phone getting sandy, so I left it in the car each time. Hence, no pictures. :-(


Back at home . . .

Our smart little boy put two and two together and decided to go fishing for our goldfish with the plastic fishing pole from our "Let's Go Fishin'" game.  Thankfully, he has been unsuccessful so far.

JoJo thinks he's such a big boy. 

Michael was "really bored" one day, so I let him make a marble cake all-by-himself-with-mom-supervising.  It turned out quite good, and he was quite proud of himself.

Joyful June

It was a very busy June! Matt's sister, Lisa, and her husband, Sean, moved here to Houston and stayed with us for a few weeks while apartment hunting. It was so fun!

Here is Aunt Lisa teaching the girls how to do head stands.

Uncle Sean was very generous to let the kids play games on his iPad.  . . . Michael, in particular, wanted to play non-stop.

What could be more fun than a sprinkler on a summer afternoon?

My nephew and niece, Cole and Kylie, came for a visit, and we did something fun every day including lots of parks and swimming. Here we are right after a boat ride around the Woodlands mall.

Last year, Matt and I came to an agreement, if he would take me to the opera, I would go shooting with him. He happily took me to see "The Magic Flute" last fall, so now it was my turn to try something new. It was actually easier and more fun than I anticipated.

What do you do on a summer morning with three bored kids?

Make food art!

Some of their creation were actually pretty sturdy.

A law firm that Matt works with gave a huge party in box seats at a Houston Astros game. It was great! Free good. Free game. And an amazing man to share it with. . . . The Astros won btw. Go Astros!

A few weeks ago, we attended a retirement party for my Aunt Cathy. It was at the Spaghetti Warehouse downtown. Everything was going smoothly. The kids were all behaving. Then Michael turned to me and yelled "I'm bleeding!"

His loose upper tooth finally decided to come out with a little help from some french bread.