Connor's Birthday

Today my oldest turned 9 years old!  Amazing how quickly time flies.  Charlie keeps reminding me that in 9 more years, my baby will be an adult.  I don't want to think about that!

 

 

First Day of School

Today was the first day!  The boys were both excited and dreading this day.  They really didn't want Summer to end, but were excited to see friends and meet their new teachers.  We were SUPER excited to learn that Nicholas will be with Mrs. Heiser this year, as Connor was with her when he was in First Grade (And she is simply a fabulous teacher!).  Connor has Mrs. Wilhelm and Mrs. Lindsay this year.  We know very little about them, but hear that they are quite fabulous teachers as well.  Here's to a new school year!

 Nicholas in his classroom.  He kept making faces and refusing to smile.

 Connor getting out all his school supplies.

 Outside the classroom, after an excellent first day of school!

 Mrs. Lindsay, Connor, and Mrs. Wilhelm

 Nicholas outside his classroom

 Mrs. Heiser and Nicholas

Happy Kid Day

We attended this wonderful fair and the boys had so much fun!  There was so much stuff that we didn't even get to do everything.  I really liked that the bounce house obstacle course was all you can play basically; once they got out, they could run to the other side and just go again.  I'm sure that made it hard to keep track of who had paid and who had not, but still-  the boys loved it!
We did not win the drawing contest we had entered in at the fair, but that's okay.  The boys had gone into it knowing that they probably wouldn't win and they maintained a good attitude about it.

A Boy Scout troop that was there built a rope bridge and the boys climbed across it.  The Boy Scouts were happy to assist them if they needed help getting across.

 

 Kyle fell off the bridge numerous times, but he did not give up!  He was determined to make it all the way across with little assistance.

 

 Nicholas was the most focused, with a slow and steady pace.

He only fell once.

 

 There was a Taiwanese parade with costumes and music.

 Another Boy Scout troop taught the boys to make a fish trap using an empty water bottle and some string.  There was food inside the trap.  The object was to make your trap and then the little gold fish they had there were supposed to swim into your trap to get to the food.  Unfortunately, it would appear that these gold fish were not hungry.  We stayed and waited till each boy had trapped a fish, which took almost a whole hour!  You didn't even get to keep the fish, but oh well.  They were proud they managed to trap one finally.  I'm not sure how this trap would apply in the wild, unless you plan to eat only minnows or tiny fish.

 Kyle is examining his trapped fish.

 One of the obstacle course bounce houses.

 

Drawing Contest

Tomorrow we are attending a Kids Day festival.  They are having a drawing contest.  The directions were to draw a country you would like to visit the most.  We browsed through many pictures online and the boys finally settled on their choices.
I have tried multiple times to upload the pictures oriented correctly, but no matter what I do, this blogger keeps making Nicholas and Connor's drawings appear sideways.  I give up.  Anyway, I thought it was cute and even better that is not so much a competition of best drawing but everyone has a lottery chance of winning if they participate.

Connor chose Japan.

 

Nicholas chose Egypt.

Kyle chose Italy.

Cupcake Face

It is hot and we are just chilling at home.  I made cupcakes for dessert.  Here is the aftermath.  The youngest is absolutely covered in frosting and cake crumbs and the oldest is the cleanest face.  All is well with the world.

Tooth

Nicholas has lost his second tooth!  Yay!  

Fish Friends

I LOVE the Dollar Tree.  You never know what kind of neat stuff you will find there. 
One latest thing we found was these cute figures of Nemo and Dory.  They are now happy companions to our fishy friends, Swimmy and Splashy.