knitting, creating, and loving life in the Midwest
This pair of goofballs is back in school:
The little one refused to pose unless he was making a silly face or sucking his thumb, and the big one refused to pose by himself.
I miss them. My house is a lot quieter and cleaner, but I really enjoyed having my monkeys home this summer, we had adventures, chilled out, and had fun. Now it’s time for another year of learning adventures – love you both, Aidan and Alex!!!
Yep, that’s me. The cool mama. I am sure it will last 2.3 days but I will enjoy it while I can.
My oldest has asked me to help him put outfits together. What what???? Seriously, my husband told him that I was really good at fashion (it’s news to me, believe me) and that I could help him with school clothes. So today I showed him how a crew-neck under a v-neck sweater looked nice and he went with it. He used to love button-down shirts and now hates them so that will be my Everest, seeing if I can get him back in a button down. Because he looks damn cute in one.
This is from mother’s day 2011, my boys wearing guayaberas, so sweet!!!
Now they were polo shirts every day for school
They each chose the same color shirt, I buy them the same things sometimes but I don’t make them wear them at the same time, this was just coincidence 😀
But now my oldest is wanting some oomph so mama is off looking for ideas to show the boy.
One of my favorite style blogs is Style Your Life. I find that Jennifer puts together cute, wearable outfits from stores I actually shop at (Target, Old Navy, etc.) and she’s done a few for boys, like this one:
Source: embed.polyvoreimg.com via Claudia on Pinterest
So cute!!!
I’ve started a Boys’ Style board on Pinterest, feel free to stop by and also feel free to share any cool dude outfit ideas 😀
This baby
started second grade on Monday:
and this baby
started first grade:
Our summer has been colorful, loud, and the house has been bright with my boys’ voices and laughter. Now they embark on a new adventure – we are so proud of both of them and we know this is going to be a fabulous year!
In one week, my oldest will be all done with first grade. I don’t understand how this happened, not only because CLEARLY I am much too young to be the mother of a 7-year-old, but also because, um, wasn’t it just last week that he had his first day of first grade?
He picked out the outfit, as he does every day. He prefers polo shirts to t-shirts, even when he’s done with school and changes into “play clothes”.
Wasn’t it just a few days ago that he had his Halloween parade?
Surely, just a couple of days ago he and his classmates were getting Principal’s Awards
I am, however astonished I am at how quickly time goes by, so happy he has made good friends at school
Daddy helped him with his Leprechaun trap — such a rite of passage, isn’t it?
Yesterday was his last field trip of the school year – the kids went to Happy Hollow, a local park and zoo, and they had a blast!
Thanks to my dear friend M for the field trip photo!
My darling Aidan, I am so proud of you. You are such a sweet boy and always eager for more and more learning, I can only hope I can live up to your hunger for knowledge. Oh, and daddy will have to teach you math and science because I suck at both. History and language arts? That’s mama’s turf. Love you always!
Ah, the much awaited leprechaun trap. Last year my son was in kindergarten and I saw all the first graders proudly parading their creations — and now it’s his turn!
With his dad’s help, they created a seemingly innocent structure in friendly hunter green. A helpful ladder led to the top . . .
And what is that I see? A rainbow? And Lucky Charms?
Come on, little leprechaun, it’s only a few steps to the bounty!!!
Just ignore those lines of moss, they’re not hiding anything like cuts on the floor . . .
My sweet boy displaying his leprechaun trap.
I think they’re going to catch one or two greedy leprechauns, don’t you think?
My son’s class went on a field trip to Villa Montalvo yesterday, to see a production of The Magic School Bus. I was very happy to go as chaperone and had a blast with my boy and his friends. I only had two kids to chaperone, my son and his BFF, so it was great.
While I had a good time, the trip was not all smooth sailing. First, the bus driver was taking us to the wrong location, although my friend A. said I should have gotten off there instead 😀
The show itself was a little underwhelming. I know I wasn’t the target audience, but the songs were not catchy, the pacing was dreadful, and you couldn’t even understand some of the words because the songs so convoluted and two of the performers didn’t seem to be miked at all. The kids were done about 30 minutes into the show and were super restless. I overheard a boy saying “that was a baby show!” which tells ya that they weren’t really hitting the right balance of education and entertainment.
It was the first time I chaperoned on a school trip and I loved it. Which is good because since my poor husband just hurt his foot (again) I am replacing him as chaperon on a school trip with my youngest later this week!
Here are a couple of pics of Villa Montalvo from pinterest – if you have the chance to go, it is a gorgeous place. I am planning on going back soon just to take some photos of the place.
Source: google.com via Susan on Pinterest
Source: montalvoarts.org via Leila on Pinterest
With two boys in school now, there are lots of homework and art project pages filling up the bin I set up in the office. Now that the new school year has started, it was time to decide what to do with last year’s stash. Once I saw this, my decision was made:
Source: remodelista.com via Claudia on Pinterest
One evening a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and photographed everything I wanted kept for posterity. I did save a couple of projects from each of my boys, and the memory books their teachers had made of the whole school year. I know, I’m a sucker, and we’ll see how those fare in a few years, but for now I am keeping them.
I got a coupon for a free poster print at Walmart, and I found super cheapo poster frames for $6 each, so my project ended up costing around $12 total.
We are redoing this particular corner of the playroom/office, since my husband likes my computer better (better graphics card, yeah!) and now never sits at his desk, so this corner is going to be the media/recharging station/printer/etc. area, but for right now I really like my boys’ work up there.
A few months ago I posted about my friend L. who lives around the corner from our house. We met when my oldest and her daughter were infants, and now, they are in the same class at school!
Here are the kiddos during a playdate, which honestly was more for us moms to drink coffee and chill than for them to do any real playing 😀
Now we see each other every weekday and had a playdate the week before school started:
Look at those sweet faces! They wouldn’t sit still so I got all blurry pics. Then they got silly and started to make faces ;D
What a trip to see these two grow up. I’m very happy that they’re classmates now and both her mom and I volunteer at the school so we get to hang out then, too.
We were bummed last year because none of my boy’s friends that live close to us were in his school. Now he has a friend he’s known forever.
Monday was the first day of school for my sweethearts – my oldest is a first-grader now:
He chose a green-striped shirt, brown shorts, orange laced shoes, red-strapped backpack and bright blue jacket 😀
We are lucky in that he has some of the same classmates from last year as well as a friend he’s known since he was 4 months old.
My little one is going to kindergarten in another school:
He’s all about dinosaurs. It’s a very rushed morning for us, dropping off my oldest first then racing to my youngest’s school, where there is virtually no parking. His teacher, thank goodness, understands it’s out of my hands and has told me it’s ok for us to be a few minutes late. Thank you, thank you, sweet understanding teacher!
I will be volunteering in my oldest’s class – I’m so excited!!!
We are enjoying these last few days of school vacation – we recently went up to a local park and rode on the train, it was wonderful. The day had cooled down and my three men were having a lot of fun together:
In a few days my sons are back in school. Is it just me or did this summer just fly by?
Casa de Berry 
