Weekend Update

The boys are loving school. Luke is in love with his teacher and Ryan is in love with being at a big school and doing new stuff. Luke did tell me on the second day that he didn't have anybody to play with and we talked about ways to make friends or to ask to play with others. The next day Luke told me he had a new best friend named Henry. But by Monday afternoon he said that nobody would play with him. I asked him if he asked some kids if he could play with them and he said he asked every single kid in his class and they all said no. (I had already checked in with his teacher when I saw her as I was picking them up from school and she told me Luke was playing with other kids - Luke does like to play by himself but he would tell us the same thing last year, but in reality he had friends and played with them daily). Ryan's reaction to Luke was so funny (and ironic based on how much they fight), he said, "What! They won't play with my brother! How rude! I am going to talk to your class." They then spent the next several minutes problem solving on ways to make friends - it was so sweet and funny. Overall, they are making friends and having fun. Ryan likes to tell us about lunch, PE, music and recess and Luke likes to tell us about his teacher, the books in her room, all of the learning centers, and art class.


We went to Loveland this weekend to see our friends Tim, Stephanie and Mackenna and to meet their new baby, Connor. They moved back to Colorado this summer and it will be great to see them more often. Ryan asked to hold "it" for the picture - he was really very sweet. Here is a picture of the boys with Mackenna when she was a baby. We also went to the corn festival while we were up there and the boys got the giant snow cones shown at the top.

The boys love for Greg to give them both a piggy back ride at the same time - I think these days are numbered - they are really too heavy, but they do love it.


Greg took Ryan with him this afternoon to meet a friend downtown for the end of the big bike race that has been going on in Colorado this past week. Ryan was excited to ride the train, eat out and watch the cyclists. Luke stayed home with me and we went to the pool. It was so much fun to take just one to the pool - we had a great time. Luke practiced tons of swimming, went down the slide for the first time and he was even brave enough to jump off the diving board. He was a little scared the first time, but there were two boys in his class there who helped to convince him that he could do it (now he has 3 friends at school and counting). He loved it. He did have to swim a good little ways from the diving board to the side of the pool, but he did great. He was so proud of himself.

We had a good weekend, but we are looking forward to a long one next weekend. We hope stay home and get some stuff done around the house.

On the Bus

The boys rode the bus to school on Friday. Greg and I walked them their bus stop in the morning and they were so excited to get on the bus.

You can sort of see Ryan waving at us through the window.

After the bus left, I went by their school on my way to work to meet them getting off the bus. I won't do that again, but I wanted to see them get off on the first day. Plus a ton of kindergarten parents did the same thing on the first day of school, so I wasn't the only one.

I met them at their bus stop after school and Ryan jumped off and said, "that was incredible." I think they will like riding the bus.

First Day of Kindergarten

My little boys went to Kindergarten today! They have both been excited and nervous about it for most of the summer (especially Ryan). On Tuesday, they met with their teachers for a 20 minute one on one meeting. That really helped Ryan feel a lot better about starting school today. That didn't stop the night before and morning of school jitters (I remember not being able to sleep the night before school - I still feel that way most years). Luke told me this morning that he thought he was going to throw up. Greg and I got there a little early to avoid the crazy traffic jam and to let them play on the playground before it got too crowded. But before long, there were 3 classes of Kindergarten kids on the playground plus lots of nervous parents with cameras. It led to a somewhat chaotic sending off into class.

After the bell rang for school to start, the kids lined up outside their classroom and the teachers took them in. Luke did OK with this - a little unsettled, but he was fine saying bye.

Ryan, who can get easily overstimulated, found the throng of parents to get through in order to get in line pretty unsettling. He started to cry and we had to reassure him it would be OK and that we would both be there to both be there to pick him up after school.

I was worried all day about Ryan. I knew that if he didn't have a good first day, it would take him a long time to get over and we would have a hard time getting him to school each morning. After school, Luke came out of his class first and was so excited to show us what was in his backpack. His teacher said he had a great day. Ryan then jumped out of his classroom and with a big smile on his face said, "I had a terrible day." Then he said, "Just kidding, it was so awesome!"

Previous photos of their first day of (pre)school:


2010

2009

2008

The Basement is Finished!

It is finally finished. We still need to move furniture down there (and buy more furniture!), but we can now say it is done. We started moving things out of our living room/dining room area yesterday - so it is a relief to start having the house back together.


The bathroom - it is a little small, but it will be fine for a guest room and for 2 teenage boys in the future.

Looking from Ryan's room down the hallway to the living room area.

From the living room area down the hall to Ryan's room on the left and the stairs to the right. The furnace and hot water heater are in the middle of the basement, so everything had to be built around that.

Living room area.

The wet bar.

We are going to put cabinets in above the wet bar in the next few months, which will give us some more storage from the kitchen.

From Luke's room into the living room area and stairs.

Luke's bedroom - the boys have already rearranged the little bit of furniture we have moved and created a pirate ship.

Ryan's bedroom.

Looking upstairs into the kitchen.

From the kitchen down to the basement.

What We've Been Up To Lately

I feel like this has been the busiest summer ever and I'm not really sure of what we've accomplished. But it has been fun and we've done a lot of stuff. This past weekend we went to Buena Vista to camp with some friends. One of our friends has an annual camping trip at her parent's house in the backyard every year. But their backyard consists of the view above and a huge camping area with a river that runs through it. We had a great time and the boys loved being able to play with other kids.

The boys loved walking over all of the bridges to get to our campsite.




There is also a new second-home development behind the property that has a great playground area that the kids loved. Luke has recently figured out how to pump on the swing - and he spent a ton of time swinging. Ryan enjoyed climbing on the playhouse part of the playground that was a converted train boxcar.

This is Jeff and Cristy's twin boys - they were fascinated with the rocks.

We also attempted a group picture with all of the kids - this was the best one I got. There was one 8 year old boy and then 11 other kids that were 5 and under.

I went back to work this week and the boys start school (Kindergarten!!!) next week. They have had a good time staying busy this summer and have gotten along with each other, for the most part. The picture below is of them playing Star Wars. Luke built a spaceship out of the 2 chairs and they had several hours of fun together.


The boys also turned a box into a roller coaster.



Lastly - a little summer surprise. Luke and Greg came home from the store a few times in the spring with vegetable seeds. Luke wanted to plant a garden and proceeded to go outside, cut open the seed packet and dump all of the seeds straight onto the mulch. I thought it was pretty funny that he wanted to do it all himself, but that he wasn't actually planting anything. Tuns out, we have 1 giant squash plant. We were both pretty excited to discover that the thing we thought was a weed, turned out to be squash.