And Off He Goes

I'm going to jump forward real quick because last week was back to school week in our house. Noah finally had the honor and privilege (he has been waiting all summer) to head off to Kindergarten. Monday was Open House day so for two hours, Noah and I toured the school, met his teacher, met the school bus driver, visited Trailblazers (his extended Kindergarten), met the Spanish teacher, ran around in the gym (him not me), put away our school supplies and found his cubby, and discovered that a girl from his daycare class was in his room. I was happy that he would have a friend he knew in his class.

One current trend is take a picture every year in an adult-sized graduation shirt. By the time graduation arrives, Noah will fit in the shirt.

On Tuesday I came home from work early so he could ride the bus to his very first day of school. He has afternoon Kindergarten, but on days when there is no one at the house (for now) he is signed up for an extended day as well as after-care. He was so excited and ready to go. When the bus finally came (8 minutes late) he jumped right on. When he came home 3 1/2 hours later, the first thing he said was "I had a good day" without any prompting. He also said he made lots of friends and he was so thrilled that he was the first one on the bus and the first one off (aka he was the leader).

Guess Who at the Zoo

We try to do different things on each trip, which isn't terribly hard since it is a big zoo and there is lots to do. Here the boys are playing piggy-back with a large gorilla statue.

And sitting on a lovely crocodile. At first Wyatt was sticking his hand into it's mouth without any reaction and I told him that's not the face you should be making if a crocodile was really biting your arm. So he adjusted.

Sweet, patient CeCe

It had been a while since we'd seen the dolphin show (two years perhaps). We ran into the kids' pediatrician heading to our seats and then again later that day at the buffalo wax figure machine. So that was kind of funny.

Pool Time

We inflated the pools for our annual pool party in the backyard on one very hot and sticky day in July. Charlotte did not like the icy cold pool water, but she warmed up to it after a bit.

For something different, we plopped the little toddler slide that our neighbors gave us into the bigger pool and turned it into a water slide. The boys loved this. Nick had to hold it down so it wouldn't float away.

Here's our homemade water slide:

https://youtu.be/as5hN_vGdm4

Four for the Fourth

I really wanted to make the Fourth of July a special holiday for the kids. We do usually catch a fireworks show every year, but I wanted to turn it into something really fun that they look forward to every year. So my bright idea was that we could attend a fireworks show every night and spread out our celebration over the entire weekend. This was tricky because I had to find a local firework show that we could attend each night. Friday night was the hardest, so we ultimately decided to redeem our free tickets to the Slammers Game for a Fireworks Night (not affiliated with the 4th of July). The kids were all really well behaved for the entire game. Nick caught a foul ball so Noah was really excited about that. I also thought the game was good timing since Noah was going to a Slammers Game the following week with his Summer Camp. That way he would be familiar with the ballpark and be extra excited about it since he had just been there. Charlotte fell asleep right as the firework show was starting and she not only slept through that, but the walk to the car, the ride home, and her pajama change.

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On Saturday night we went a show on the riverfront in Joliet. Of all the shows, the location of this was the most interesting, although the fireworks themselves weren't terribly spectacular. Sometimes Noah thought the fireworks were too loud, but most of the time he was fine. Charlotte was up initially, but I rocked her to sleep halfway through the show.

Sunday night we hit up Lockport's annual Fourth of July show. Nick went for a walk with Wyatt and came back with two light up swords, which created two very happy little boys. At the end of the weekend, we determined that this show was the best of the four. (Lockport supposedly allocated more money towards fireworks this year, so maybe that was why they won the top spot). Charlotte sat calmly and watched the entire fireworks show.

Our fourth and final show was our hometown fireworks on the night of the 4th. They were 'almost' as good as the previous night. This time we brought a light-up snowflake along for CeCe so that each kid had their own (snowflake was Noah's from the Zoo Holiday lights last year). We also met up with some friends so that made our final night a ton of fun. A bonus from all the late nights was that the kids slept in an extra hour every morning!