"Helping"

Levi's favorite "job" is to help put the silverware away from the dishwasher. I left everything like this the last time he did his job, cause it makes me smile every time I open the drawer :)

First Day of Kindergarten!

School has finally begun! Parker is officially a kindergartener! He woke up at 6:30 this morning, must have been from anticipation of his big day. His best friend, who is also going to the same school but is in a different class, met us at our house with his mom and we all walked down to school together with Jared and Levi. We joined a big group of parents and kids on bikes and scooters all heading to school--it felt pretty exciting. We've watched the to-and-from-school crowds out our front window for the last eight years living here, and now we're part of it... I know Parker is so ready for kindergarten. I'm sure he was nervous, but he doesn't really show it. There weren't any tears when it was time for me to leave. I'm sure he will get used to the newness of everything in a little while, and this will all be old news. I really hope he starts to enjoy it!

p.s. So now it's just me and Levi every day from 8:15 until 2:10...and I seriously have no idea what to do with myself.

Quilt Top

I'm getting so close to finishing my first quilt top! I finally got all of the blocks finished and sewn together...everything pretty much worked out, but unfortunately one of the rows came out shorter than all of the others--??? Ooops. So I think that rather than trimming the rest of it to match, I'm going to go ahead and take that one row off and take it apart and try to redo the blocks so that they come out bigger...it's been a long process, but I'm still enjoying just working on it whenever I feel like it. It got pretty "interesting" working on it as it grew into one bigger and bigger piece of fabric...it became pretty unwieldy. I often felt like I was in over my head--like a kid in a junior high home ec. class first learning how to sew. (I had many visions of the well-intentioned yet mediocre ceramics projects I brought home in high school.) Once it is all fixed up, I'll have to put the top together with the backing fabric and batting inbetween, and then sew/quilt it all together. I have no idea how that's going to work out, but hopefully good enough :) I can't wait to have a family picnic on this when it's finally done! I'm also ready to start cutting my fabric to begin Levi's birthday blanket--it'll be nice to work with some different colors and patterns for a change.

Whiz Kid

Watch out, Kindergarten, cause here comes Parker!! He is seriously a math genius. Okay, maybe I'm a little over excited because I'm his mom, but I'm very impressed with his math skills. He brought some money from his coin jar to Target yesterday, and he used it to buy these math flash cards--what a nerd! ;) He even skipped reading books before bed time tonight so that he could do some math cards instead--and he gets the problems right (and quickly) basically every single time. He's also been working on subtraction and multiplication. He is definitely going to be waaaaaaaay better than me at math by at least first grade. Good thing Jared's good with numbers, cause I sure won't be able to help him with his homework! 

A Big Day at the Pool

Okay, I think it's about time I bite the bullet and officially declare Parker "A Swimmer." He was amazing at the pool today--I am so proud of him!! He happily and willingly swam back and forth across the pool--width wise--numerous times, and he did this in a deep area where he knew he couldn't touch! He progressed on to jumping into the pool in the "deep end" and swimming back to the wall; by the time we were ready to leave, he decided that he wants to learn how to dive. I am so happy that this has truly been the summer that Parker learned how to swim. Now off to Kindergarten in less than a week! Goodness gracious. 

Sick Day

Poor Levi. He is such a sweet, happy, silly, strong boy...but when he gets sick, he gets hit hard. After having RSV at only 11 weeks old, and then again the next winter, he seems to be particularly susceptible to getting horrible coughs whenever he gets the littlest cold. It's pretty much like dealing with croup with every single cold...which is always scary. Parker got a random summertime cold last week, and as you would expect, it passed on to Levi next. We suffered through four sleepless nights full of horrifying coughs and blazing fevers until I took him to the doctor on a Monday morning. The doctor ordered an x-ray to make sure that Levi didn't have pneumonia, since he was struggling a bit too much to breathe...although his lungs turned up clear, the doctor diagnosed him with "reactive airway disease," which seems to be a way of saying that he is susceptible to really bad coughs...although he doesn't have "asthma," it is an "asthma-like" reaction. It seems to be something that he will hopefully grow out of as he gets older and stronger, but we are really dreading another winter of cold and flu season and watching Levi struggle so much every time he gets a cold. The doctor prescribed an albuterol inhaler to use whenever he gets sick, which will hopefully open up his airways a bit and help him breathe better.

Levi also happened to get sick right in the middle of our worst summer heatwave yet...bad timing to be running a fever. It gets really hot in our house this time of year, so we laid a blanket out in the shade in the back yard and he just submitted to sleep while we played some games of Scrabble to pass the time. Parker now happily declares that Scrabble is his favorite game--even though he pretty much can't read or spell yet--and has the most insane amount of patience to actually sit through entire games while we play his tiles for him. Seems like he is already a boy after his mom's heart ;)

Summatime

Chillin' out and cruising back home after a long, sunny Saturday on Prudence...