First day of school for Julia!

Julia started school this year! She's in the 2 year old program at St. Benedict-she goes Tues and Thurs mornings from 930am to 1pm. For a long time, I was picking her up at 12noon because she wasn't quite ready to stay the extra hour and have lunch with her classmates. Her teachers thought she was too tired by noon, the tell-tale sign being her putting her ring and middle fingers in her mouth. That's her thing when she's tired or even just relaxing. I tried to tell them she was ready, that I couldn't take her home for a nap anyway when I had to pick Matt up at 1pm (he goes Tues/Thurs/Fri) but she still didn't make lunch bunch until Nov. And that extra hour is a godsend! I can get so much done now that I have 3 1/2 hours to myself every Tues and Thurs!

First day of Kindergarten

This is Thomas's first year of real school! He's a kindergartender!! He loves it-his favorite part of his day, every day, is the bus. Of course. It was a fun day-Jen and her kids were still here, so were Grandma and Scarlette. We got some fun pictures! It was adorable-all the kindergarteners wore colored bandanas depending on what class they were in.

Thomas loves his teacher Ms. LaRoy, too. He's going to do very well, I can see it. He's enthusiastic about it and loves going. And I love seeing him there, I go every other week, it seems, to have lunch with him in the noisiest cafeteria on earth. Those kids are so loud. It's funny to see the dynamics of the kids. I don't know if Thomas is always mellow in class, but he sure is at lunch time, maybe it's just a little down time for him. And his classmates recognize me, too! I'm Thomas's mom!!

Thomas hugging Matt after having ridden the bus home for the very first time! He was so excited, he just loves the bus and Mr. OD.

The boys in front of the school on Thomas's first day. Thomas picked out his pirate shirt, thought it was appropriate for his first day.

Catching up

I've been updating my photos on facebook and haven't done a great job of updating this blog, but a girlfriend of mine has re-energized my blogging passion. Here are some pictures from our summer vacation on the West coast.

The cousins (minus baby Oliver) with Grandmas at the Chittenden Locks and Botanical Garden in Seattle, one of our favorite stops to play and see the salmon running. Not too many salmon running, but there was plenty of running being done by the kids.

My kids on Anacortes Island. We spend a few nights here. During the day we would explore Anacortes and Waldron, where brother-in-law's parents live. We picked blueberries and blackberries and ate fresh crab and played on the beach and rode around the San Juan Islands in a boat...love this part of the country!

February fun

Some misc pictures from February, including Valentine's Day. There's Thomas showing his loot.

Matthew and Julia on Valentine's Day. Note the height difference.

This is Julia's little Valentine's Day outfit. Love the bobby socks.

This is just a fun picture-they're all fun of Julia! She has on Aunt Karen's reading glasses.

Matt's 3rd birthday

Love this picture-Tim is getting ready to read to Matt's class for his birthday. Tim was the Mystery Reader!

We went to a jumpy place again! Here's Matt all ready to fight.

New Year's in California

We spent New Year's visiting my family again. This year we ventured out to Disneyland and it was crowded! And cold, the only cold day of our visit.

Julia eating her churro, waiting for the parade to start.

Cousins Scarlette and Colleen in the blue car, and cousin Christine with Thomas in the orange car.

Matt drove the yellow car. Tim helped a little, mostly with the pedal.

Christmas 2008

The cousins looking for the glass pickle ornament hidden on the tree. Every year Grandma Betty hides the pickle ornament and gives the winner a goody bag. The kids really look forward to finding the Christmas pickle. We had a busy Christmas week-the weekend before Christmas, Tim's brother Peter (from Wendell, NC) and his family came into town to celebrate with Grandma Betty, and the weekend after Christmas Tim's brother Gary (from Maryville, TN) came with his family. The day after Gary and his crew left, we flew out to California for more celebrating.

The kids in front of the Christmas tree. Hopefully this is the last year we have to worry about ornaments being broken by little ones. The tree looks funny loaded up with ornaments up high and bare on the bottom.

Thomas in his Christmas pageant at St. Benedict. He was a ram!

One of my favorite pictures, even though you can't see Julia's face. She adores her brother Thomas. It'll be fun to recreate this pose every year.

Thanksgiving recital

We were going to leave for Hilton Head early the day of the boys' Thanksgiving recital at school, but I decided the day before to leave later so Thomas and Matt could sing the songs they had been learning. I'm glad we waited...

Matt's class singing "We Are Thankful" (Matt is the 2nd from the right)

Thomas's class (he's in the orange and brown striped shirt)

Crazy haired Julia

I just love this picture of Julia and her crazy hair. She just woke up from a nap and looked so cute, I had to grab the camera.

Thanksgiving 2008 in Hilton Head, SC

Every year we're fortunate to spend Thanksgiving in Hilton Head, SC thanks to Tim's dad. He has about 4 timeshare properties he reserves for Thanksgiving and all the siblings try to meet there every year. We love going to Hilton Head and look forward to it weeks before Thanksgiving. The kids love seeing cousins Brittany, AJ and Danielle from Tennessee and cousins Amanda, Joseph, Christian and Samantha from North Carolina. Tim and Alex golf a few days, we visit Santa at the Shelter Cover mall and have a traditional dinner of steamed oysters, frogmore stew, peel 'n eat shrimp and yummy other seafood dishes at Steamers. It's usually too cold to go to the beach, though. This year my sister-in-law Karen and I rented bikes and pulled the kids around in little buggies.

The cousins in front of Hilton Head diner

Matt giving cousin Joseph a big hug

Me and Matt at the harbor


Matt and cousin Samantha checking out statue man


Thomas

Halloween 2008

I've been really, really bad about posting pictures because there are so many! Digital cameras are a blessing and a nuisance-I have a lot of pictures on my memory card, I just haven't saved them yet. I don't completely trust our back-up hard drive, so I also save monthly pictures on CDs and I took so many pictures from Halloween on, I just couldn't keep up! So here are Halloween pictures, finally...Thomas was Dale Earnhardt Jr., Matthew was Jeff Gordon, and Julia was a pumpkin, the same pumpkin Matthew was last year. The costume was too cute!

We had another Halloween get together with some of the neighbor kids-here they are in front of our house.

Julia and Daddy

On our back deck