School Days.

 Boy, life gets so busy once school begins! I'm sure it will seem like more of a routine after this week. So far, so good, though. The boys both seem to be enjoying school. When we walk home every afternoon, I have them each tell me 2 things about their day. They are more talkative on the way home when they can't go anywhere rather than at home when friends come a'knockin' at the door and their attention is diverted.

Today I learned that Zakkai had 2 recesses and that he learned 3 new friend's names. All of them were girls:) From Samuel I learned that a girl from his class shared a cookie with him at lunch and that he waited to eat it until he got home so he could ask permission (high-five, boy!) and that he had music today, which he doesn't love as much as art;)

Eliana and I pass the mornings playing, cleaning/organizing or running errands and then I relax while she naps!

Eliana has a 2nd spare pair of glasses that she usually doesn't like but once Samuel showed her his new glasses, she decided to try on hers. She likes to wear them when she first wakes up and then we switch to her other pair (which I like a whole lot better!)

Eliana is just amazing us with how much she is growing and changing each day. She is talking SO much! Her new favorite thing is to say "Mommy (Or Daddy or Brudders), watch!" and then she'll do some silly face or silly thing with her body. Can you tell she gets much attention?? She calls me "Mama", "Mommy," or "Mom," which drives me crazy! How can a not even 2 year old call me "mom?!" I don't even know where she heard it. What a goof.

She is really trying to put short sentences together like, "Mama, help" or "Take it" or "Have it" or "Shoe on" or something like, "Kai, see dat? Doddie (Doggie)!" She adores pointing out airplanes, dogs, squirrels, birds, trains and having us all look:) She also talks a lot about family that we have seen recently like, "Gugga" (Mugga) "Papa" "Gwamma" (Grandma) "Gweat" (Gma and Gpa Great), "K" (Auntie K) and even "Evyn" (Evelyn) for her new baby cousin. So fun to watch her start to remember people and communicate so well with us! She definitely knows how to get across what she wants/does not want.

Her bossy side is definitely coming through but she's still melting our hearts giving kisses, asking for hugs and just being her sweet self!

 Here is Zakkai doing his first ever Kindergarten homework! He will definitely not be as easy as Samuel in homework compliance. It took at least 10 minutes to get him cooperate and come to the table and we had to have a meltdown in the middle (over something completely ridiculous!). It's not like it was hard homework either; just a sheet "All About Me" where he gets to draw some pics of his family and name his favorite things. Silly boy.

The blue towel in the picture is one of the towels used to soak up water from our partially flooded basement. Yuck. It poured rain yesterday for a long, long time and I didn't even think to check the basement because we haven't had flooding issues for awhile but Ben briefly told me that it was the worst we've had yet before he darted off to catch the train this morning.

The water came clear under our basement stairs and got some pictures that Ben had stored under there, soak the boys' play rug and some toys. I bleached the floor but didn't have time to go through the stuff under the stairs.

Okay, actually I forgot. Guess that's on my list for tomorrow!

I just got back from Samuel's 2nd grade open house and just love his teacher. She's very, very nice and talkative and really seems to enjoy feedback and communication with the parents. I think he'll have a good year;)

Good night!