Paige's First Day of Preschool

Paige has been SO excited to start preschool. She's basically been waiting all summer long. She's so excited to get to play with her friends, and do something that's just for her. I'm excited too. I love the opportunity to be creative and do fun things with my kids. I volunteered to take the first turn teaching so the first day was at our house. We had a little sign to welcome all the new preschoolers.

Paige was making the most ridiculous faces, it was hard to get a good picture because she was just too excited to hold still.

She is just the prettiest little give I've ever seen. I'm not biased at all.

There are three girls in our preschool class and only one boy (poor little guy) for a total of 4. It's the perfect size for this age group. They have all just turned 3 or are about to turn three so they are young. These girls are all very girly and silly. It's going to be a fun year.

 Here's the whole group sitting for circle time. They were pretty good for their first day.

 Waving hello!

 Working on a craft project.

 And everyone's favorite - snack time!

Good thing we have this trampoline in our backyard now, because when I taught preschool with Lucas there just wasn't anything to do in our backyard so we had playtime inside. It's nice to be able to send them outside for a change of scenery to get their wiggles out and let me prepare for the next project. They were all holding hands and it was adorable!

 We're so ready and excited for this school year!

Paige's 3rd Birthday

Lucas wanted to celebrate and sing to Paige as soon as she got up in the morning on her Birthday, so we stuck candles in her cinnamon roll and sang to her. And of course give her a little present to open.

We went down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with my parents. We went last year and it was lots of fun so we thought we'd keep up the tradition. It was a long drive, but we kept busy reading books.

We stopped for lunch and opened presents,

Then we went to the Aquarium. It was BUSY! I thought we went over Labor day weekend last year, but we checked the calendar and apparently Paige's birthday fell on the weekend after Labor day last year. We will have to remember to go the weekend after next year because it was just way too busy!

The first exhibit we went to was about Jelly fish. The kids thought it was so cool! It was probably their favorite thing we saw the whole time.

 Logan is really in to pointing, so he loved going up to all the tanks and pointing at the fish.

Here he is showing grandma Crapo all the fish.

This big tank was also a huge hit. There were Hammerhead sharks in it that Lucas and Paige loved.

 Logan and Lucas looking at Lionfish! Say that 10 times fast.

There is a kids play area with a cave that the kids can walk through and see smaller tanks inside. This was Logan's favorite part and he ran through the cave and in and out about 30 times.

I love this one of the kids looking into a tank with the sunlight streaming in.

 And of course we had to take a family picture in the room where waves crash over you.

And go outside and get splashed by the waves from the outside too. Even Logan wanted in on the action.

Logan played through his normal naptime and beyond so he was exhausted and passed right out in his stroller during one of our longer walks to another exhibit.

After we were all done at the Aquarium we made our usual stop at Ghirardelli for a sugar overload.

We sat outside and watched the ocean while we ate.

It was a really nice day. And on the drive home Lucas lost another tooth. This is his 4th he's lost. I'm not sure it was fully ready to come out because it bled so much. It was kinda grossing me out. Luckily he was completely oblivious.

We had such a fun day spending time as a family and with Grandma and Grandpa Crapo - and celebrating our sweet Paigey-Paige. We just love her so much! Happy birthday!

Lucas's First day of First Grade

This summer went by way too quickly. Summer vacation is getting shorter and shorter every year as it is, but even still I feel like we just didn't get as much swimming and adventuring in as I wanted to. Maybe next year. Lucas was so excited for his first day of first grade! My mom got him a new watch to wear on his first day and I let him open it that morning. He was so excited!

Here he is all dressed and ready to go.

Paige wanted to get in on the picture.

Look at this difference between last year's first day of school pic and this year. He was a baby!

 Here he is in class ready to learn!

I was dying at how cute he looked here holding his pencil and writing.

 And as a reward after his first day of school he got to eat a chocolate bar.

This little man sure is growing up quickly!

Logan's First Birthday

We had a simple get together for Logan's first birthday. Sarah and her kids were in town so we had more cousins to play with. Here's almost all the kids on the couch together.

Logan was not really interested in opening presents. But the other kids were very excited and willing to open them for him.

 He got his own water bottle and wanted to drink out of it right away.

 Here he is trying to figure out the drum.

Then we had cake and ice cream. Logan was not super impressed with his cake at first, but he figured it out after a while.

Happy first birthday Logan!

One Year!!

This one year mark didn't feel like as huge a deal to me as it did when Lucas or Paige turned one. I think it's because Logan has been mobile since 5 months, and walking for a couple months now too. I also weaned him a while ago, so I think we just hit most of those milestones already. Logan is at a really fun stage right now, though, and we all love him so much. He's sleeping great and eating great, and he loves playing with his brother and sister, or on his own. He's still such a mamma's boy, which I'm totally okay with. He just started clapping and waving the week of his birthday, and we love getting him to clap all day long.

His favorite things to play with right now are the hand mixer and my hair dryer. He likes to just carry them around the house all day long. He knows where we keep them and he goes right for them.  It's pretty funny.

Logan is a really great eater! One of his favorites is strawberries. He loves broccoli, chicken nuggets, and goldfish too.

Logan loves to be outside. We spend a lot of time at the park and letting the kids ride their bikes in the driveway. Logan usually is content just watching the other kids or wandering around and following them. He's such a happy little boy. We just love him so much!