kindergarten and third grade

Gus was so excited to finally be at Sts. Simon and Jude with Jimmy.  Nora and I are going to miss him a lot, but I am also happy for him.  I wish he would stop getting bigger though.  On the first day of school Zach made them pancakes as a special first day of school breakfast...

They got dressed and ready super early and were ready to go...

We took Jimmy to his third grade room and then Gus to his Kindergarten room...

Nora wasn't so sure all this was exciting and happy news...

We were happy that our friend Madeline is in Gus' class and was sitting right across from him at their table of desks...

Jimmy's Kindergarten teacher's aide is now the Kindergarten teacher and we are so excited to be in her class...

So far so good at school.  Gus has been loving it and Jimmy continues to do awesome at school. 

We feel blessed to be in such a wonderful Catholic school.

a fast end to our summer

After our vacation, Dad was already back to work and his actual classes started at the beginning of August.  Then to top that off, the boy's school started a week earlier than usual.  It all seems ridiculous to me and I wish we could get back to a summer vacation that starts at Memorial Day and ends at Labor Day.   The last few days slipped away pretty fast.  We all felt like we didn't get nearly enough done, but we did have fun.  I made these jars of fun activity ideas for when the kids were bored but I guess we didn't have too much time being bored because we barely made a dent in the jar....

Here is one example of something from the jar: 

Freeze toys in ice block and break them out with hammers..

We made an ambitious Summer To-Do List and even though I warned the kids we wouldn't do everything on it, the kids still felt like we needed to hurry up and get as much done as we could.

We had a giant Playmobil castle set-up day with Baabee that took over our living room.  

The boys set up quite a battle and made up a game with rubber bands to take turns shooting each other's guys down.  

Jimmy won tickets to a Diamondback's game, but we ended up giving them to cousins since it was over our vacation.
One of my uncles helped to remedy that situation by giving us some of his tickets.

It was the mascot Baxter's birthday so all the Arizona mascots were there and the kids all got free backpacks.  Those things alone would have been enough to make the kids happy, but it also helped that is was a good game and the D-Backs won!!!

Summer treat spots usually include Culvers, Zoyo, and Chik-fil-A, but I also can't resist the price of the cones at McDonalds.
I took Nora one day when the boys got to go to a movie without her.  She is pretty cute...

 

Swim lessons with friends are always on our summer list...

One of the highlights is getting to go down the water slide on the last day...

Nora was even brave enough to go down with her teacher...

Nora loved her teacher Erin...

And the popsicles are always a highlights as well...

We celebrated Mom's birthday at Mimi's house...

Summer days at Mimi's house are always the best...

We also had a great surprise party for Mimi's 65th birthday...

Johnny planned the whole thing and bought presents "from" each kid.  The presents were, of course, really for each kid to keep.  Mimi might have been tempted to keep the Legos though...

This picture is evidence that Nora is just like me as a child...

The kids all had fun swimming in Mimi's pool...

And then enjoying their presents...

We had lots of fun having Erin and Helen in town for a visit.  Nora is a big fan...

Nora just loves her girl cousins...

We used our last days of summer to spend time with cousins and stay wet...

I am always ready for the heat to end, but not to go back to school.
Even a hot Arizona summer is a fun summer to me!

family visit in washington, dc

After we drove away from the Blue House in NY, we had a six hour drive to DC.  

It was a pretty drive and we stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way which the kids loved.

On Sunday morning we went to The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for Mass.  

We had mass in the church crypt because the upper church is being renovated, but both were beautiful.  You could explore all the small chapels inside that place for days and still not see it all.

That evening we grilled at Ben and Michelle's house and played in their beautiful big backyard.

The kids helped Nano install Uncle Ben's horseshoe set...

The rest of the week we had lots of family time together at Nano and Nana's house...

The kids enjoyed some sprinkler fun in the yard...

We had a few park visits...

Zach took the boys to the National Air and Space Museum Annex which has a bunch of huge hangers filled with airplanes and a huge space shuttle.  The boys thought it was amazing!

I managed to squeeze in an outing with my college friend Kathleen and her kiddos...

I hope these kids can all be great friends someday in college...

Then we got to have a lovely dinner with more college friends at the Lively house...

And let's just zoom in on these two for a second...

The kids all had so much fun playing together and got nice and messy eating chocolate popsicles...

I am so grateful when I get to see these girls from time to time, but it also just makes me miss them more and wish we all lived closer together. 

We did venture to downtown DC one time to give the kids the full experience of the city. 

First, we went to the Natural History Museum...

The kids loved the hands-on insect exhibit...

And, of course, there were all sorts of bones to see...

The dinosaur exhibit is a little more minimal than usual because they are working on building a new one, but we got to see a T-Rex so the kids were not disappointed...

We almost passed up a nature photography exhibit and I am glad we didn't because this picture might be my favorite from the whole trip...

Nora thought it was pretty hilarious so she kept doing it and still does...

Then we headed to the Washington Monument so the kids could check out the National Mall.  

It was a good choice since we only had time to do one more place and the humidity was starting to get to us all.  They could see all the other main monuments in every direction.  Jimmy was for sure the most impressed and wanted a picture taken with the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building, even if cousins tried to prevent it...

We had a nice last night with the whole family grilling, playing in the yard, and catching fireflies (quite the novelty for my Phoenix kids)...

We got in a cousins picture and one with the grandparents...

They turned out so cute, but Aunt Nat pointed out that these pics will be out of date all too soon since another grandkid will be added to the mix in no time at all.   We can't wait to meet that little person and can't wait for all these wonderful family members to meet him or her also.  We had a wonderful and vacation, and thank God for the family members that made it all happen! We are so blessed!