Back to School!

Our back-to-school season lasted for about a month...Lucy started second-grade on August 8th, Eli started Kindergarten (!) on August 18th, and Samuel started his preschool on September 2nd.  The beginning of school is always so busy...lots of new friends, learning about homework, and tons of paperwork for this mama!  Lucy and Eli's elementary school had Spirit Week where their clothes had a different theme each day, like "Mustache Monday" and "Favorite Team Tuesday".

Eli has had a great start to Kindergarten and we are so proud of him!  He has Lucy's teacher, which is what he wanted.  We enjoyed the Mother-Son kickball game in early September.  He is very into writing - we find lots of stories and notes around the house!  He is enjoying reading and it makes my heart happy to seem him stroll into school each morning with Lucy!  

Our November was full with two programs - the second-grade Veteran's Day program where Lucy sang a duet, and the kindergarten Thanksgiving program where Eli was a Minister.  It was so fun to hear him sing those songs that Lucy sang two years ago - the kindergarten Thanksgiving program is a fun tradition at their school!

Samuel keep us laughing...the first day that I dropped off both Lucy and Eli at school Samuel said "why are we leaving our kids?"  And, he sometimes stays an extra hour at school - it is called Extended - he misunderstood what I was saying and kept asking "who is Miss Tended"...he knows all of his teachers names, Mrs. Jessica is his teacher, Mrs. Liz is the helper, Mrs. Chris-Anne teaches music...so he wanted to know who Miss Tended is?  He is continuing to do Speech Therapy twice a week and we are so proud of his hard work!  He is in class again with his friend, Luke...they have been together for the past three years and we hear a lot about Luke at home. 

We're keeping just busy enough with after-school activities.  Lucy and Eli continue to do choir on Wednesday nights and they take piano and percussion on Mondays.  Lucy dances on Thursday nights and will add basketball soon - she is excited that Chris is her coach!  She and I do Girl Scouts together and have a lot of fun!  Eli continues to love "all the sports" and barely gets entirely off the bus each afternoon before he tells me what he wants to play that day!  Samuel LOVED the gymnastics class he took over the summer, so I think I'll find a class for him in early 2015.  He recently taught himself to do a front flip on our trampoline - landing on his feet - no one else in our family can manage that! 

Right before the back-to-school season started we got a dog - an Australian Shepherd named Disco!  When she isn't chewing the shoes on our feet or eating our pillows/throws/coffee table, she is a lot of fun!  I have wanted a "big dog" for a while and I know Chris really loves me because he agreed to her.  She'll be about 45-pounds when she's full grown - her birthday is May 14th.  I greatly underestimated how much work she would be...as Chris likes to say, "who's training who?"  She is very protective of Lucy, Eli and Samuel and they adore her kisses!  It is fun to see her grow in these pictures from the past few months! 

Our Lu turned 8!

Lucy turned 8 on August 13th and our girl was well-celebrated!  On her actual birthday, I took strawberry cupcakes to school to share with her new classmates and we had dinner with Kay, Fred and Kelly!  The weekend after, she had a party at a sewing school with her friends - it was all so much fun!

Lucy loves to try to new things and keep us smiling with her observations on life.  She will laugh out loud at funny commercials on TV and continues to love riding her bicycle!  Lu got her glasses in June and seems to love her new accessory!

Lucy is a great leader and we are thankful for what a wonderful Big Sister she is to Eli and Samuel.  She loves to teach them...she helps Eli sound out words, she works on Samuel's speech, and she is eager to train our new puppy, Disco!  She recently wrote that she wanted to be a third-grade teacher when she grows up because she wants to teach multiplication.  She has a big imagination and is always inventing games to play with Eli and Samuel - right now, our upstairs hallway is covered in post-it notes that have descriptions of items you can buy in their "store."  We love our Lu!  

Sea Island

The season doesn't officially change until next week, but we there are plenty of fall-ish decorations up, our mornings are chilly around here, and Target has stocked their Halloween candy!  Lucy started back-to-school on August 8th, Eli on August 18th, and Samuel started right after Labor Day...we are figuring out our new "routine"!

I'm going into fall feeling like our summer was well done - there were so many good times - we relaxed and had great family memories and moments with good friends.  Around here, the information about camps, VBS, etc. comes out in February, so there you are, sipping your hot chocolate and planning your summer...it was good to see all the planning come together.

We changed up our routine this year and went to Sea Island in July.  We were there for two weeks, then Amy, Avery and Owen came home with us for another week of cousin-fun...it was great!  There are very few pictures of the week at our house because we also got a puppy...and if you think it's a lot to manage food/activities/sleep for five kiddos, throwing a puppy into the mix will really test your sanity!

We first came to Sea Island on a whim seven years ago - we had gone to another beach for a couple of years, but the house we wanted to rent wasn't available the week we wanted in 2007.  I had several friends who grew up going to Sea Island and it seemed to meet our needs - beach, golf, spa, yummy food, easy to get to - sign us up! 

Below is a picture of Lu from our first Sea Island trip in 2007, then lots of pictures of our fun this year!  New things from this year include: visits from Amy and Matt's dear friends from Charlotte, a catamaran ride to a beach with lots of crabs, some tennis, Lu's first riding lesson, and a meet-and-greet with a new children's book author...many thanks to Mom and Dad for another great trip!