Easing into the school year

Too cute not to share - yes, the girls have taken to dressing poor Lewis up - I missed the picture of him with the tutu on as well...... It was only a matter of time, right? Luckily, he is very patient with them.

What have we been up to? Getting into our school year routine has been (and still is!) time consuming. I think we are finally getting into the groove. For Julia, it was really no big deal. She jumped right in and is loving being at school. On Fridays, if her class has earned enough points, her teacher brings her dog, Ginger, a therapy golden retriever, to class. The kids get to read to her. It is quite an incentive for them. Julia's two best buddies these days are Jake and Linus. Although she is still the social butterfly and interacts with more kids at school than I can keep track of, she definitely spends most of her time with these two boys. Luckily, they are terrific kids and their parents are great too. Emma is very happy at school for the most part too. She definitely has her emotionally charged dramas to tell us about most evenings. First it was the girl who told her, "Don't talk about the picture of my puppy" and how that really made her feel sad. And then it was the kids who told her she was too slow "all the time" and that made her want to cry. And then it was her friend and another boy who are starting to "fall in love". And then one day, she "accidentally" told her friend Devon that she didn't want to play with her and she didn't know why she said it but it just came out. And this is kindergarten!!!!!! Whatever happened to naptime and coloring and eating snack......... Overall though she is doing great - starting to read some words and her recent proudest accomplishment of writing her numbers to 100.

This past weekend Julia had her first gymnastics meet of the season. It was so great to see how she has improved over the past year. In order to go to sectionals (a step above the local meets) you need to score over 31 points total. All last season she was close but never quite made it - this last weekend she did! She was thrilled!

Before the big meet

Chris ran the Portland marathon on Sunday. He had a fantastic race - no leg cramping as in year's past - and finished just 5 minutes shy of his goal, with a time of 3:35. The girls and I cheered him on. It is always amazing to me to see all the different types of people running the race. Some you would never think could finish, do, and with incredible times. It is very inspiring. Maybe someday I'll do another........

Waiting for Daddy after the race - and eating all of the goodies the runners get at the finish. Definitely a favorite part of the morning for the girls. Popsicles are good anytime right? Even when it's 55 and rainy!

Way to go Daddy!