First Day of School

Well, the boys started school last Monday and it went really well. Samuel was super excited that he finally gets to eat lunch at school. He was a little bit nervous, becuase most of his friends from kindergarten were in the other 1st grade class, but he has already been making new friends and asking if they can come over. Henry has one of his good friends in his class again this year, which always makes things easier. They both seem to like their teachers, for which I am grateful.
Today was Sadie's first day of preschool. She has been waiting and waiting. I was starting to get concerned, becuase over the summer she kept insisting that she wasn't going to go to school. Then, about 3 weeks ago I heard the kids talking about Gatorade (which I don't even have in the house). At this point, I wasn't above bribing. I told Sadie that on her first day of school we would by her a Gatorade. WELL...that did it, after that she just couldn't stop talking about school. We went and saw her school last Friday, and met her teachers, saw her cubby, the playground, bathroom, etc. Last night she wanted to pick out her clothes for today. She told me she needed pants in her pant drawer. Whatever...the girls has like 40 pairs of pants. When I told her that there were pants in her drawer she informed me that she doesn't like jean pants. Good grief! So, I went up and looked and after pulling out about 10 pairs of jean pants, we pulled out THE PAIR. Oh, man were they perfect. They were brand new, with the tags on. They had sequins and felt butterflies on them. They had a pink belt with a "diamond" butterfly belt buckle. Sadie was in awe.... Combined with a shirt and brand new pink fuzzy velvet shoes with flowers it was a perfect first day outfit.

This morning she woke up before I did, but went back in her room, becuase no one else was up. When she finally heard me waking up the boys, she came out of her room and told me that I needed to wake her up too, since she had to go to school. So she went into her room and pretended to be asleep so that I could "wake her up." She jumped into her new clothes and even had me tuck in her shirt so that people could see her "diamond" butterfly. Unfortunately, she is in afternoon preschool...so it was a very long morning for her, which was filled with taking Henry to the doctor. Finally, the moment arrived and she put on her backpack and away we went. After a brief goodbye to Henry, William and I she was gone.... She had a perfect day.

ABC's and Monsters

Sadie is not as prepared as the boys were to go to preschool. Whatever.... I do wonder though what the teacher will think when Sadie recites her ABC's. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, ELEMENTARY, PEW, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

A couple of weeks ago I got out of the shower, and Sadie came into the bedroom while I was dressing. I have a lot of bruises on my thigh from hauling around the 600lb baby carrier and having it bang against my leg. (Either those things have gotten heavier, or I have gotten older and weaker.) Anyway, Sadie saw the bruises and asked what happened. I told her that they were bruises. After considering this for a moment she said. "No, I think you are turning into a green monster." "You took a shower and turned green, then Dad is going to take a shower and turn green and then you will both be monsters, and I won't have any parents." Luckily, or unluckily, for her, the bruises are gone, and neither Ben nor I have turned into monsters.

Wave pool--or William's first trip to the pool

Saturday we decided to hit another county park and try out the wave pool. The kids were excited to go to a pool, since we have only been to one this summer...at a hotel. They have never been to a wave pool before. When we finally got there (we missed a turn), it appeared to be super crowded. We debated whether we should stay, or try to find another pool to go to. I decided that all the pools were likely going to be crowded, so we stayed. It cost $17, and we had a blast. We stayed for about 3 hours. I had only taken $20, so we didn't have enough money to rent a floatie, so it's a good thing that we ran into a family in the ward, and they lent us a couple of dollars so that we could get one. For the first little bit, we couldn't get Sadie or Samuel in the pool when the waves were on. Henry and I got Sadie on the floatie and just pushed her back and forth in the shallow end, when there were no waves going. Then, when the waves started, she just screamed "Whee!!" She did about 4-5 minutes of wave, and then she was done. She did this a couple of times. Then, Samuel would run back and forth to the waves in the shallow end. It was a great afternoon, and we all had a lot of fun.

Blue Slide playground

With summer winding down, we went to two of the county parks last week. One of them is known as the "blue slide" playground. I found it when I was looking up directions to another playground. The pictures looked fun. It is a concrete slide that is built into the hill. We got there and realized that it isn't much fun unless you have a piece of cardboard to slide on, otherwise, you don't really go...at all. Unfortunately, I had actually cleaned out my van the day before, otherwise, I'm sure I could have come up with something for them to slide on (like the 3 pairs of underware I found in there.) So, we just watched the other kids with cardboard for a while, and then some kids went home, and left their itty-bitty cardboard behind. After a lot of scraped elbows and knees, another mom came with bigger cardboard and she shared with us, then the fun began. We were there for about 3 hours, and I was the only Mom that tried it. It was fun.

Samuel on the tiny cardboard--he still has scraped elbows and knees

Henry and Samuel getting more adventurous with the big cardboard

Henry, Samuel and William...his first slide ride

You know it's time for new air conditioning when....

Your five month old wiggles himself five feet across the floor so he can sleep in front of the air conditioning vent.
It took him awhile to figure out how too turn his head....