Even More Toothless

Caroline lost yet another tooth last night.  Her smile is looking cuter than ever.

I didn't mention in my previous post about Caroline's smile that we had a little tooth fairy debacle.  Would you believe that the tooth fairy hadn't yet visited when Caroline woke up at 6:45a.m.?  You can imagine Caroline's disappointment when her tooth, her little note, and the very special castle sticker she had picked out for the tooth fairy were still sitting in her tooth fairy tin.  Oh the tears!

Fortunately, I remembered that the tooth fairy has come late to our house a few other times, and she's even left Abby a little note that we're one of her last stops on her route.  So, I told Caroline to go eat breakfast and stay out of her room until around 7:15, and sure enough, the tooth fairy was able to stop by.  Whew!  Our tooth fairy, named Liliana, is one tardy fairy.  She also always leaves a little glittery trail of fairy dust, so we like to follow the trail to see which window she used to sneak into our house. 

Liliana was on time for this most recent tooth loss (thank goodness). Caroline was so inspired by all these fairy interactions, and she decided to create a new little home for her fairy friends.  In perfect second grade form, she labeled the fairy house, "New Home".

(Note that the rest of things in the picture are other clay creations that Caroline has made in art class or art camp.)

Ben's First Day of Kindergarten

"I'm not going," Ben announced in my doorway before seven this morning.

Ben padded into my bedroom this morning, still warm in his footie pajamas.  He slid under the covers and cuddled up close to me.

"I don't want to go."

He pressed his warm little self all the way into me and wouldn't move so I could see even a peek of his face.

Then, he quietly confided to me, "I'm scared to go."

So, we talked about how fun it would be to ride the bus, to make new friends, to learn new things, and to play with the giant bin of Legos.  I pressed a kiss into his hand that he could carry with him all day. I told him my kiss would never wash off.

Ever so quietly, he whispered into my ear, "But, I'll miss you."

My heart melted and my eyes teared up because I will miss him too.

My littlest baby is off to kindergarten today.

All Smiles on the Bus

Off to Big Starts

#1. Soccer!

Caroline's soccer season started this morning with a swish, swish, swish, swish --  a whooping four goals!  I don't think I scored four goals in my entire sporting career, so I find this fairly impressive. Needless to say, she is pretty fired up for the rest of the season.

I even photographed one of her goals. (Note that Caroline's team is wearing gold; their opponents are wearing light yellow. The goalie is wearing a canary yellow pinny.)
 

Driving down the Field

 Shooting through the Defenders

 GOOOOOOAAAL!

#2.  Music Lessons!

Abby will soon be starting instrumental music lessons at school.  Since we already own a baritone horn from Scott's playing days, Abby will be taking up the baritone.  She initially had her heart set on drums, but we were able to convince her that the baritone would be just as fun to play.  (Cue Mom's sigh of relief.)

Our music teacher suggested taking a short video of the first time trying out the instrument to compare to her playing at the end of the school year.  You should make sure the sound is turned on to watch this video (but maybe don't turn on the sound up too loudly just yet).  Personally, I think Ben's sword fighting during the performance adds just the right touch of chaos.

Toothless (Practically)

Caroline lost another tooth last night, and three others are pretty loose.  I think that if those other three fall out before any others grow back in, I'll be forced to puree her food!

Unexpected

An unexpected vacation sighting occurred when we stumbled into watched a huge team of construction workers assembling scaffolding for the DEW tour right off of the Boardwalk. Now, I don't follow BMX bicycling or competitive skateboarding (shocking, I know), so I had never heard of the DEW tour.  We were surprised to see that the event was broadcast nationally on ESPN and NBC. We didn't stay to watch any of the events (no need to give Ben any stunt ideas, right?), but the construction was pretty cool.

I had control of the camera here. This reminded me of old photos of skyscraper construction from the 1940s and 1950s.

First Day of School!

Today is the first day of school for Abby (4th grade) and Caroline (2nd grade)! Ben will be enjoying two more weeks of summer vacation and will begin Kindergarten on September 10th.

This side view shows how stuffed their bookbags are with school supplies. There are 12 glue sticks and 36 pencils between the two of them (and more)!

Boardwalk Shots

We spent last week in Ocean City, Maryland, enjoying all the beach, family fun, and the end of summer vacation.  Now that we have been home for a week, all the beach memories are happy ones:  playing in the waves (no broken bones this year!), sand castles, beach combing, flying kites, playing frisbee, kayaking in the Bay, eating steamed crabs, riding Trimper's rides, slurping Dumser's milkshakes, and more.  I've almost forgotten about all the sunscreen and continuous bathing that the trip required.  Almost.

We went biking on the Boardwalk on three different mornings.  Abby and Caroline are able to pedal their two-wheelers on their own (with me constantly reminding Caroline -- STAY TO THE RIGHT, THE OTHER RIGHT!).  Ben isn't quite ready yet, so he rides along in the carrier attached to the back of my bike.  Although he's comfortable, in the past he has gotten bored with it after about 15 minutes and then starts putting his feet on the carrier wheels to make the fun zzzzzzzzzz noise which makes my bike ride significantly more challenging with all the drag.

This year I got creative and encouraged Ben to take pictures with our old digital camera while he rode along.  I had no idea how much fun this would turn out to be. Ben was totally occupied, either taking photos or previewing all the pictures on the memory card.  We were shocked -- seriously shocked -- to find out that Ben has very specific photographic interests.  He has an "aesthetic".  Who knew??

Check out these totally unaltered photos from BEN:

 
Those are cool, right??

Of course, Ben is a still only a 5-year old boy, so he also took a bunch of these:

Ben's Self Portrait
(I love how he smiled for his own picture)

My  Lower Half  

(oh yes, I'll be going on a diet)

I took this one of the photographer.