Busy month!

Yesterday was a big deal - we had "Open House" (or what I fondly remember as Back to School night) at Alex's school. Alex is attending a charter school called Seven Generations, and being that we live in a good school district with a good public school down the street, it was a tough decision to make. But it's great - he has 14 kids in his class (which is small!). The school focuses on sustainability and respecting self/others/the world. They go on a hike every day [weather permitting]. They've been  eating lunch outside every day. He comes home with new Spanish vocab [they have Spanish in increasing increments and *daily* starting in fifth grade - their goal is for the kids to be "fluent" by 8th grade!].. specifically, he was excited about learning the Spanish word for "bathroom" - "Bano!". Alex talks about doing yoga, stretches, and "peaceful playtime." He came home the other day excited because they built a house for an earthworm outside. All of this is integrated into a great math program, writers workshop, and a lot of language and literacy. I am just thrilled with it so far!

Alex takes the bus like a big boy home from school and loves it (we drive him in the morning).

For my birthday I got a fantastic new camera, thanks to my great hubby and my family!!! It has been so much fun taking pictures of everything. The quality is amazing and it's capturing the memories even more vividly than before.


Maya has mastered the art of grabbing!

 

She love, love, LOVES her feet and is always grabbing for them and putting them in her mouth. It's adorable!

 

She is smiling, giggly [ticklish!], and 4 months old today

 

Action drool shot!

Giggles! And a little spit-up..

Maya laughing at daddy

A lot of Firsts!

This week was a lot of Firsts!!! We went to New York City, Daddy started a new job, mommy started the fall semester, and Alex started Kindergarten.

Although Alex has ridden the train before, he didn't really remember. He was very excited to ride and talked about it all week as we counted down to Saturday! When we got there he kept looking down the track to see if the train had come...

Then, he was glued to the window for the ENTIRE train ride.

When we got to NYC we had a reunion with Aunt Emmy!

We took a pitstop at Starbucks, and Aunt Emmy taught Alex a new card game - Go Fish!

We had a great picnic in Central Park. Maya loved looking around at all there was to see.

For my birthday, Alex and my parents got me a FANTASTIC new camera. It is a digital SLR camera and I have wanted one for about 5 years now! We took the above pictures with that camera and have been having a blast playing with the settings and learning how to use it.

Also new this week: Alex started kindergarten. It all seemed surreal; but I found that I wasn't as "sad" as I thought that I would be. Alex has gone to preschool for a lot of his life and has been ready for "big kid" school for awhile now. We've been talking about kindergarten a lot, and reading "Mrs. Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten" - that's one of our favorites!

On Tuesday, 9/6 (which was also my birthday), Alex, Daddy, Maya and I headed off to Seven Generations, an environmental Charter School in Emmaus. Unfortunately, it was a very rainy day; so rainy, in fact, that school ended up being closed for the second and third days! Tomorrow is Friday, and I am hoping that school opens back up. There are a lot of floods around the area - it has been an unprecedented amount of rain! But, Alex had a great FIRST day at least!

Alex's Phineas and Ferb backpack - one of your favorite shows at the moment!

Alex got to work decorating his name tag.

A special note from your teacher:

I didn't cry dropping Alex off, but this certainly did make me tear up and is so true:

Here's to a great new school year (and hoping we HAVE school tomorrow...)