Back To School!

Off we go to the first day of second grade. Andrew has Mrs. Cohen at Lomond School this year.

It's fun to be back with the before-school and after-school playgroud gang again (though we are terribly missing you, Shupes and Lanes)!

Andrew with some of his new classmates. He was a bit disappointed that Noah wasn't in his class this year, but he is being a very good sport about it. I'm so glad that he is such an easy-going guy!

Have a great year, Andrew!

I Did It!

Hannah is eighteen months old now and is so much fun! She loves music and tries to sing the ABCs (just the tune, not the words). She likes to run and play with her brothers and climbs everything! When I'm reading a book, she likes to get attention by climbing on me and rolling around on my book, laughing. AND she goes to nursery at church now (yay!!!). She doesn't say much, but the few things she says are so cute:

"Want this!"

"What's that?"

"MAM!" (That's me. Not Mama. It's MAM! I think she learned this one from her older bothers who are always screaming, "MOM" at me.)

"ouch"

"uh-oh!"

"eyes"

"I did it!"

This one is probably my favorite! Whenever she's done something new, like go down a slide by herself or jump to me in the pool, I've always said, "You did it!" Well, now whenever she does something that she's proud of, she gets a big grin on her face and says, "I did it!"

Andrew and Logan have always loved jumping off the stairs in our living room. The other day, Hannah was watching her brothers and decided that she could do it too. So she climbed the first stair, stood on the very edge, bent her little legs, leaned forward and.... face-planted on the carpet. I wasn't sure if she was hurt or not, so I just held my breath and waited. Then she looked up at me with that proud grin on her face and said, "I DID IT!" She spent the next 30 minutes taking turns "jumping" off the stairs with her brothers.

Go Indians!

On Friday night, we went to see our own Cleveland Indians take on the Mariners at Progressive Field (formerly Jacob's Field).

Despite the fact that we lost, I'm always amazed at how much fun it is, and at how many people there are. Both Logan and Andrew had a blast, and Logan was seen dancing like a maniac at least a couple of times when music was playing over the PA system.

The only bad part about it was that two very loud, very vulgar, undereducated individuals sat two or three rows behind us. They took the liberty of educating our entire section at the top of their lungs about how vastly superior the Indians played in comparison to the Mariners, using an extensive vocabulary of profanities and explicatives. When Logan (currently age 4) turned around to look at them, then turned to me to ask what it was they were yelling, they thought it was comical, and even took it up a notch. To these two clowns, I say "You are LAME!!!"

You know, I really think there are around 2-5% of individuals over age 30 that should have to take a class on how to behave like an adult, because they clearly weren't taught by their parents. Cheering for (or even against) the home team is fine, and I'm all for free-speech, but come on, have a little class. Show some respect for those around you!

Anyway, enough of that. After the show, there was a massive fireworks display, bigger than most 4th of July shows that I've seen.

Andrew loved it, and was amazed at how the fireworks could be choreographed with music.

Logan enjoyed the first thirty-or-so seconds of the fireworks, and then decided that the they were just too loud, and spent the rest of the time with his hands over his ears.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Maybe we'll even be able to cheer on the Mariners next year!

One Last Summer at Thornton

I've started thinking a lot about how this is our last year here in Ohio and all the "lasts" we have coming up - our last summer (Thorton pool, Kirtland, green trees, fruit picking), last fall (Patterson farms, beautiful fall colors, school year at Lomond, Halloween), last holiday season (Thanksgiving and Christmas with friends, lights at Lake Farmpark), last winter (thank heavens!), last spring , and then we will be moving. Most of these things I'm really going to miss. I'm sad to think of leaving.

We have a great pool here in Shaker, a place where we've kept cool on many hot humid days. The kids love coming to this pool and meeting up with friends from school and church, and I have loved meeting up with my "mommy friends" to socialize (miss you, Carissa!). There is a big fenced-in baby pool (Hannah and Mommy's favorite), spray ground, big pool with diving board and water slides (Andrew's favorite), and a lazy river (Logan's favorite). I think it will be hard to find another community pool quite like this one!

Mommy and Hannah dipping our toes Hannah at the baby pool

LoganAndrew and Logan running through the Spray Ground
Andrew flipping into the pool

Andrew loves the water slides!

Ohio Hurricane?

Okay, so it wasn't really a hurricane, but it was a pretty intense storm. Bryan was out working in the yard in the hot sun Monday afternoon, then within 15 minutes the sky went black and it started pouring sheets and sheets of rain. The wind really picked up and started tearing down tree branches everywhere. Within just a few minutes, this huge tree branch across the street fell, taking our power lines with it.

We were without power until early Wednesday morning - 33 hours in the dark!

Here's Bryan clearing trees from our neighbors' yard. What a good guy!

Thank you, Logan

Today Logan held my hand and said, "Mom, I will always be your buddy."

I sure hope so. Thanks for making my day, Buddy!

100 Hours!!!

Andrew participated in the summer reading program at our local library again this year. He reached his goal of reading 100 hours and earned his gold medal! He worked extra hard this last week so that Nana could see him receive his medal before she went home. Andrew's favorite books this summer have been the Scooby-Doo and Magic Treehouse series and Beverly Cleary's Henry Huggins books. It's been so exciting to see him enjoy reading and I really hope he will continue to read for fun even though the program is over.

We are so proud of you Andrew! Great job!