365 ~ 2014: Day 273

Sometimes we make sad choices.  Sometimes we have to suffer the consequences.  Sometimes it is hard being a six year old.

365 ~ 2014: Day 272

Whenever David really likes a dish I have made, he'll tell me, "Mom this is awesome, you have to teach me how to make this".  Yesterday he had the chance to learn how to make my meatballs, one if his favorites!.  He even had the chance to use the "big knife" for the first time, with a little help from Mom, but I was very impressed by how careful and focused he was.  I make a huge batch at a time and freeze them in bags of 12.  We had some tonight and froze the rest.  They were delicious!

365 ~ 2014: Day 271

Someone was really excited to put out the Halloween decorations today!  Normally I would wait until it was actually October, but it was a nice day and I know I won't have time to do it next weekend!

365 ~ 2014: Day 270

Auntie Kristin, Erik and the boys after their fun outing at Chuckster's!  Thanks for coming up and taking them, they had a blast!

365 ~ 2014: Day 269

Feeding the ducks at White's Park!

365 ~ 2014: Day 268

David had his first School Wide Meeting at his new school and his class was one of the presenting classes.  He even had some lines!

365 ~ 2014: Day 267

Tonight was the open house at Shaun's school.  He was excited to show off his reading fold, his writing portfolio and his artwork.  He really loves being a first grader!

365 ~ 2014: Day 266

Homework time!  I love how his teacher has set up the homework for the year.  He gets a folder on Monday with the weeks homework and then he has to return Friday!  While we still try to have him do one page per night, it is nice to have some flexibility, especially on busy nights!

365 ~ 2014: Day 265

David having some fun at Tupper Lake on the docks!

365 ~ 2014: Day 264

Goodbye NY.  On the ferry to VT.

365 ~ 2014: Day 263

Happy Wedding Day to Mick and Jaime!

365 ~ 2014: Day 262

Shaun is still in the learning stages of soccer.  It's set up so that the first half of the session they run various drills and then they split off and play mini-scrimmages.  Tonight he was focused and ran hard and ended up scoring a goal!  He was so pumped!

365 ~ 2014: Day 261

David at his soccer game tonight.  His team is full of 4th graders and his coaches are awesome.  He's learning so much and really starting to get what he is supposed to be doing on the field.  He made a few really great passes and even got a shot on goal!

365 ~ 2014: Day 260

Playing around with a reflector and the sun setting in the back!  Still need some practice, but slowly figuring it all out!

365 ~ 2014: Day 259

Just chilling while mom's car is getting an oil change...

365 ~ 2014: Day 258

Who is this big kid?

365 ~ 2014: Day 257

Many artists and photographers will often come up with a project that becomes a portfolio series.  I have "Evan and Momma Selfies".  Not exactly glamorous or even technically good, but it's kind of become our thing!  And I wanted to add one to my 365 blog to mark the memory!

365 ~ 2014: Day 256

Evan getting the ball in his first ever soccer scrimmage!

365 ~ 2014: Day 255

When Dad's away (running Reach the Beach) Mom and the kids eat at the 99!

365 ~ 2014: Day 254

A little "Itsy Bitsy Spider" while waiting for the rest of his class to be photographed for School Picture Day today!  I enjoy volunteering on picture day it's so fun to see all the kids looking so spiffy!

365 ~ 2014: Day 253

The "back to school" cold has hit the littlest one with a vengeance.

365 ~ 2014: Day 252

Scholastic Book Fair at David's school this week. Evan enjoyed all the goodies, including having to buy the pen he is holding with his allowance money because he broke it.

365 ~ 2014: Day 251

New location for swim lessons; swimming in the big pool at SNHU!

365 ~ 2014: Day 250

Great ending to Birthday week, dinner with my boys at one of our favorite restaurants.  Even though it wasn't my first choice, it was still delicious!

365 ~ 2014: Day 249

Happy FIRST Birthday sweet baby girl!

365 ~ 2014: Day 248

It's that time of year again!  Just wish it didn't feel so soupy tonight!

365 ~ 2014: Day 247

Happy Birthday to Me!

365 ~ 2014: Day 246

A piece of my heart!

365 ~ 2014: Day 245

Getting closer to 100%; next up is hydroseeding!

Back to School 2014

The boys are BACK TO SCHOOL!  The first day of school was last Tuesday and they had 3 days and then had a 4 day weekend for Labor Day.  It's kind of nice to have those 3 days for them to go in and get acclimated to the routine of the school week.  We tend to be much more lax with our schedules in the summer and even though the boys are always up at 6:30am every day, I never had to be up at 6:30am every day!

Just like last year I did their back to school interview.  Some things changed and some things remained the same.  And of course no back to school blog post is complete without the "first day of..." chalkboard pictures!

David's Favorites!

Shaun's Favorites

Evan's Favorites!

I began getting ready for "back to school" a few weeks before.  David and Shaun were both at different day camps and so it was just Evan and me.  It's so much easier to get shopping done when you only have one rugrat in tow than three!

Mom, we need ALL of these things!

We made a couple trips to Target for back to school supplies and some essentials like new socks and underwear!  I did some shopping at the Mall getting some new jeans at Crazy 8, my favorite place to get jeans for the boys!  Then I took Evan up to Tanger Outlets to see if there was anything else I could get to make sure they would be all set for school.  Evan had fun at the Tanger outlets checking out all the little "rides".  Since he was such a good helper I let him actually ride a few!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Merry-go-Round

And of course no all morning shopping spree is complete without a little lunch!

Paneara Bread!  Our new favorite spot!

The week before school was to start and the boys were done with their camps, we made plans for back to school shoe shopping and back to school haircuts!

New kicks!

David's Back to School haircut

Shaun's Back to School haircut!

Evan's Back to School haircut!

On Monday, the day before the first day of school, we had an open house for Shaun.  At the school they offer an open house for kids in 1st and 2nd grade to come in and meet their teachers again and see their classroom.  Evan would have his meet and greet on Tuesday and they don't do an official meet and greet at David's school (he moved next door for 3-5th grade).  I wanted to be able to say hello to David's new teacher, since it's a new school and I don't know the teachers over there (yet!).  She said she would be in the classroom on Monday and that we could stop by.  I was happy to be able to put a face to the name before school started!

After the open house we headed home and because I just didn't want to be rushing around on Tuesday morning trying to get the perfect pictures and because they had to get to swimming right after school, I decided to do our "Back to School" photoshoot on Monday!  You'll even notice that while Shaun wanted his fauxhawk for the Monday pictures, he didn't want to do it on the actual first day!

Back to school!

My handsome boys ready for school!

Of course, that wasn't going to stop me from still taking pictures on the real first day!  We still all walked down to the bus stop together for the first day!

Ready to head to the bus stop!

I have the same picture from last year!

Off to school!

Mom, when do I get to ride the bus?!

Evan was feeling a little down after his brothers got on the bus.  This year both David and Shaun will be in school all day so it will be just him and me except for the 3 days of the week that he is in preschool.  This year he'll be going in the afternoons so it's going to be an interesting adjustment.  We're used to heading out soon after his brothers.  Now we won't be leaving until after lunch.  So we waited all morning before he was able to go to his open house.

Ready to go see his classroom!

Very proud, he wrote his own name tag!

Checking out some books in the reading nook!

After Evan's open house we headed home to wait for his big brothers to get off the bus.  This is the first year that Shaun gets to ride the bus both to and from school.

First Day complete!

And finally, two days later, on Thursday, Evan got to have his real first day.  They split the class up where half went on Wednesday and half went on Thursday to ease them in.

I got this Mom!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

He was so ready, we may have arrived way early!