Next Chapter

Today was Ben's first day back to school and Jason's first day at Chapter One!  It seems like Jason has always liked being there to pick Ben up at lunchtime and whenever we ask if he wants to go to big-boy school with Ben, Jason nods his head.

I know he already loves the playground and the drinking fountain... hopefully he'll like everything else just as much.

I asked Ben to stay close to Jason on his first morning and help him feel comfortable at school.  Ben asked if on the second day Jason would have enough friends that he could then run around by himself.  Gotta love Ben.

How did that happen?

A few weeks ago, we realized that Kara's permanent teeth on the bottom were coming in right behind her baby teeth in the front.  One tooth started to wiggle and get loose and we were watching it closely... waiting and waiting.

I pick Kara up from school on Friday and she tells me her tooth fell out at school.  But not the one that was wiggling, the one right next to it!

She told me the story of how it happened... she was wiggling her tooth, a boy accidentally ran into her and then her tooth popped out.  She didn't hit her chin or head or anything, the tooth just fell out and then her friends had to help her find it on the floor... Hmm...

So she wrote this note for me at school, just in case she forgot about this milestone when I picked her up.  In any case, she was happy to have her first tooth out and very excited about the tooth fairy's first visit.  And we're still watching the original loose tooth.  It's a stubborn little Kozuki tooth.

The cutest was Ben's reaction: "I don't want Kara to lose her teeth and get adult teeth.  I don't want her to be an adult yet."

First Grader

We woke up this morning to thunder, lightning and a little bit of rain... but the sun quickly came up for Kara's first day back to school!  When Kara woke up, she came in and announced, "I'm a first grader now."

First grade means a new backpack, new lunch box and a longer school day! 

When the morning bell rings and the kids all line up, Kara and her friends are no longer in the first row.  This morning those kindergarteners looked so small and Kara seems to have grown up so much in the past year.  

Since preschool doesn't start until next week, it was trains and Legos for Ben and Jason.  This week is also the start of soccer practice for Kara and Ben and ballet for Kara.  Let the fun begin!!

Two-wah!

For the last few weeks, we've been prepping Jason for his second birthday.  For about a minute, when you asked him how old he was going to be, he replied "two."  And then very quickly, he decided that he was going to turn ten instead.  So a few days back, I told him if he wanted presents, he had to turn two.  So now his reply is "two-wah."  That counts.

We started the celebration a little early when WE were so excited to give him the garbage truck that we could not wait until we got home to even wrap it... it went straight from the bag into his happy little hands and sat on his lap the whole ride home.

The day before his birthday, to his delight, he got a new bubble gun (because the over-priced one from Sea World died once we got home)!

And he was so excited to try out the bubble-making lawnmower that he went out in his pajamas to start on his new chore.

Jason has a fascination with garbage trucks and trains... and since we were not going to visit the sanitation department, we decided to take Jason on his first train ride. 

The 45 minute trip was just long enough to see the sights and have a snack.  Jason was choo-choo-ing the whole ride.  After we got off the train, he stood and waved good-bye and didn't really want to go, but I reminded him that his lawnmower was waiting for him in the car (which it really was because he insisted on bringing it with us). 

Thank goodness we will not be celebrating "ten" in our family any time soon.  Let's just keep them little!

"The car is not for a egg"

We've been enjoying the summer, but I told Kara and Ben that school will be starting soon and we have to get ready.  Kara's been practicing her addition flashcards and seems to have addition up to ten pretty well mastered.  Ben has been working on his sight words and he's becoming quite the reader!

Usually he just goes through the cards and reads the words... but today we put all the cards out and made sentences, which, for me, was super fun and exciting to see. 

Granted, there were some interesting sentences, but Ben could read them all!