First day of Kindergarten!

Tuesday August 19th was Evan's first day of "big kid school". He's in full day with Mrs. Hardy (who seems nice as can be and very experienced!). He was excited, anxious, and ready to GO already.

Before leaving for the bus

Both kiddos

Getting off the bus

Yay, he holds the hand rail!

Enough with the pictures Mommy, I want to go IN!

Sign outside his classroom. Mrs. Hardy is a huge Cardinals fan.

Welcome sign

Self-portrait on the first day.

Artwork. Caption reads "This is me laying on my pink nap mat". He clearly likes the mat!

Look, he even drew the stripes on his shirt AND that he had blue shorts on!

He headed in to class, put away his backpack, and trotted off after a quick hug with no looks back. The only one who cried was Adrienne, who was inconsolable once Evan got on the bus. She was the same way today, clearly missing him.

Stormy midwest sky

The other day it went from being beautifully sunny to clearly stormy in a short period of time. I took the dog outside, saw the sky, and ran back in for my camera. These clouds were so cool!

Evan plays T ball

We recently signed Evan up for T-ball with the Y, and it is barely controlled chaos. First week was canceled due to rain. He's had it now for 2 weeks in the BLAZING sun. I think he may learn something if he concedes that the coaches really do have valuable things to teach him.

Anyway, here are some cute photos.

Out in the field, no clue what to do with the glove.

Huh?

Some of the madness

Brave Donna for being so close to kids with BATS

Yeah yeah coach, I know what I'm doing already!

He got a hit and got on base!

Team Chaos!

Girl wanting in on the action. She's actually got a pretty good arm!

Hot sweaty boy playing with his foam glider airplane after practice.

Totally Random

We're getting ready for Kindergarten to start (three weeks) so there's no real theme to photos, just a few to share.

Doesn't this just scream ennui?


Mind you, this is at church.


Climber at the playground of his new school.


Potato head love


The new park we found with a water play area. I really love the water in this shot!

Trip to Chicago

In our hunt for a semi-affordable summer vacation that was close enough to get to by car without us all going nuts, we settled on Chicago and off we went. The car ride was a bit rough, with Evan asking repeatedly if we were there yet before we'd even left St. Louis! Adrienne was hard to occupy, but thankfully they did both sleep some of the time. Even Evan, who "never sleeps", was caught in a photo doing just that!

We stayed in a condo in Chicago that is in an awesome location, had a full kitchen and two bedrooms & baths. One wall was all windows, which was fabulous for grownups, but not so good for the little people who were awakened (as were we soon after) at DAWN because so much light came through. Combine that with the kids having a hard time sharing a room, Adrienne having a hard time keeping still in her air mattress bed, and so much excitement that they didn't usually fall asleep until after 10, and you have some very sleep deprived people!

Check out this VIEW! We were on the 45th floor of a 46 story building.


We visited the Shedd Aquarium, the Adler Planetarium (Evan is very into space right now), the Lincoln Park Zoo, Navy Pier, and rode a double decker tour bus.

Donna prepares to escape the madness into outer space!

Adrienne and Mom wearing 3D glasses for the movie at the Planetarium.

Evan enjoys the glasses most of all.

The Planetarium has 'circus' type mirrors (never did get to read WHY) and the kids enjoyed looking at their distorted images.




Each morning I took a photo of the kids before we set out on our adventure just in case they should get lost (heaven forbid) I would be able to show what they were wearing that day. Plus it was a good time to get a few photos of them being semi-cooperative, which was not going to happen through much of the day when I tried to photograph them.



For some reason riding the bus brought out the cuteness in them in ways that made it easier to live with the pre-dawn wakeups. Here they are in two separate occasions cuddling spontaneously on the bus.








The biggest hit, however, was the last day when we hit the 'beach' for some time there before heading out of town. The kids LOVED it. The water was so much clearer than I would have expected, but it was just as cold as I thought it would be. Despite that, we all hung out in the water the whole time and spent a good 3 hours there before heading out of town. Next visit we'll be spending more time at the beach!




Yes, that is SAND she is throwing.

Donna's very busy weekend!

We need a new deck, but the estimate to replace it was way out of our league. My handy dandy Donna, however, took on the much needed improvements and charged to the rescue. Here is the section of deck that she ripped out (sorry I didn't get a full 'before' photo). Notice if you can see the rotting!



Several hours (much sweat and pain) later...new deck planks!


That wasn't enough, she put together our gazebo and bolted it down.

And put together the new porch swing we got at the end of last season...


And it was much enjoyed by all!