September Snippets

September flew by in a blur, as we got used to our new back-to-school schedule, added soccer to the mix, and tossed in fall baseball and "real" baseball games at the A's stadium. We fit in bike rides, gymnastics, lunch dates with friends, board games, barbecues, a walk for lung cancer, and a 6th birthday, too! Here's a look at our madness...

 

Little Brit

We have a little Anglophile on our hands, thanks to a daily diet of an adorable, just faintly cheeky British cartoon that manages to entertain every member of our family. Molly sees at least one episode of Peppa Pig each day, usually as she's waking up in the morning.

Clearly, language development must occur in the groggy A.M. hours, because she's absorbed an embarrassingly large vocabulary of words that you don't often hear on this side of the pond.

Among our favorites:

"Mommy, can you mend this?" she asked me, proffering a broken toy. "Oh, do you not know what mend means? It means to fix something."

"That will be 50 pounds, thank you very much," she announced to me when playing with her toy cash register.

She often starts races with, "Ready, steady, go!!"

She's been known to ask if we need anything from "the shops."

And my favorite: "Mommy, is it not easy looking after little children? Do you need a holiday?"

Back to School, Take Two

Molly May headed off to her second year of preschool with a rep... her new teacher, Miss Jennifer, knew she was a cuddlebug, an awesome cleaner-upper, and definitely prefers to hang out with boys. While she still needs to be practically wrenched from my arms at drop-off, she's a calm, thumb-sucking little helper when she's in class.

This year she's in good company, with four other little girls with "white hair" -- quite the Scandinavian-looking troupe -- and lots of fun boys to boss around!

I'm savoring another year at her sweet, sweet preschool -- and also loving a couple of mornings to myself (and the laundry, the grocery store, and the gym) every week!

 

  

A New School Year

Our pencils are sharpened, our backpacks are filled with snacks and lunches, and we're steeling ourselves for our first year with TWO school-age kids! I have a feeling our dining room table will be seeing even more snacks, homework, tears and laughter after school this year. Let the games begin!

 

Joey, 2nd grade

Clara, Kindergarten

Last Days of Summer

 

Thank goodness for iPhones! Without one, I wouldn't have captured any of these shots from summer, which means I might have forgotten just how much fun we had for three glorious, schedule-free months.

The kids lived in the pool, smelled constantly of chlorine and sunscreen, tracked grass, dirt, and wet towels into every corner of the house, littered every table with arts and crafts projects, inhaled the contents of our fridge and pantry (over and over and over again), and generally did their part to keep the neighborhood volume level dialed up to a constant Happy/ Angry/ Excited/ Hungry/ Insane Shrieking Level.