A certain little boy turned 8 and scored 8 points in his basketball game the same day...
My tagalong and I ate breakfast one leisurely morning at a diner in Moraga, and she could not have been happier.
Joey and his neighborhood cohorts, Sebo and Teo, sampled a new flag football set he got for his birthday. It was a hit!
Clara and Joey started tennis lessons. Is it just me, or can you see Clara's smile from here?
I had to renew my passport and replaced my old passport, which I got in 1999, and time-capsuled with jean overalls.
This trio can usually be found together in various spots in the house, in various stages of undress or costume change.
This duo got a rare day out while Clara was in school, and Joey was recovering from the stomach flu.
Girl Scouts has officially become a part of my life once again, with the start of Clara's kindergarten Daisy troop. Almost every girl in her grade joined, making for a very fun and manageable group of only 12 girls. They get to learn things like how to set tables properly while they simultaneously plan how to best deal with their extremely boy-heavy class ;)
We've been thrilled to find that Clara's small class is chock-full of fun, friendly families, and spent a lot of time this month socializing with them at birthday parties, indoor soccer games, playdates and field trips.
Meanwhile, Molly May has become increasingly obsessed with one of the boys from her class. She's vowed to marry him, have three children, and raise them in Moraga. I finally broke the news to his mom the other day after this month's pictures from their teacher made her crush painfully obvious.
When she's not at school stalking her "boyfriend," Molly May is at home snuggling the very tolerant, very sweet Georgia.
Speaking of school, Molly's preschool teacher delivered a one-two-THREE punch to this busy mom when she asked that the kids arrive at school dressed like penguins, bring a frozen treat for the whole class, AND come prepared for Sharing Day. Whew.
I finally buckled down in mid-January and took our holiday décor down... I almost hated to take all of our Christmas cards down... here's one of two doors in our entryway that was dressed to the nines with family and friends.
Even big guys take naps now and then, especially when they're knocked out with the stomach flu.
Clara's taken her new sewing machine for many test drives since Christmas. We've made pillows, pillows and more pillows.
Our other new favorite appliance in the house is this awesome old-school pencil sharpener. It's made homework time (times two now, yikes!) go so much more smoothly!!
We headed to Arnold for Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend with the DeWeeses and the Sills, hoping for snow, but settling for 60 degree weather and perfect hiking and fort-building temperatures.
One little person was not happy about the hiking portion of this weekend... I'm pretty sure this is a genetic trait.
We had a Miller, Stecher and Cecchin reunion... this captures the blurry craziness of that night!
This is the crew I roll with when I go shoe shopping. Which explains why I don't do this very often at all.
And finally, this big guy had his eight year well-check-up the day after he had the stomach flu and lost 5 pounds. You can almost see his ribcage here ... if you squint really hard. Despite being emaciated from his illness, he still weighed in at 83 pounds, in the 98th percentile, and is still defying his genes by registering in the 90th percentile for height, at 53 inches.
So far in his eighth year, he's mastered a new board game... Monopoly. We've played it approximately one billion times since the beginning of the year, and I'm being summoned for another game now!
