Kindergarten Concert, a Neighborhood Farewell, and Attack of the Crazy James

Ayden had her last publishing party where we got to read through all her published stories from the year. This was followed by the Kindergarten concert put on by the music teacher.


James enjoyed playing with his favorite Kindergarten sibling.



Terrible picture, but here is the Kindergarten crew poised for their musical debut. It was darling. My favorite song was "Robin in the Rain, what a saucy fellow..."


These are pictures from our last day to play with our favorite neighbors(sniff, sniff). They moved to Salt Lake City of all places. I tried to ease her transition into Mormon culture by showing how normal we can be. I'm sure the grease fire at lunchtime really drove the message home, right,
Anne? I almost started crying when I posted the picks. We are missing them so much. We had a scheduled play-date every Wednesday. We still have wonderful neighbors, but she was the only stay-at-home Mom from my neighborhood with whom we regularly met.




We've had some warm days here and there. This is not one of them. It was 50 degrees outside when James snuck out mid-wardrobe change to play in the rain. He loved to stand right under the edge of the roof where there was a nice, steady stream of water. After a few minutes he started turning purple around the edges and shivering, but he wouldn't come inside.




I finally dragged him kicking and screaming into the house to warm up.


After getting him bundled up in warm clothes he saw his sisters out in the rain and demanded to join them. I let him onto the porch, and eventually he ended up standing under the roof run-off again.

Bathtub run-away
Elton John?


James has been experimenting with climbing on different things to reach the counters. This morning he found that the best step stool was the toy stove. He dragged it to the counter to wreak havoc there. Then he dragged it to the table to eat everyone's left-over breakfast. Then back to the kitchen. Then I confiscated it and it stayed on top of the bunk bed for the rest of the day.

The damages from a trip to the dentist: marker all over the couch(came off easy enough), crayon on the dining floor, orange juice spill soaked into the dining room chair. Not bad work for a 19-month-old. I was starting to get annoyed by the time I saw the marker, but then I thought about what a 19-year-old could be doing when his mom wasn't at home, and then I was just grateful that I didn't have to worry about that yet.