Sunday, August 27, 2017

The first week of the school year!

We've settled in to our new routines some this week. We were all pretty excited about the kids' first day back to school and Will's first day of school ever.
I spent Sunday night sorting their school supplies and filling up their backpacks. School Years Eve. It felt a little like Chrismas Eve to me. Haha. All is set and quiet the night before.

They all hopped right out of bed when Patrick woke them.(That was new!)First thing, Will asked, "Do I get to go to school today?" When I said yes, he said, "I'm so excited!!" Then he bounced around and kept trying to get in the car long before Patrick was even out of the shower. He was so ready to go!

It was also Lexa's first day of third grade and Timmy's first day of fifth grade, his last year in elementary school. Eek! Let's not think about that.

Hugh was very upset that he had to stay behind with me. So I took a photo.

It was nice and quiet and calm after he settled down, just Hugh and me in the morning. When I picked Will up, he said he'd had a great day, hadn't missed me at all, and asked if he could go back again tomorrow. When I said he could, he waved his arms and bounced with glee,then he asked if he could keep going there forever. Other things he's been forthcoming to me with about school are that he wants to get all the stars so that he can get all the prizes, he's not very happy about not being allowed to play on the very tall playgroynd equipment, PreK is reasonably restricted to the smaller playscape on the playground, he's been reciting Mary Had a Little Lamb and Eric Carl's Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and he says he made a friend.

Lexa and Timmy were also all smiles when I picked them up later on their first day. Lexa said third grade was easier than she had expected.

This year's elementary school theme is steam punk, so Patrick wore an interesting costume.

At home the purple sage was blooming. It was beautiful. We have an abundance of it.

It seems to have only bloomed for a week though and is already done.

Monday was also solar eclipse day. We got a partial eclipse in Texas and clouds in Sabinal though. Timmy said his friend, Ptolomy, let him borrow his solar eclipse glasses, and Timmy said it was really, really neat. I looked up at the sky early on and didn't really see anything, sun behind the clouds. Then I picked up Will, ate lunch, got a little sleepy and hot/lethargic after lunch, as usual, so I felt like reading and then playing the piano for awhile. At 2pm I suddenly remembered the eclipse. Too late. I really have a mind like a steel trap.. I guess I'll be ready to do better for the total one scheduled six years from now. Patrick took a picture from up at the school.

On the first day of school since we've moved to Sabinal we've always headed out to the river to swim after school, so we had a nice evening family swim. Patrick took a pucture of them by the same tree again.

On Friday at school they were sorted into teams like Harry Potter houses by sliding down a slide and pulling out a colored necklace. Timmy and Will got Team Davinci and Lexa is on Team Tesla. Here goes Mrs. Valdez, the music teacher.

Patrick sent me this picture of "dinner in a box" Friday afternoon. He was very mysterious about it. It turned out to be tamales.


(Is it worth going into a photo editor to rotate a picture of a box because apparently this ap won't? I don't think so! It's a just photo of a box. Ha.)

That's all our big news for the week. Here's some pictures of Hugh. Sometimes I find him playing quietly with his cars(so sweet!) or figuring out how to disassemble the wagon.

Monday, August 21, 2017

This week of August, the last week of summer

We're staying at a cabin on the river with Patrick's parents now, the last weekend before the kids are back in school. Sitting out on the porch, its really pretty and quiet right now, listening to the buzzing of cicadas in the trees. All is calm except, of course, Hugh toddling around messing with my stuff, trying his best to take this phone from me!

He's been obsessed with taking my phone from me and looking around through it on camera mode. He smiles and giggles and sometimes inadvertantly takes photos. Little baby feet are now well documented!

Here he is pullong my yoga mat out all by himself and doing downward dog. He watches EVERYTHING we do!

We got a big rain, and the kids discovered they could make the puddle water spray with Will's bike. A wet, fun, mess!



Football practice has already started. They seem to be practicing alot. Will and Lexa are playing flag football, and Lexa is also doing cheerleading. The little ones have been playing at the playground next to Lexa's practice . They took their pictures last weekend.

Then we went to lunch at the The Oasis, where Lexa had been asking me to take her daily for at least a week. Mainly I think it's because of her love affair with pickled okra from the salad bar. She went to town. Here's her plate.
After that, it was haircuts and new shoes for school kids for a new school year.

In other news, Patrick surprised me and bought me an amazon echo, out of the blue, which I've been playing with all week. (We've changed its name to echo rather than the very confusing in our house, Alexa.) I'm always listening to podcasts and npr throughout the day. I've also started playing more music on it too and making some playlists. I made each of the kids a playlist too. They're always playing something on it also.
Their playlists:



My mom sent me some new clothes and these pretty new sandals for my birthday! It's making me so happy everytime I look down and see my pretty feet.

They had a special horse story time at the Uvalde library. Lexa really liked meeting the pony.

While we were going to that, Patrick texted to say he had tickets to a space and dinasaur park that we'd never gotten a chance to visit that expired that very day. So we hopped in the car and started a spontaneous road trip. When I was entering the location into gps, I realized this place was 15 minutes from my parents' house, so we added a little impromptu visit to them too! Sara cooked yummy spagetti for dinner and we went swimming. Yay for fitting one more last minute pool day into our summer!

The space park had signs about each planet in the solar system spaced apart according to their light speed distance. There's the "sun" behind Tiimmy.

I liked the Dinosaur Island sign.

Parasaurolophus is my favorite dinosaur because it brings me back memories of reading dinosaur books to toddler Timmy, where i first heatd of that one.

Will didn't pay much attention to the information about planets and dinos, but he really liked these purple thistles pictured behind him.

It's been a great week! Im hoping to make these weekly recaps one of my new habits for fall. Hope I keep it up. We'll see!!