Fun Day Before First Full Day of Schol

Susie and I thought it would be nice to have one more special day with our boys before they officially start kindergarten tomorrow. Durham Science Museum was our place of choice. It was so fun! We stayed for 6 hours! A standard park outing or other museum outing gets a budget of 2 hours. So 3x that is a big deal. And the boys could have stayed longer if we had more snacks and didn't have to leave to get home by 6pm for their school event.

We started inside. I have never even been inside since we usually have so much time outside that we don't make it in. But it was a quick tour of some space related stuff before the boys remembered the cool playground that they have outside.

But first, some cool space stuff...

Right after the playground they have a little are with barn animals. I think Ellen could have spent all day there.

We also spent a while in the butterfly house...

First Day of School!

Lucas was up before his alarm went off this morning and was in a silly mood. We are all excited about the first day of Kindergarten!

Ellen wasn't going to school today, but she wanted to get dressed up and wear her backpack to take Lucas to school : )

I told them to raise their hands and say, "JOYNER!"

Ellen, as usual, had to take a picture or two...

And she had to have one of babies saying "cheese."

I am thankful for cameras with timers.

This was our last place at the museum to visit before we HAD to go. One could control the sails so that the wind would catch them and move them across the water. The boys loved it.

We all walked him to school this morning. Here we are in front of the school.

And here is our big boy thinking hard about his first day...

Oh wait, we have to make some silly faces in front of the playground that we've been coming to for 2 years. We have called this playground in front of the school the "five year old park" for years because we always said that is where Lucas will go when he's five...

Inside the school!

Daddy and Lucas waiting to sign him for the day...

And one last picture before he started his big day!

This was one of the assistant teachers that led him to his classroom for the day..

It looks like he's crying here, but he was just scratching his head. No tears from anyone!

Fast forward 6.5 hours to pick up. I had the video camera on as he walked out the door and was expecting... something. Instead, he acted the same as if I were picking him up from preschool or camp. Maybe I asked too many questions because this is the look I got when I told them to smile : )

A little better...

He sure was happy to see his doggy though!

Later in the day he told us that he liked it and that he saw Blane and Lucas E. on the playground.

First Day of School Eve!

We are all so excited that Lucas starts school tomorrow! Kindergarten! The way that our county works the Kindergarten system is that it has the children go in for one full day of school, but with only 25% of their class, before their first real day. So Lucas will be in a small group of about 5 kids tomorrow. Each of the 6 teachers will have 5 kids. The small groups will rotate through all of the teachers, recess, lunch, etc while the teachers secretly are assessing them. The goal, I think, is for the classes to have an even distribution of skill levels. The day after tomorrow none of the kids will go to school and all of the K teachers will meet and create the class lists. Tomorrow night they will post the lists at 6pm, have a meet the teacher session, and then the PTA will host a dinner for all of the K families. Then, finally, his first real day of school will be on Thursday.

We were given a list of supplies for him to bring on his staggered entry day. He was so excited to sort them and get them ready!

One of the items he needed was a white folder with a clear sleeve on the front. He insisted that it was too boring and needed a picture...

So he drew a robot and named it Rex.

Conklin Visit

Our dear friends from Charlotte are visiting for the weekend. So far we are having a great time! We had the idea to split the siblings up for the day, so Jeff and Johnny were to take the boys hiking and Erin and I were planning to take the girls to the mall. Earlier this week Hurricane Irene threw a kink into our plan. The weather this wknd calls for tropical storm like weather. When we got up this morning, however, it was only raining in spurts, but was mostly not raining. So the guys decided to take the boys to Umstead anyway. Probably not the most responsible thing we've ever done since tree limbs could have fallen, but it turned out to be an awesome day for us all. Johnny, Jeff, Lucas and Hunter hiked for 5 miles through a foggy, creepy looking forest... and loved it! Meanwhile, Erin and I had a fun time with the girls at the mall. The highlight was taking them back into the Claire's boutique that I took Ellen in a few days earlier. They "shopped" around and tried things on... so cute!

A little while later we saw that the Ch*ck-fil-a cow and the H*llo Kitty mascots were saying hello to people. Ellen has a love/hate relationship with this cow. She talks about him all the time, but is too scared of him to get near him. I took the shot below of her using her baby as a shield between her and the cow, which stood about 20 ft away : )

Later that day we had to think of fun things to do inside since it was still rainy and wet outside...

The boys wanted to have a sleepover party, so we set the air mattress up for them. They only giggled for about 30 min and came downstairs once before falling asleep. How fun!

Bright and early the next morning these two cuties helped me make breakfast. Did I mention that Caroline is a hugger? And a lot bigger than Ellen? : ) We had to tell Caroline to give Ellen tiny hugs instead of huge ones.

While the girls made breakfast, these two cuddled under a blanket for some Sunday morning cartoons...

And here is proof that Erin and I were part of the wknd. A picture taken by Ellen at the playground : )

Lazy Dog

Tyson is all about his sleep. When we put the kids to bed he usually goes into whichever room I am in that night, curls up on the bed and falls right to sleep. We usually move him because he snores and we don't want to risk him waking one of them up. Tonight he was so zonked that he remained limp like this in my arms all the way downstairs, while I talked to Jeff, and while Jeff took this picture : )

Ellen's First Haircut!

Ellen's hair, like Lucas's hair, seems to grow more out than down. So it doesn't seem like she would need a haircut, but we wanted an expert's opinion. The top/back is frizzy and tangly in the morning, so I thought maybe our friend Joey would want to thin it out. He ended up just cleaning up the ends and you could hardly tell, but it does look neater. She did great during the cut. She knows Joey from when Lucas has gone to him. She was pretty straight faced, and even yawned at one point : )

Lucas had an allergy attack on his eye a few minutes before we left. He seems to have this happen once a year. I gave him some Claritin and it was better before we left (see last picture). Lucas also got his "kindergarten" haircut. I'm thinking I like his hair better long.

Before:

After!

Fun with Finn

Ele and I are getting creative with our child care options these last weeks of summer. Some of our plans include Finn coming to our house for a couple of hours each day. It has been really fun to have him over since the three of them entertain each other pretty well. One day, for a special treat, we walked to the "treat store."

Ice Cream with Berkeley

We are doing a lot of fun things on our girl's wknd (and eating a lot of ice cream.) Today we met Berkeley and her mommy, Cristina, for a snack. The highlight for Ellen was when she got to hold Berkeley... she of course put on her baby-holding-face for the task...