Hello Summer

So here we are.  The end of the school year.
I feel a lot excited.  And a little nervous.
I love the freedom of summer - to go where we please, when we please. 
To spend long days outside....or in the air conditioning if it's 100 degrees. 
To visit the beach. 
To swim in the pool. 
To go on adventures.
But it also means that almost every single time I go to the grocery store (or Target or ANY kind of errand), I bring 3 children along with me.
Have you ever grocery shopped with 3 kids?  (I know, many of you have....)
But in case you're wondering it involves 3 kids talking at once (each louder than the other) and asking "can we buy Lucky Charms/sour patch kids/popsicles/etc?" and running in aisles and hiding behind displays and wanting to help bag groceries and generally making my head spin. :)
I also have 3 kids of different age groups and maturity levels.  Different genders.  Which means one kid is begging to go to the mall (guess who?) and one kid is hating the mall (guess who?), and one just needs to get home for a nap (and again, guess who?)! 
However, we all enjoy the pool, and friends, and Dunkin Donuts, so I think it'll all work out in the end. :)
And luckily, I love them all to death, so even their frustrating points are bearable for me.

So, this past week involved lots of transitions. 
First off, Carter finished kindergarten!  They had a program and sang some songs for us parents.

Then the teachers handed out "diplomas".  This was after 30 + minutes of standing up and singing and the room was very hot and so Carter looks absolutely less than thrilled to be marking this milestone. :)

A few days later was the actual last day of school.  In the morning we took Audrey to the bus stop one last time as a 3rd grader.

The "bus stop girlz"
(This is probably how they would spell it since they are all so "cool" and all.)

Carter's went to school a couple hours later.  He posed nicely for this one picture with his friend Rebecca and then completely refused to even look at the camera.  In fact, he was running away from me.  I guess he is not into the Mom paparazzi.

Here is his back side view with his friend Melwyn.  It's the best I could do. :(

See?  I even tried to trick him into a picture with me but he moved at the last second.  Grrr.

Carter coming off the bus.  He is now a 1st grader.  Hard to believe!

Audrey coming off the bus.  She is now a 4th grader!  Equally hard to believe.

Every year we have a big picnic/play time with our neighbors on the last day of school.  

One mom set up a volleyball net.  Why do they all look like junior highers all of a sudden??

Another mom set up the water slide!  Always a big hit. This was Chloe's first time to try it!

 

 

The kids also decided to make a towel fort in the swingset.

At one point, I was talking and turned around and saw Chloe swinging all by herself.  I guess someone gave her a push, and she kept pumping.  Yay!  Now I don't have to stand there and push her the whole time!

 

Of course popsicles made an appearance.

So, after this last day of school, the temperatures have been in the high 70's and today it is raining cats & dogs.  Good thing we have this list to keep us occupied!

 

So far today it has been so yucky out that all we've managed to do is visit Target, play computer games, watch a movie, and play legos.....ugh.  Sure hope it gets nicer out soon!

Carter's writing

Now that the school year is winding down, the kids are coming home with some of their school materials.
This week Carter brought home his writing journal.
Some of the entries were ho-hum ("I am Carter.") and some were repetitive ("I have a cat. She is cute.  I love my cat.")

However, some were super sweet, like this entry:

This one revealed an area that perhaps we should work on?

MLK wants peace and harmony, and Carter wants....to be rich?  Not that money is bad, but....there are plenty of things I would like him to strive for more!

I thought this one was funny:

Mrs. Evan will be glad to know that not only is she nice, but she is also "thin". :)

I actually think his teacher would like this one even more:

I am so glad he thinks his teacher is the best teacher in the whole world.  Even if he has only had 3 teachers in his lifetime.... He truly did have a wonderful teacher this year.  She is fun and loving and understands boys.  She even came to one of Carter's baseball games!  We are glad he has had a good year and a good teacher.

Tomorrow he and his classmates make a trip to the elementary school to see what the next year holds for them.  I so cannot believe that my little boy will be in elementary school already!

First Day for Chloe

This morning Chloe FINALLY got to go to her first day of preschool.  She was really excited!

 She hopped right up on the step, grabbed her sign, and started smiling. 

She knew just what to do!

I could tell she was so proud of herself.

 This was taken right outside her preschool.

She went in with no problems and didn't even look back.

 She came  home with a cute little report about her first day.

But apparently her teacher forgot how to spell "Chloe"...  :)

 We decided to go out to Petrucci's to celebrate her first day.

On the way there, Audrey & Carter sang "Happy 1st Day to You" (to the tune of Happy Birthday).

Chloe was beaming.

"Best Day Ever!!!!!!" 

I think she will be happy to go back Friday.

And hopefully, she won't be crying when she realizes that tomorrow is NOT Friday....

First day in photos

Today Audrey started 3rd grade and Carter started kindergarten.

So proud of both of them!

 Whole neighborhood gang set for the morning departure....

 I love her expression in this one!

 Round 2 - afternoon kindergarten departure

 Look at all those blue eyes!

 Off to the bus stop

 So excited to go and proud of himself for being old enough to ride the bus!

 Can he smile any harder?

 See ya Mom & Dad!

Back home again.

A little older than when he left

And a lot more tired! :)

Everyone came off the bus with smiles.  It was a great first day!

The obligatory first day of school post :)

Ready....

Set ...

 

 GO!!

 

Parades, Parties, Pizza & Pumpkins, oh my!

Friday was a busy day for us (and probably most families in America) ... the kids had their Halloween parades and parties. Can I say this? Sometimes people ask if we "celebrate" Halloween. I always feel uncomfortable with the term "celebrate" ... I know Halloween has its origins in satanic worship and such, so I wouldn't say we "celebrate" it. And we certainly want to have nothing to do with satan. But we do have fun dressing in costumes and collecting candy from our neighbors and carving jack-o-lanterns, and I think that that is all in good, harmless fun. We don't made a huge deal out of it aside from that.

The morning started with convincing Carter that wearing his costume was a good idea. :) But ultimately he put on his Spiderman costume (minus the mask that scared him) with no problems and had a fun morning at preschool, parading and partying throughout the morning.

This is how Carter looked for most of the parade....

What is going on here? And why are all these people looking at us and taking pictures?

I did get this good shot of him.
I love that he is parading between 2 girls. When I ask him who he played with at preschool, most of the time, he lists a few girls' names. Can you tell the kid has grown up with sisters and a neighborhood full of girls? The good news is he will be one darn good husband someday!

Home for lunch, and then off to Schuylkill Elementary!

Audrey, my little leopard.
The school has a theme and this year it was "Reading around the world" - the 1st graders were assigned to choose something from Asia, Australia, New Zealand or Antarctica.
Obviously this included the animals ...

Audrey's class

Audrey and classmates enjoying cupcakes at their party.
I didn't want to put too many party pictures up ... some people don't like pictures of their kids on the internet.

I made homemade pizza for dinner and then we carved pumpkins.
Well, Chad and I carved, the kids scooped out the guts.
And Chloe went to bed for most of this activity.

Carter designed his own face for the jack-o-lantern.
I was pretty impressed!

Happy with the results!

Happy Trick-or-Treating!
from the Audrey, Carter & Chloe Pumpkin family :)