history lesson.

"hey buddy, how was school?"

"good. we learned all about new zealand and the war and how they wanted to tax us and thomas jefferson said 'that's not fair' and then we won."

saturday, he told me that "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"...

second graders rule.

stirring the pot.

in the great quest for hayden's NFL team loyalty, it seems that his father has pulled ahead.
sorry, mary... i couldn't resist.

(brian & missy... if you're looking for a good (vikings fan) home for ethan, i may be able to help)

these are a few of my favorite things...

birdie pillows, old mankie, new mankie, bird blankie, little people house, fairy princess costume, dora swimboard, tinkerbell, baby kitchen, hello kitty purse, baby bear book, miss spider book, lowly worm book, nemo book, green care bear, best friend shirt & pink halloween pumpkin... just to name a few. she loves to build herself a "new roon" (aka room)... and then make up really strict rules about who can pass through it. and how.
sorry, jane.





court was thrilled with the return of miss leslie's storytime yesterday. she wore her favorite shirt and picked out her new favorite book all by herself. carried it around all. day. long. i think we've read it at least 16 times already.

"acorns are falling on our heads..."

(sung to the tune of "raindrops are falling on our heads...")

our fall camping finale at blue mound state park... so sad to see summer go, and so happy to see the first signs of autumn at the same time. perfect weather with a zero percent chance of rain... my kind of camping! apparently, we've never camped under a grove of oak trees in the fall before, as we were constantly surprised by the acorns that kerplunked us (& the pop up) at random (& frequent) times throughout the day (& night). hilarious and noisy and painful all at the same time.

i taught court the fine art of pizza pudgie pie making while hayden recovered from a big fall off his bike. road rash and bloody knees and bloody elbows and ripped tshirt and scraped helmet and really fast heart rates... his and ours. the best part of the whole trip was when he decided it was time to get back on his bike and ride again. he showed us a (very determined & brave) side of himself that we had not ever had the chance to see before. within minutes, he wanted andy to get the stopwatch out so he could race himself. two hours later, he fell into a culvert. backwards. landed on his tailbone while trying to get a football.

i wondered if a campfire was a good idea.

(add to to-do list: restock first aide kit)

i love summer. i love summer. i love summer.
i love summer. i love summer. i love summer.
i love summer.

thirtyfive.

we're just one year apart. for now. (as he will likely mention at least once today)...
i'm lucky enough to have had this pointed out to me for the past nineteen (NINETEEN!) september 16th's.
(you can count them again, but i've counted and recounted just to be sure)

happy, happy birthday to my andy. xoxo, t

baby butterfly

court was lucky enough to bring a chrysalis home from preschool on friday...
as expected, a beautiful monarch butterfly was born (or hatched?) saturday morning and fluttered away around lunchtime.
she felt so happy & proud, which made me feel happy & proud, too.

tell me about it.

now that i've successfully gotten them both down for a nap, i have a few minutes to post these before i head off to work...

we went home last week to meet (& photograph) sweet anna, visiting all the way from alaska...




court mysteriously developed a blue nose during lunch. this picture makes me laugh.

(nothing to say.)

lovely evening playing outside with happy, ticklish kids who didn't mind a little bribery.

nap, please.

being three can be really hard.
especially when you need a nap.
curled up (sleeping) on the bottom step after one colossal meltdown.

one perfect saturday night with just my twirly girl.

dinner. mall. the sound of music. popcorn. new sparkle pink polka dot fairy princess costume. happy.

i spy.

she dressed herself today. and put her backpack in the car. and argued with hayden about who should get dropped off at school first. (which he found confusing... "it's the school's decision anyway, court!")

she announced (loudly) as we were driving there "I"M GOING TO SCHOOL!"

and she did. she barely said goodbye and i didn't even cry. (seriously)

she's got a lot of important things to do today... like figuring out if the butterflies have come out of their chrysalis(es?) yet, and how to hold a scissors and where not to put glue. oh yeah, and meet all of her school friends.

(gulp.)

it doesn't really matter how ready you are to send your baby to school or how ready your baby is to go to school. it's still makes you remember their entire life as if it were being played back in fast forward. i was totally fine until they started saying things like "plan your goodbye on the first day" and "we'll love them for you while they're here"... (gulp.) i know. it's just preschool. but why do they have to grow up so fast? she's going to love, love preschool. and i'll get used to sending her there. probably by next week.

so long, summer. (sigh)

we will miss you and your beautiful light,
and
your warmth
and
our days at the pool
and
our evenings outside
and
pretty much everything about you.
please come back soon.

butterflies.

i can remember feeling butterflies in my stomach the night before really important days... the last day of school, the first day of school, holidays, birthdays. our usually calm, cool and confident hayden had a pretty good case of butterflies last night as he wondered what second grade would be like. i think they were gone by time he lined up with archer and will be forgotten by the end of his first day...