Pics of His Mommy, Sister and Doggy...

... taken by Lucas.

Baby Games at the Park

Ellen has learned how to play chase. She initiates the game with eye contact and a grin, and then crawls off at a baby sprint pace. Another game that she has thought up is to make eye contact, grin and then do something that she KNOWS she isn't supposed to do... like crawl on the table or put something from the ground into her mouth. These first three pics are just cute ones from the park. In the last one she was crawling away from me, under the playground equipment, as I called for her to stop. She paused to look back and make sure that I was still hot on her tail before she giggled and took off again.

Make New Friends, Keep the Old

My friend Lauren used to say that in college : ) We are trying to keep in touch with Lucas's good buddies that he made at Montessori School. It's not that hard because he loves them and I enjoy the company of their mommies. Here are the kiddos at a park with Parker last week. Ellen's baby friend, Sadie, was also there.

Ellen may enjoy the playground more than Lucas these days...

Oh, wait. Maybe not.

Parker and Lucas smiling for a picture. Notice that Lucas never has shoes on at the park. The first thing he does is remove them. I don't blame them... sand feels better on bare feet.

And then totally consumed by the dog water fountain. They are such boys.

Our Sweet Little Preschooler

Jeff and I are so proud of Lucas. He made the transition from his first school to his preschool so well. I think it helped that all of his friends and his cousin Max were talking about starting their new schools and meeting their teachers. It just seemed to him like that was what was supposed to happen.

He seems to like his two teachers, Ms. Rosemary and Ms. Jane. He calls Ms. Rosemary "Roseberry" - hehe. For the past 5 days or so we have walked him into the school, but last Friday when I took him he said that he wanted to hold Ms. Penny's (the director) hand and walk in with the other children. Ms. Penny was in the carpool lane and I explained how it works to him, so I think we'll try that today. For practice, he walked in with Ms. Penny last week. It was so sweet seeing him walk in with her and put his stuff away by himself. Then I saw Ms. Rosemary come out to greet him and he kind of strutted into the classroom with her.

When we pick him up he is sitting outside with his class, his teachers, and the children from the other classes. Three times so far Ms. Jane has told us how helpful and kind Lucas behaves at school. She said one day on the playground a child stepped on his sand castle and he said, "Please don't do that again!" And when it's time to clean up in the classroom she said that Lucas asks her, "May I help you, Ms. Jane?" On Thursday when we picked him up he fell down and Ms. Jane told him that he had to get better soon because he was her best helper : ) Jeff and I don't take much credit for this - Mrs. Xenia and Mr. Len from his Montessori school taught him how good it feels to be polite and clean up after yourself (and he does it better around other caregivers at this point).

After Lucas tripped over his huge book bag last week we went to Target to get him a smaller one. I'm a dummy and didn't know that they made smaller ones when we let him pick out this yellow one. We found a super cute, kind of hip one for him and packed it with his stuff for the next day of school. However, when it was time to go to school the next day he transferred all of the stuff back to the yellow one and said that he was a BIG BOY and needed the big book bag... and apparently it also keeps his back warm... oh well.

Oh yes, I forgot my favorite part of this story. On the way to Target to get his small book bag he told me that we needed to go shopping and buy some new clothes. He has never shown any interest in clothes, so I was surprised. When I asked him what he meant he said he needed a new Spiderman shirt because his yellow one is too big. He then told me that another child at school had a cool Spiderman shirt. So we got this one and he sported it the next day...

And one day last week we had our first cool morning. It wasn't THAT cool, but Lucas insisted on wearing his jacked zipped all the way up. And then he insisted on closing his eyes for the picture....

But then we took a picture with the camera timer on and I got a good smile from my sweet guy....

Crowd Pleaser

We joke that Ellen is going to be a politician or a sales lady one day. She makes friends with strangers everywhere that we go! She likes to catch someone's eye and then smile at them with her whole face, open mouth, eyes squinty smile and wave at them! It cracks me up every time. And check out this picture. At the park this week she was playing in the sand by herself one minute, and then the next she was surrounded by three little five year olds and was loving every second of it. They were doting over her and she was eating it up. Look at her face. Little stinker. And this little girl to the right with the dark pink shirt was a riot herself. She was going into my bag and giving Ellen goldfish, picking her up when she thought she needed to be repositioned, and helping her dig. Her dad said she charges $1.25 to babysit... she was definitely a lady in charge. I love to watch their developing personalities. (Meg - she reminded me of Maddie!)

TT and LB

Lucas wanted his picture taken with Tyson. On Lucas's last day of Montessori school one of his friends asked if he could come to Lucas's house to play. Lucas responded with, "Yes, but Tyson bites, so you have to be veryyyyyy careful!" Poor Tyson - he gets such a bad rap.

You should have seen the other baby!

Ellen got her first black eye yesterday... poor baby. She was standing in her crib, bouncing up and down, when she lost her balance and hit her eye on the edge of the railing. Darn crib... yet another con in my book. She only cried for a few seconds and it doesn't seem like it hurts. This was her right after it happened...

And this was about an hour later : )

So long Summer...

... we're ready for fall!!!!! My favorite season... yay!

Lucas had one last summertime sprinkler play date with Pierson to close out the summer...

Pullen and Meeting Mia

We finally made a date with my old office mate, Erica, and her daughter, Mia. Mia is almost two, so it took us long enough. We met at Pullen Park, which may have also been another summer "last" as I think the rides are closing soon.

The turkey fell asleep in the car and transferred to the stroller where he slept another 1/2 hour... love this thing already!

Here we are.... Team Schroeder minus dada and TT (although TT is usually in the bottom).

Ellen loved the boats, although they both got bored and got off early...

The kids and Mia : )

Hill Ridge Farm

This is the farm that we usually go to in the fall to get a pumpkin. It's about 30 min away in a town called Youngsville. I found this double jogging stroller on Craigslist in that town, so I figured since were were there we'd give the farm a visit. During the pumpkin season there are 100s and 100s of people there, but on this day it was just us! We didn't mind.

We fed the farm animals...

and chilled in the stroller while Lucas fed the ducks.

Next we all went down this really tall and long slide. It looks way cooler than it actuall is. It's just a big pipe thing, so the ride is slowed down by the ridges. Lucas looked so small walking up there all by himself.

One thing that WAS really cool was this little room filled with raw corn. It was the same idea as a sand box.

And then there was this...

And finally, the hay maze. It was a fun couple of hours!

Downtown Raleigh

Jeff and I had our first date in months (and months) on Friday. It was much needed, much deserved, and so much fun! We had our nanny, Karen, come over, so the kids were totally at ease and it felt like we were leaving them with a family member. Not worrying about them made our time together so much more enjoyable. We went to Poole's diner at first, but were disappointed in the menu and seating, so just had drinks there. Next we walked to Jibarra, which we had been to before, but it has good food and we like the setup. Afterwards we walked down Fayetteville Street in hopes of finding a good place for dessert, but Raleigh just isn't there yet. It was pretty dead. We joked that we'll try again in a few years. Here is a picture that we took of the full moon during our stroll around the city...

Busy Lady

Ellen is busy, busy, busy! She is getting harder to manage whereas I remember that Lucas got easier at this age. He was never satisfied, so once he was able to move and explore he became more content. This lady was easy before, so now that she can move she is making things a little tougher on us... but she's got the best smile, so we don't mind : )

Who's this?

Oh, it's Ellen!

The Bird

First Day of Preschool!

LB started a 3 year old preschool class today. It wasn't much of a transition since he had been going to his other school for about the same hours this summer. We met his teachers, Ms. Rosemary and Ms. Jane, last week, so we were good to go with no fear. Jeff and I both took him this morning and walked him into his classroom. He went straight to work on a magnetic block toy and was so serious about his morning work that I didn't get a hug when I told him I was leaving. When I picked him up he was waiting outside with his teachers. When he saw me he ran to me with his arms out and a huge smile on his face. His teacher said that he had a great first day. I was so proud of my little turkey. As a bonus, his friend Pierson is in the 2 year old classroom, so they got to run around on the lawn for a few minutes after school.

When we asked him how school was he told us that he did something with rice, played in the sand, and made a new friend named Cole.

He'll be going M-F from 9-12. This year, next year and then Kindergarten. Slow down little turkey!

Pierson and Lucas

First Day of Preschool Eve

VERY excited that he got to get a new backpack to take to school each day...

Clowning around...

Lucas LOVES to setup the timer on the camera and then rush to get setup in front of it in time. I get the best smiles from him when we play this game...

First Steps!

Our lady bird took her first steps tonight! We were at the Ray's house, upstairs in their playroom. She was standing a few feet away from me and I could tell that she wanted to come to me, so I said something like, "Come to Mommy, Ellen" and she took three steps! She did this a few more times and then again when we got home when Jeff was watching. The most she has taken is three so far, but I bet she gets the hang of it quickly.