Last Day of Preschool & Watermelon Girl

Hope everyone is having a great long weekend and enjoying the last few weeks of summer. It has definitely been feeling more like fall here. It rained this afternoon and I made vegetable soup for dinner. I'm not feeling ready for the return of the rain yet!

Aidan's last day of preschool was Friday. We gave his teacher a jar of homemade granola (label and card by Aidan):




Here are two more pictures from the last day of preschool:



I think he is ready for kindergarten. We're talking about it daily and have purchased all of our required supplies. We have our parent-student interview with his teacher on Wednesday, and he goes to school with half the class on Friday. He starts his regular schedule on 9/9. I also teach my first Jazzercise class this Wednesday. Wish me luck!

We got Lauren's bangs trimmed today. Here she is, mid-watermelon feast:





And finally, here is a little video of our darling girl eating watermelon, talking and laughing. Enjoy!

Old Friends

Our wonderful college friends Leslie and Sam, along with their two girls (Ella, 5, and Maren, 1 1/2) visited from California last weekend and we had so much fun with them. They were in town for a family reunion but we got to see them when they weren't occupied with family events. Sunday night, we all went out to a local winery to see a concert put on by Sam's uncle, blues guitarist Roy Rogers from San Francisco. Our friends Megan and Juan and their kids came too, and we all had a blast dancing and running around and enjoying the great music and cooler weather. (We had temperatures over 100 on Saturday and then probably a good 30 degrees cooler on Sunday!)

Ella and Aidan (their birthdays are one day apart) just loved each other. They are both energetic goofballs and just hit it off immediately. It had been a few years since they'd seen each other, and I am now feeling committed to try and get together with them here or there once a year at least! Maren is a sweetie and really liked both Ryan and me. She kept putting up her arms so we would pick her up and carry her around!




Aidan and Ella at the fountains downtown on Saturday.
Maren and me at the fountains.
Lauren takes a break from the fountains to show a dog her stuffed doggie.
Goofykins 1 and 2 at the concert Sunday night.

Blurry picture but I like it anyway...Lauren and Andrew are good buddies. He just turned 3 so he likes it that she is littler than him...he once told his mom that he wanted to be in charge of Lauren. :-)

I did it!

For those who might be checking in, just wanted to let you know that I passed my Jazzercise audition! I'll be in Portland for the weekend now learning a bunch of stuff. More later!

And He's Off...

Aidan learned to ride his bike with no training wheels! We are so impressed (we both think we were at least 6 before we took off our training wheels), and he is so proud of himself. He took to it really fast, maybe because his bike is pretty small--he's had it since before he turned 3. We think maybe he feels more comfortable being closer to the ground. When he's ready, we'll buy him a bigger bike. What a big boy he is these days. He even gives me looks sometimes like he thinks I am a total dork. A preview of what's to come, I guess.

Here are a couple of pictures from the county fair, too. Aidan loved the rides! Maybe next year Lauren will be big enough to go on more of them.

Da Vinci Days!

Da Vinci Days (a local celebration of art, science and technology with music, food, a parade, kinetic sculpture races and all kinds of things to do for kids) was last weekend, and, as usual, we had a blast. Ryan's parents, niece (age 12) and her friend (age 13) arrived Wednesday and stayed until Sunday morning. Jess and the girls arrived Friday afternoon and stayed until after dinner Sunday. We had a super-busy, action-packed time and a really fun visit with everyone. We weren't ready for anyone to leave when the time came!

The 5-year-olds watching the electric car race. Aidan and Hannah are so adorable together--they've been best buddies since they were 1 1/2. They sometimes have a brother-sister type of relationship (good and bad) but they seem to get along better every time we get together. We'll be heading to southern Oregon to visit them next month.

For Aidan, da Vinci Days equals ice cream days. He had a waffle cone all three days of the event.

Little angel Lauren. She wasn't feeling well the first night, but made a quick recovery.

Lauren and Daddy doing their crazy acrobatics in the park.
Kinetic sculpture parade on Saturday. This one is the Calistoga dragon--and it breathed fire!
Our beautiful niece Elise and Lauren at the Frisbee dog competition on Saturday. Elise has three younger brothers and is great with kids! She is really sweet and we enjoyed her company very much.
Aidan in the medical helicopter that landed in the field on Saturday.

Aidan and Lauren playing soccer in the children's village.

Aidan checks out a race car.

Aidan attempting to learn some Irish dancing moves. He was actually really good at it!

Cuties in their PJs

My Jazzercise audition is less than three weeks away now, and I've been practicing quite a bit. When uploading pictures recently, I found several that Ryan had taken one evening before bed, while I was at class. Enjoy the cuteness!

Two-year-old girlie!

Lauren turned 2 two weeks ago! She got to eat ice cream in the nude--I don't think it gets much better than that for her (the girl LOVES to be "nakey," as she calls it). We didn't have a party but had a couple of friends over for fresh cherry pie, ice cream and cupcakes. Our 2-year-old is as cute, smart and fiesty as can be, and impresses us every day with her amazing vocabulary. She is so much fun! My mom got her one of those tricycles with no wheels, and she has gotten so fast on it...she just zips along behind Aidan on the sidewalk. They have been playing together pretty nicely, still with at least one major squabble daily. I guess that will probably last for a while. :-)

By the way, the baby she's feeding ice cream to in the picture below had never had ice cream or cupcakes before--first time for everything, right?

Fun at the Beach

Getting behind on blogging again...we went to the beach a few weeks ago to celebrate my mom's 60th birthday. Although we only live about an hour away, we don't get to the beach very often. We had a wonderful time--the Oregon coast is beautiful, the weather was nice, and the kids had a great time running around in the water, making sandcastles, flying a kite, etc. Plus, Aidan just loves staying at hotels. Our dear family friends from Arizona joined us, en route home from a cruise in Alaska. We did not want to leave!

June Cuties

Just a few pictures for now...will post more from our trip to the beach soon.

Preschool Graduation

Aidan had his preschool graduation a couple of weeks ago...way too cute. He will still be going there for the summer before starting half-day kindergarten this fall. At the graduation, all the kids sang songs and recited poems together and individually. Aidan even stood up and named all the continents and some of the oceans! We were impressed that the teacher could keep ten 4- and 5-year-olds under control for more than an hour--Aidan was definitley getting antsy but did great. Afterward, all the graduates and parents went out for lunch. It was a fun day!