Our big kindergartener!

My how time flies, Savannah is in Kindergarten!!!   She said she was a little nervous until we went to see her classroom and meet her teacher. But, then she was just excited, so she said....  we have been getting ready with a new backpack, a lunch box, etc. Mommy and Gage walked her into her class on the first day but were not supposed to stay long.  Mrs. Floyd gave her a big hug and got her settled putting her things away and getting into their routine.  Although she looked brave heading into school, when I was about to leave and gave her a kiss, there was definitely a little fear in her eyes. But, she had a good first day...and first week. She had 3 kids in her class that she already knew from swimming or preschool and that made her feel good. Mommy is making her healthly cute little lunches that she seems to love -- meatball and cheese on popsicle sticks, grape tomatoes and olives on popsicle sticks, melon cut into flower and cloud shapes. And..maybe a little stash of skittles for a treat...or some mint oreo cookies that she loves. The house has been hectic getting everyone ready. We need papers signed every day for teacher, lunches made, snacks made, backpacks packed up, and everyone is out the door by 7:15 these days. Phew...good thing that she WANTED an alarm clock -- that seems to have made wake up easier for our girl who was getting used to sleeping in until 8 or 9 in the summer!  She even started having homework, and can you believe this...she is BEGGING for more homework. I keep having to go print out more worksheets to do, and she's doing FAR more than she is assigned. Smarty pants :-)

two little monkeys jumping on the bed...

.....one smashes his face into the footboard...and this is what you get....a bloody nose. Poor boy, it must have really hurt, all he wanted was snuggles and a cold cloth, and then he got upset that he "wasn't a big boy anymore", and Mommy had to explain that even big boys cry when they get booboos.

The BOX...the best part

Sorry that we have been lazy in our blog upkeep lately.  It took us a while to get back into a routine.   We accumulated WAY too much stuff at Grammy's house this summer, so cousin June was nice enough to box it all up for us and ship it to us.  Hmm...turns out that we didn't have her box up enough because we were 10 lbs over the weight limit at the airport, so we unloaded another bag of stuff for Grammy to ship to us so we didn't have to pay the $75 fee!  The stuff in the box was fun, but the most fun was playing in the box (naked , or course) and hiding super heroes in the peanuts. Good times...

Sneaking one last beach trip in....

In AL we are 4-5 hours from the beach, but in CT we are 1 hour from the beach. That seemed like a perfect reason to head to the beach yet again for one last trip! This time it was Hammonassett State Park in Madison, and I will say -- it is my favorite beach in CT so far.  It is the place we always went to as kids. We head way to the end at Meig's Point, where the shady pavilion, bathrooms, and snackbar are all within easy reach, and the beach is wide, sandy, and clean. Although the kids were sad there were NO waves that day, Mommy was happy because it makes me less likely to lose a kid ;-)  We dug a giant hole, gobbled up a few popsicles, threw rocks in the water, chased seagulls, found some shells, and played in the mountain of shells that wash up right by the rock jetty.  Okay, all mommy did was dig a hole and eat a popsicle ;-)

Sunflower maze at Lyman Orchard

Driving along, we saw a sign for a sunflower maze and swerved in to check it out. That place - Lynman Orchards -- they have it all figured out. A sunflower maze in the summer, corn maze in fall. Pick your own berries, apples peaches pumpkins. A huge farm market. A golf center, and they turned the old homestead into a conference center. I imagine they are bringing in more money than they ever would by farming alone. The maze was hot (although sitting here in ALI laugh at myself -- it was not hot by AL standards, but by CT standards, it was a hot day) and Gage got cranky because he doesn't like to be hot. Savannah was in charge of the map but the map was useless. The map showed all the twists and turns, but unless you traced your route with a pen, you could not tell where you were once inside - they had no markers. But...we made it out alive, and just a little sweaty & cranky.  It was really beautiful -- a big field of flowers nested up amid the orchards on top of the hill. Gorgeous :-)

CT Science Center , where things got a little hairy ;-)

It took us until the last week to finally get together with my friend Carmela & her daughter! There were throngs of kids there -- camps. Ugh. Not as leisurely a trip as our last time there. But, fun anyway.  THe kids loved playing with the static ball, but Gage...well, his short hair made for a dull - and hardly picture-worthy -- experience.

The Hollow Park with our cousins

We headed over to Longmeadow Pond with Matthew & Ryan one day, but they got bored with the playground there quickly and wanted to head to the Hollow with its giant playsets. I guess that is a sign of things to come for me -- mine are still happy with a few swings & slides!! So, we set off down the road to the Hollow, where we did some swinging and sliding and basketball AND Jennie showed us that if we walk down a path we can get to the river where she takes the boys fishing. So, the kids happily threw sticks in the water to make "boats", and -- of course -- we threw rocks into the water. Gage was a little tuckered out on the way back and talked mommy into a piggy back ride.

Grave rubbings

In school, we would sometimes go "grave rubbing" for a field trip and rub crayons over paper laid over graves to get an impression of the text.  I seem to think this is "normal" (so does my grandmother, who happily supplied us with a big roll of paper to use and later called to see how our rubbings came out.  Others seem to think this is very creepy (Adam and Jennie, to name two).  Creepy of not, we went out behind Gram Rooney's church and found some old graves (1700s /1800s).  After we finished up, we played "monster hide & seek" -- Savannah would hide and pop out making monster faces (see below), while Gage would pop out and shoot spiderwebs at me (typical for him). So...creepy, or no, we had fun :-)