It's Elliot's Turn

Finally, my poor boy who is going to be 3.5 years old this fall, who is more than ready for preschool and has been dying to go since January of this year is finally starting. He went this summer for a week and fell in love and didn't want to stop so I was really looking forward to this fall. Unfortunately our school only offers a 2 day a week program for 3 year olds even though I would be more than happy to have him in school 3x a week. So every Tuesday and Thursday this fall you can find my little one in preschool.

I liked this whole warm up to preschool system when Erik was entering preschool, but I have to admit with having a child so ready to go to school this drawn out process of "meet the teacher," "being in the classroom a half day," and then a "half day by themselves" is a little drawn out for me. I already know Elliot's teachers, I know all about the systems and process of the preschool and we're just ready to go. Bring it on already!!

So just as Erik did, here is Elliot's first day of preschool pictures. His first official full day is September 6th, but for our purposes we'll call Meet the Teacher day his first. He did wear his first day of school outfit. It was a little anti-climatic for us. There was no daddy, no Erik, no one else to share this moment with us. Not sure if Elliot noticed, but I did.

When we got there Elliot instantly went for the playdough and made a "decoration." I have a strong feeling Elliot is going to be one of the oldest and way more advanced in his class. He is a second sibling and older 3. In addition he is already moving from cooperative play to interactive play with his current friends. So I have mixed feelings. I like that fact that in his class he could be the leader and "boss" and have his own space since Erik controls most of his life. But also I want him to have kids his age to play with and form future friendship with. Mostly I am worried because Elliot doesn't have any friends like Erik did when he entered preschool, but I am sure he will be fine. Also in the back of my head I think if we went to the other local preschool he would have 4 close friends in his class and it would be so smooth for him. Such is life I guess.

 

Then of course he went for the cars and trains. I was impressed because the trains didn't connect, but he mechanically figured out how to make it work by pushing and some weird combining. Elliot is definitely engineer minded at this age.

He also drew a rocket ship drawing. All in all a great introduction to preschool.

He even played in the yard for a few minutes and refused to leave. I knew all the mom's in the play yard ironically, but none of them are kids Elliot knows well. We'll find our place this year...

Kindergarten here we come

Every parent probably asks themselves this question, but I keep wonder, how did we get here. In two ways honestly. First of all where did the summer go? It seems like it just started going and now one of my kids are starting school. Being that its the middle of August doesn't help things. I have had my kids 100% of the time for the last three weeks with no camps or anything and I feel like we just started getting on a roll and now its over. I hate to admit it, but I was enjoying summer and wasn't ready for it to end although mentally I knew it was time.

Also I wonder how my children got to be so old. The next two weeks are filled with milestones for my family and I am not sure how I am going to stop the flow of tears from change. Erik started kindergarten, Elliot is starting preschool and my oldest baby is turning the big milestone of 5 years old!! It is just a time of change and I will have to go with it or dig my heels in and still go with it. I choose to take the high road and just cry and move on to the next major chapter.

So this day I have to admit just snuck up on me. The end of last week we were in San Diego, then yesterday we spend the day at the beach. So mentally I didn't really adjust for today even though we needed to be out of the house 40 minutes earlier than we did for preschool. Although school starts 30 minutes earlier than preschool Carl and I have made a commitment to walk our children to school. It takes an extra 15-20 minutes each day because we're about 0.5 mile away from the school. So between Elliot and I walking to school and back twice a day, we're logging in two miles. No wonder my poor Elliot took an awesome nap today.

Erik was excited and right on schedule today, it was his parents that weren't. I didn't have his backpack, snack or supplies ready to go. So between rushing to get everything out the door, getting those first day of school pictures, and getting to school on time we were constantly rushed.

Here are the documenting pictures of Erik's first day with the sign I made up. I definitely need to use a larger font next time. Live and learn...

Then I moved to the porch and cleaned it off, even though there was a car and junk the way. It is a tradition to take pictures here. Besides the cement bounces the light nicely into his eyes. So by this time Erik was mad at my pictures and just ready to go.

 

For the first day they had everyone line up on the asphalt to wait for the teacher. Normally not a big deal, but it was in the 90s at 9 am this morning so it was hot and we were all miserable waiting. Also by this time Erik was sick of me taking pictures or embarrassed and refused to look at my camera. Also he was really nervous grabbing my hand and shirt anxiously and just needing to be with us. This entire process was a bit overwhelming.

This is the only day we get to go into the classroom unless we are volunteer parents, which I plan to do every Tuesday, or any of the school nights. There are 34 kids in Erik's class so between siblings, parents and the kindergartners it was a big overwhelming. I love Erik's room though because it is basically two rooms and HUGE.

When we went to pick up Erik he didn't have anything but happy things to say. He was excited for a gift his teacher gave him and even had his first homework he couldn't wait to do. He has to write his name 5x every night. Also I will say, when we met his teacher last Friday I liked and responded well to her and hope she teaches as well as I like her. She has a hard job with all those kids and I can't wait to get in the room and help. Additionally I think they put all the kids from his preschool in the same room because I noticed about 7 faces there from Erik's preschool. I am glad Erik had so many familiar faces even if he was never in class with any of these kids.

A quick trip to San Diego

There are so many pictures I have taken, but have not felt like blogging or editing pictures lately. Carl begged me to get San Diego pictures up so I am complying... I think he meant facebook, but I don't like posting my pictures directly on Facebook.

Anyway this past week the Cubs were playing at Petco Park and Carl really wanted to check out the park and head to the kids area with the boys. I didn't bring my camera that day, but it was definitely a fun outing. We drove up to San Diego around 11 am, and went to the hotel. From there were caught a train to the stadium. Elliot was so happy about the train ride, afterwards he gave Carl a HUGE hug and said "Daddy thank you for taking me on the train." At three he is much more train obsessed than his brother and is in awe everytime he takes a train ride.

The game itself was fun. Sitting in the picnic area is a little annoying because the view is partially blocked, but the amenities more than make up for it. If you buy bleacher seats you kid can play in the sand in front of you while you watch the game, but there is no shade so on a hot day like our game day it wasn't worth it. Also we purchased obscured seats so we just sat on the grass. In the picnic area they have a playground, a baseball field the kids can play on and tons of grass to just run around on. My kids made it about 7 innings before we finally took them to the playground and then they never wanted to leave. They were having so much fun with the other kids. All around it was a very successful baseball game and we're thinking of making this an annual trip when the Cubs are in town.

The next day we were going to SeaWorld and a friend of mine who was in San Diego for a couple days with her family and some friends actually spent the day with us. Besides it always nice when your kids have playmates at a place like Seaworld....

Here are the pictures from that day. Not much to really report, but it was a fun day and the kids enjoyed themselves.

We ended the day a bit early because it was so hot at SeaWorld and the boys were cranky from not napping. Instead we headed to the pool at our friends hotel and then dinner. Afterwards we headed straight home. We had to make it a quick trip due to Erik needed to meeting his kindergarten teacher and the last expensive swim lesson of the season. We definitely felt like there was so much more we could do and will extend the trip next time. It ended way too early.

Sundog; the second half

I just have not been in the photo editing, book creating mode these days. I have so many projects just piling up, and what feels like no time to work on them. The truth is that at night I could skip reading or watching tv to work, but it takes brain power, something I don't seem to have in the evening after the kids go to bed. These days my kids need a lot of attention so blogging while they are awake is becoming less and less possible.

There isn't much to write about for our last half of being up in the woods. We didn't do much except laze around the cabin. Minus a few adventures.

If you want to just see all the pictures minus the blog click here.

There was the slip n slide. My boys aren't very interested in this contraption anymore. Whenever I put it out it last for about 5 minute tops and they are over it. At least for these 5 minutes I got some fun pictures.

We went to Michigamie for a car show. The show wasn't anything impressive or that interesting as most of the Upper Michigan events tend to be. We tried to find a park while Grandpa spent more time at the Michigamie Museum. What we found was the remains of a school playground that closed in the 1960s. We made up spooky stories about the haunted school house. Oh and the slide looks impressive, but was seriously the slowest slide I have ever been on.

 

A very popular activity for Erik was playing baseball. I was so impressed with his hitting, he really made contact well and hit it far. Definitely see little league in his future and he is developing a strong interest in sports. Elliot always gets jealous when Erik gets attention for doing something well so he participated as well. Hitting was much harder for him and he never seemed to get the stance down, but what do I really expect from a 3 year old.

 

Our one big adventure this year was to head to Munising and go on the Painted Rocks Cruise. Everyone said it was fabulous. It seems that in the Painted Rocks National Park there are a ton of waterfall and we all know I am waterfall obsessed so we hiked a bit. The fall we went to was the Munising Falls. It was an all paved hike, but a fun little jaunt on the way.

 

 

The next event was a 3 hour tour. No joke. THREE HOURS OF PAINTED ROCKS! It was seriously soooo boring and the boys were over the boat about an hour in. I was over the boat about an hour in honestly. Once you have seen one painted rock you've seen them all and we have painted rocks in the deserts near us in California so it wasn't even something new. Here are a few of the pictures I got that day.

Finally towards the very end of our visit it was warm enough to swim in the lake. One day I was letting the boys wander the woods and they went down to the sauna which is a ways away and I decided to follow and bring my camera in case they did anything interesting. Come to find them making animal noises and talking to the kids at the next cabin. So on our very last day we had a Lake Sundog playdate with a couple of the families out there. All the kids were the same ages so it was absolutely perfect. My kids needed some interaction with other kids so it worked out well for all.

 

Also on the last day something amazing happened, my kids started using floaties. We have been trying for months to get them to use floaties and Erik refused. Elliot decided to try it and found it fun and then Erik copied and they had the best time. Definitely will keep using these and make my life easier. That is if they don't learn how to swim when they have lessons this month.