Friday, August 30

School Visitation Day

This week all the parents were invited to visit classrooms. Matilda is settling into school fantastic and has declared second grade her "best year ever." It is great to see her getting to do so many fun, exciting new types of school projects and learning as the class gets more mature and able to tackle bigger concepts.
 Here's the table group sign she made with her group-mates.
 I loved seeing this record of where they all started the school year!
We've had a major heat wave here and consequently have been spending all afternoon everyday with friends at the local public pool. It's been a really nice way to eek out the last bits of summer fun before we are settled into the normal, hectic after school activity schedule.

Tuesday, August 13

Second Grader

Another first day of school has rolled around so fast. First day of school by the front door:
Meeting up with the block gals for our first walk of the season.
  The herd moved quickly today with all their high energy and anticipation.
Big hugs for lots of friends we missed seeing this summer. 
It was so nice to see all the friendly faces again.
 Happy, excited girl! 
We did not know teacher assignments until this morning so it was extra exciting (and nerve wracking) to see where she ended up. We are super pleased with her teacher and she has a ton of great friends and peers in her class so it should be a fantastic year. Hurray for second grade!

Saturday, August 3

Michigan Day

We are winding down our whirlwind vacation with a few calm days (as calm as it gets with 2 kids) in Michigan with my mom.
 The big excitement for today was that Porter mastered the monkey bars. He started on these medium sized ones at our first playground of the day. He was so proud of himself but it was awesome to see how sweet and proud Matilda was.
 Next up we visited another playground with bigger monkey bars to challenge the new master!

After all the play we did some art projects to quiet down and pass the time while grandma made dinner. I made Matilda do a few pages of a grade 2 review workbook in an attempt to ease her back into a school-ready mentality! She was less than pleased at first but once she warmed up to it she did well and blew through a bunch of good practice work.
 Grandpa Chris also showed off some of his fun helicopter toys during the pre-dinner hang out time.
 Finally, we wrapped the evening up with yet another bowl of outrageously colored ice cream.

Thursday, August 1

Grandpa's Birthday

We wore Grandpa out with birthday festivities today. First off, he drove from MI to NY and then we made him play 18 holes of golf! Next up, Gio and Brian grilled some stuff.
Family shot with the great climbing tree.
The main event!

Gio in his element: ice cream + truck!

Turns out it is really hard to get a group shot of four kids all hopped up on ice cream.
Spoiled Brutus even got served by the ice cream truck.
A little bonus late night fun.