Girlies

Just a cute pic from today of the girls playing their games :-)

Happy Fall

It was so nice this year for the Pumpkin Parade!  The kids were a little hot in their outfits! 

 A few days later they had fall shirts on again, so I had them pose again.  It was cooler, but still nice.  While we were in Disney World this past week, we got SNOW already!  I sure hope we don't have snow from now until March!  That will make for a long winter!  I'd like fall weather to stick around for awhile yet!

Recent Garper Pic

I thought Greta and Harper were cute today in their animal print pants.  Greta is often in her jammies still when Harper comes, so she likes to try to coordinate her outfits with Harper's :-).

Kids

I thought it was cute the other day how he fell asleep.   A lot of times, he either tucks himself in his bed or falls asleep watching a movie.  This is him just crashing.  And I love that his little Kung Fu Panda is near him too--he LOVES him.

 I am not a fan of what comes after fall, but I do enjoy fall weather (when it actually feels like fall).  I'm getting a bit tired of our summer wardrobes, so I've enjoyed the recent cooler weather.  I often buy a lot of the kids' clothes on clearance at the end of each season, so it's fun to get their next season's clothes out since I normally don't remember what they have.   We went to a cousin's daughter's casual country wedding Saturday night and Layla thought the girls needed a picture together in their coordinating outfits. :-) 

And so to not leave Gibs out...

 As I was uploading these pics, I noticed this one of our family from Joe's work picnic.  It was a really HOT day in July so we are all a bit red and glistening, but overall, not too terrible for a quick family photo.  And it even looks like we kind of tried to coordinate:-).

 

Gibs' First Day of School

Gibs had his first day of Threeschool today!  I can't believe I have two kids in school already (well, sort of--he only goes one morning a week).  Today the parents came along so next week will be the true test of how he does on his own.  I think he will really love it. It's two hours of playing with other kids and different toys--what's not to like? :-)  And the kids in his class all seem so sweet.  I'm sure he'll have a great year with them.

Hi teacher, Mrs. Walters, seems very nice...

His teacher's assistant painted his hands to put on a paper that he'll get back when he graduates from 8th grade (I don't know if they put it into a book or something--I can't remember what his teacher said).  I don't like thinking about him being in 8th grade--that seems way too old!

 Proud mama...

Tumbling Time

Gibs started a class yesterday with his friend, Maddy, at Zeeland Rec called Motor Movement.  It's a class allows toddlers to run around, tumble and burn some energy off.  He seemed to like it.  He loves doing somersaults at home which I think he gets partly from copying Layla and partly because he incorporates into his Kung Fu he tries to do.  He's been obsessed with Kung Fu Panda lately and loves to act like Po:-).  Him and Maddy will have this class on Monday mornings until mid November.  We made a quick stop at the bakery after class, so I'm assuming that may become part of our Monday routine as well:-).  Maddy and Lincoln came over for a play date afterward and we said how weird it is now with Jonathan and Layla in school :-(.

Bus Rider

Layla started riding the bus to school last week!  The first day, she got on happily.  The next few days were not as good, however.  She cried each time when getting on which was so heartbreaking for me to see her ride away on the bus crying!  She told me though, that she settled down after a couple of minutes, so hopefully that's true:-).  Her bus driver has been so sweet to her and even cleared out the front seat for her when she was crying :-).  Each night before bed, she'd complain too that she didn't like riding the bus.  She started to love school last week, just didn't like the bus.  But now today, she got on fine and says it was fine.   So she apparently just takes a little time to adjust to new things.  She is loving school and has learned to count to 10 in Mandarin, sing the clean up song and has learned some colors and words like "hi", "bye" and other things.  Maybe she has learned more than that, but that is all we've really heard from her so far.  We are very glad to be doing the immersion program as we can already see how easy it is for a 5 year old to pick up another language.  I can't even repeat back to her things she says to me:-).

 

First day riding the bus...

 Even daddy went to the bus stop the first day...

 All smiles the first day...