First Day of School 2009

August 2009 brought three separate First Days of School, one for each of our growing boys. It was even more exciting because it was a new school for each of them. We began with Jayden on August 13, attending Second Grade at Chappelow with Mrs. Wheeler. Jayden loves school, and was beyond excited to make new friends and learn everything he could.

Ready to learn!

A few short days later, on the 17th, Noah started his first day of Kindergarten at Chappelow with Mrs. Miller. Noah is extremely smart, but can also be pretty strong-willed, and we were very happy to find out, over the course of the school year, that Mrs. Miller had a perfect balance of consistency, patience and attention to give Noah a great experience.

Gearing up to be a "Miller's Monkey"

Working on his dissertation

And finally, on September 1st, after what seemed like an eternity for him, Owen began his first day of Preschool at the First Congregational Church with Mrs. Holmes. Mrs. Holmes' class was heaven for Owen, who drank up every minute of his school time and was always sad to leave.

"Can I go in yet?"

Rockin' the cubby

We can't believe it's time to do this again: Owen will be in the 4-5 year old Preschool class with Mrs. McQuitty, Noah will be a First Grader, and Jayden will begin Third Grade. Sofie is one year away from beginning Preschool, and I'm sure that will be here before we know it.

Chronological? What's That?

Ah, so in checking my work Andrea points out that I skipped to Halloween and completely missed the first day of school among other things. So, with me helping out, this blog is going to be like LOST, where there are flashbacks, flashforwards, and people traveling through time. Awesome, right?

Halloween 2009, Part Two

Well, really, what else were we going to do with all those pumpkins?

Halloween 2009, Part One

We enjoyed carrying on our Halloween tradition of dressing up as a family in a similar theme (Having done The Incredibles and Peter Pan in the past) and chose characters from Pixar's WALL-E. Andrea outdid herself by creating all the costumes from scratch (with a little help from me and Kinko's) and, as always, we had a great time with both the preparation and trick-or-treating.

First is Jayden as the title character, WALL-E. We found a site online that had a printable papercraft WALL-E figure you could create, and blew them up to fit the size of a packing box. We added some iron-ons attached to gloves, and a cutout posterboard glued to some lab goggles. Lastly, we put a flexible and imaginative kid inside:

Next came Noah as one of the steward robots aboard the luxury liner in the movie. I figured this might be a hard sell for Noah, since they don't have a starring role in the film, but he was very excited about it and, to be honest, I think the costume turned out exceptionally well (I was particularly proud of the swappable "screens" in front). Noah expecially liked having the light bar on his head.

Owen's costume was that of M-O, the small cleaning robot who befriends the main robot characters and provides a lot of comic relief and cuteness in the movie. We loved this costume, though it was the most difficult to get on and off of Owen (which we did a LOT, since he couldn't wear it in his car seat). The helmet was fashioned from an insulated box used for transporting medical specimens, and the brush was actually a replacement brush for a Roomba vacuum cleaner robot.

Next came Sofie, who was a shoo-in as the sleek, cute, and incredibly destructive EVE. This one was simpler, using a sweatshirt with velcro-attached "tails" and a bicycle helmet that fit underneath the hood. The best part was Sofie's pitch-perfect imitation of EVE's plaintive cry for her trouble-prone friend: "Waawee! Waawee!"

Lastly, Andrea and I dressed up as the primary human characters of the film, the grossly overweight John and Mary. Andrea wore the wig I used when I dressed up as Syndrome three years prior, and we both donned huge sweatsuits with most of our furniture's throw pillows stuffed underneath.

It was, of course, an absolute blast, well worth the time and effort it took. And here it is nearing August and we haven't decided for sure what we're doing this year... we have some ideas. Regardless of what we decide, you can count on it remaining a well-guarded secret until October 31st!

Noah's First Lost Tooth

Though he's lost a few more since, the first tooth to come tumbling out of Noah's mouth made its exit last October. Noah is 6 going on 15, but his normal teenager-like attitude gave way to a genuine boyhood glee as he faithfully tucked the tiny thing under his pillow and found it replaced by four shiny quarters in the morning!

They seem so much bigger inside his mouth!

Bigger smile, just fewer teeth

Newfound riches

Harvest Time at the Church Farm

We signed up to take a few rows at the Church Farm last year, and learned a lot — considering it was our first time trying anything of the sort. One thing we learned was that it doesn't take very many pumpkin seeds to get a lot of pumpkins. We planted two seeds and the final count was 16 pumpkins!

While the kids were not always excited to go weed — especially since the weeds were taller than they were — they were very happy to help harvest our bumper crop of future jack-o-lanterns.

Off to the fields...

Farmer Owen and his squash

Pumpkin carrying is not for the weak...

...or easily distracted!

Time to take them home!

Bike Ride

The kids love to ride bikes, and it generally involves a pretty small course, encompassing our driveway, our neighbors' driveway, and the sidewalk in between. We've been able to break out a few times, and head down a beautiful bike path just north of us, which of course is something the kids are beyond excited about. Here are a few pics from our trip last August... something we're hoping to repeat this coming weekend!

A sip of water for some thirsty riders

Gearing up for the next leg

A tired but happy kid

Me with the 2025 Tour de France champions