First Day of School for TWO!

Tuesday, September 4th

Elissa is going into THIRD Grade!

  

Zachary is starting full time Kindergarten!

I can't believe the time has come for both my kids to go to school. It is a bit surreal that I have been home with them for 8 years and now they will be at school all day.

  

Here is Elissa & Zach when Elissa started Kindergarten (9/09).

    

Oh my sweet girl. I started potty training Zach that day that Elissa started school. Zach was 2 1/2 years old. It seemed like such a long time when Zach would be going to school too.

But today he left me and went off to school. :' ) It's a sad day and exciting day all wrapped together.

      

Elissa told Zachary that it was cooler to have your backpack slinger over one shoulder. Zach left his backpack the way it was.

She is such a diva!

Ahhhh! He is really getting on the bus!

This is when I broke down. That face! He was SO excited to be on the bus. You can just see how proud and happy he is. Love him!

Then I got in the car and drove over to the school to meet him as he got off the bus. :-)

Here are the 3 amigos! Zach, Brady and Christian

    

Brady left his backpack on the bus, so I waited for him to go get it. Zach went ahead of us. I got Christian to his class - he has Mrs. Mason - and then Brady & I met up with Zach at their class - Mrs. Vicky Taylor. Zach was confident and walked right to his classroom. So proud of him!

    

They have the same taste. :-)

There were no sad good-byes. He just walked off without looking back and found his seat. I'm thankful for his independence, but love the times he needs his Momma.

I enjoyed the rest of my day and got to come pick him up from school.

Here are Zach & Brady with their teacher.

He said he had a fun day. His favorite thing? Recess. 3 recesses. So typical. LOL!

Elissa liked her first day of school too. She said her teacher was really nice. Not stern at all. :-)

Seattle Week

August 20-24th

Elissa & Darin had such a fun adventure this week.

I signed Elissa up for a day camp at the Seattle Aquarium called "Aquatic Artist".  Elissa loves animals and she loves creating art, so I thought this would be a cool camp for her. And what made it doable, was that Darin works in Seattle.

 

So Monday morning (and every other morning that week), Elissa got up at 5:30am with Darin and they headed to the Auburn Sounder train station. They would ride the train into Seattle and then find a Starbucks to get some breakfast. Darin would drop Elissa off at 8am for the day. He would then pick her up at 4pm. Of course they would head again to Starbucks for an afternoon treat before getting on the train. :-)

Here are a few of the Instagrams my awesome husband took during the week:

    

    

   

   

     

I'll be making this an Instagram book. He did so good in taking pics. :-)

While Darin & Elissa were going to Seattle, Zach & I were having fun too.

I signed Zachary up for gymnastics day camp at Roach Gymnastics. Both he and Elissa had gone to it last year and had fun. And then they had done gymnastics for the last 2 months of the school year. Zach really enjoys it. So I would drop him off at 9am and pick him up at 3pm. The first day I picked him up I couldn't get him to come off the mats. He & I would also get a treat after I picked him up.

Yes, that means that I kind of got a sample of what school was going to be like with two kids gone during the day. :-)

Here are a few of our Instagrams:

    

     

    

On Friday, Zach had a wart removed off his leg in the morning. Then we headed to Seattle to meet Darin & Elissa at the aquarium. When we picked up Elissa, she got to show us around the aquarium and tell us all the she experienced and learned during her week. It was really a special experience.

Here are some pictures of the afternoon:

Our favorite place. :-)

It was a great wrap up to a very fun week.

I just have to finish with this text I got from Darin mid-week.

It made me tear up a little.

It is a reminder how we need individual time with our kids to see them in a different light. Our Summer was packed with lots of family time, which also brings lots of sibling fighting and frustrated parents. It was nice that Darin got to spend time with Elissa without Zach around and he got to see another side of her. Priceless.

Sounders Game

Saturday, August 18th

The Maxfield's invited us to go to the Sounders game. What a fun adventure it turned out to be! Darin suggested that we ride the Sounder train to/from the game. The kids were so excited to do this.

 

We were all decked out.

A walk to Occidental Park

Spirit hair!!

Too cool for words. :-)

A beautiful view.

GOAL! Sounders win!

Thanks Maxfield's!