To school and beyond

Abbie got a letter from her teacher in the mail with this doll to color and cut out and bring to the school open house.  She was more than excited.  She even reread the letter to me after I read it to her.  When she got to the end she said, “Man, that had the word assessment A LOT!”  She was worried about coloring it just right and wanted my help so I talked her though what to do, but what she wanted was for me to do it so it would be perfect.  I had to explain to her several times that whatever she did WOULD be perfect.  She was also a little unsure what color to do her hair, “because my hair really isn’t yellow.”Our last Pack Night was a car race.  Jessie and Mark came up with all the ideas for how his car should look and they painted it together in the driveway one afternoon.  Then I helped him draw out the shapes and he cut and glued most of them on. It took us two evening to get it all done, but when we finished it wasn’t even the day of the race.  I was SO SO SO happy we’d actually planned ahead and got it done.  That way it was just fun and not stressful.  Oh, and he got his jersey for flag football that night too, so it was a good night. First day of school…. And I just had to put this in because this is a Spencer thing and it’s so normal that I never think to take a picture of it, but someday he’s be all grown and I’ll have forgotten.  Spencer thinks that the piano is his own personal race track.  Sometimes the lid is over the keys and sometimes the cars have neat little parking spots between the black keys.  His cars go back and forth, running into each other and winning the races from his head and it’s his own little world right at his level.After the kids left for school this morning Abbie and Spencer showed me that if you hold this blanket up to the light you can see the rainbow animals from the front “glowing” through to the back.  And so Abbie and I made a little tent by the piano so they could lay under the blanket and the sunlight from the front door could work it’s magic.  I guess my tent wasn’t fancy enough because soon Abbie had added the stools with book to hold the blanket up higher and she and Spencer had their own little art studio all set up under there. They drew pictures for almost an hour. It was so fun.

Here’s the big race…

The boys had to stop in the pit and wash their windshields (they got sprayed in the face with a water bottle and then wiped off with a paper towel – hence the goggles), drink a cup of water to refuel, and take off their shoes and put them back on for their tire change.  Mark’s shoe stop didn’t go quite so quick so he didn’t win the race, but he still had a blast!  His car won a “best paint job” award.  At first he thought that just referred to the blue paint he and Jessie had put on.  “We did a good job,” he told me, “but it’s not the best paint job ever.”  I had to explain to him that that really included all the decorating.  “Ahhh…”  after that he was excited about the award and told us that he wished we’d have that same pack night every month.

Here’s a little domino playing we’ve done… …and a get together for Ken’s little sister’s birthday.  The weather here as been so beautiful and the dessert for the party was so delicious – little cups of chocolate heaven.  I don’t have the recipe yet and that may be a good thing….