Halloween Ready

You mean you all don't have your Halloween costumes picked and frequently tried on in August and September? Huh. Strange. 

Camping Date

Ali and Logan's summer Daddy Date was combined because they both really wanted to go camping with him. They all three looked forward to it for weeks and had a very successful outing.

The first thing they did when they got there was to head to the lake and rent a canoe. Apparently the kids had a great time calling out, "Ahoy, Mateys!" and the like to passing boaters. They are already asking when they can go canoeing again.

Dinner was roasted hot dogs, followed of course by s'mores. They also went on a nighttime scavenger hunt (a walk with flashlights), and made up ghost stories by the fire. It sounds like they had a blast.

Downtown

One of the last things we did before school started was to go downtown and see Jason's new(ish) office. The courtyard of his building has this cool waterfall and trees and benches, so that is where we ate lunch.

Every Wednesday in the summer Millennium Park has a family tent set up with different, fun things for kids. On this day they had a bunch of teenagers who are in a circus showing us how to do some circus stunts. We walked on a tight-rope, rocked back and forth on this big circle thing, and spun plates on sticks. Pretty cool stuff!

Then we walked over to the Bean statue, Buckingham Fountain, and the lake. When we were near the fountain Ali looked behind us and said, "Look! There is Daddy's building!" Sure enough, the tallest one there is his.

It was a lot of walking, but overall the kids did great. Eli even got a little "help" occasionally from Ali. I was proud of myself because this is the first time I've done a totally solo trip downtown--no one helped me map out my route or where to park, no one was there to show me where to go, or even to just be another adult in the group. And we were fine! I was pleased and it was a good day.

It's a Big Sister Thing

It was bound to happen. Eli loves his sister and they play so nicely together, and Eli loves to dress up. They were in Ali's room with her door closed and then came out triumphant to show us Eli's beautiful dress; it is hard to say who was more pleased with the outfit. Eli used to dress himself in the Princess dress-ups all the time, but hasn't in at least a year, and somehow this tickled my funny-bone more than those dresses ever did. It got even better over the next few minutes; Ali chose a dress for herself, then they put on music and danced together. I was taking pictures and videos and laughing. It was great! Sorry future teenage Eli but honestly you were loving it.

Sleep Over

I'm not sure if the kids know it yet, but out family isn't going to be doing friend sleepovers. We love sibling sleepovers, though, and when they asked if their cousins could spend the night, we decided that would be totally fine too. So one night the last week before school Emily and Paige slept over.

We loved that Eli and Paige had matching Mickey/Minnie PJs.The spent the evening reading books:

Playing Dolls, and watching a movie:

Then around 9:30 (WAY late for our kids!) they all climbed onto the air mattresses in the basement:

Everyone actually slept pretty well and we also got to enjoy having the girls with us all the next day too. Such fun!

12 Years

On August 10 Jason and I celebrated our 12 year anniversary. What a blessing this man and our marriage are to me and my life. 

First Grade

Neither Logan nor Ali were excited about school starting because "school is just a lot of hard work" (Logan) and "I just don't want to" (Ali, who I think was actually nervous), but then we went to preview night and they saw their desks which -gasp- OPEN! And that was it. They were totally sold on first grade and super ready to go!

Here they are on the first day, ready to go. So far, first grade is a hit. They come home happy and look forward to going each morning. And the best part, right now anyway, for me, is that since they get a break from each other they can actually play kindly together again! That hasn't happened for weeks! Ah, school, welcome back. We missed you.