Adjustment

We are all adjusting to our new routine.  Killian didn't know what was about to hit him on Monday, but by Tuesday he figured out that the car ride in the morning meant his sisters were leaving.  He'd figured out that all was fine until that sliding door opened in carpool and then his world was shattered.  Big time tears and sad face as his sister's climb out of the car each morning now.  He wanders around lost without them. When I say it is time to pick them up, he runs to the garage and goes to his side of the car instead of escaping to explore the garage.  When Kayden gets home at lunch they are both so excited to see each other and Kayden and I enjoy our snuggle time while Killian naps.  When we load up to get Keeley, everyone is happy that our family is back together again.  The girls go back to their normal play and Killian seems to enjoy the chaos of the girls being home!  I love my time with each of the kids during the day but I'm still not used to the slowed pace and the quiet!  I do so love that each kid is so excited to see the others.  And pictures like this, snapped less than 10 minutes after we picked Keeley up from school, make my heart smile.

Kindergarten?

 Honestly, I'm still a little in shock.  I think this shock is lessened by the fact that she is still at the same school and in the same classroom.  The only big difference is that she is going to school every day, all day.  That and, somehow, she grew up this week.  She started the week the same, and each day she came home more confident, more a leader.  Her teachers have told me several times already that she is an amazing leader in the class.  How did that happen?  Shouldn't she just be this big?

Needed her lunch box in the picture :-)

Making sure the monkey was safe for nap time.

Or maybe this big

Clutching her babies that would make the car ride to GSMS.

I could handle this old...

Or even this old without tearing up...

But, no, I have a confident, beautiful kindergartener.

Kisses

Yesterday, I gave Killian some kisses and said, "Can Mama have kisses?" He leaned right in and gave me a big, open mouth baby kiss.  My first one!  I love it!  He is a master snuggler and hugger but I have yet to get kisses from him :-)

Back to School!!

Back to school time!  I have an "official" preschooler and kindergartener!  So crazy!  Here they are holding up the signs they each wrote to tell me the year and their grade.  Keeley wanted hers in pen until she saw Kayden's and then she needed it in marker too.  Then she needed to cut it.  Then she needed to make sure that her lunch box was in the picture too because she is staying full day now that she is in Kindergarten and if you stay full day, you get to take your lunch to school.

Kayden posing....

Brother getting in the back to school shot!

And, he's over it...and Kayden is still posing :-)

Painting

We had a funny amount of time after Killian's nap and before dance class.  Normally I try to avoid going outside if we have some place we have to go shortly because Killian always gets so dirty.  On this particular day, however, I was tired and didn't think I could entertain everyone inside so out we went.  I had seen on a blog I read about painting the porch and thought the kids would enjoy that.    I went out with only my camera so I wouldn't be distracted by my phone and could make sure Brother didn't eat too much paint!

Because the girls are a little more intentional about their painting, I set Killian up on one side of the picnic table and the girls up on the other.

Exploring the paint a bit.

Seeing how the foam brush works in the paint.

Painting the foam brush with the paint brush.

Girls are busy at work.

Their creation so far...

Brother wanders over to see what the girls are up to. "What can I do with all this?!"

Taking over their paint.  So far they do not seem to mind.

Sitting in Kayden's lap. Yes, she is still wearing her night gown at 3pm....

Putting the paint bowls inside one another.

Keeley was none too pleased about that decision.

At this point we'd been outside for about 15 minutes and my allergies were going crazy.  The girls asked if they could paint the playset and I said sure and then I went to grab some tissues inside.  Turning the door to head inside, I encountered a locked door.  We have a deadbold that we use and then just a turn lock.  I guess Killian accidentally turned that and we didn't know.

I told the girls to watch Killian, who was in the playset by this point, and then proceeded to scale the (locked) fence and go find a neighbor who was home and would let me borrow a phone to call Kelly.  Fortunately our next door neighbor was home and let me call Kelly.   He didn't answer either time I called him so I left a message.  I figured that the worst case scenario was that we'd wait the hour until he was supposed to be near us for a meeting.  The only other numbers I know by memory are my mom's and Kendall's.  Kendall being in Seattle made his not so helpful and Mom was in teacher in-service and 35 minutes away anyway.  I went back to the back yard to supervise my artists and just hoped someone would come soon!

Just a little paint on the artist...

LOVE this picture!  All of it.  The face, the feet, the arm resting on the playset.  I laugh every time I look at it!

After the kids tire of painting, we turn on the hose and Kayden proceeds to wash our painting supplies.  Keeley is concerned that we don't have enough water nad we don't have anywhere to go to the bathroom. She's also distraught that I cannot tell her how much time is left until someone is able to come let us in the house.  Killian is content to just play with the hose!

After a while we head out front to wait for someone to rescue us.  We can't go for a walk since no one has shoes so we sit in the shade and play with the sand and chalk on the porch.  Fortunately, Daddy rescues us very soon thereafter.  We miss dance class but were able to enjoy playing outside for an hour and a half, uninterrupted by the distractions of phones and computers.  The afternoon did not go according to plan at all but, all things considered, it was a great success.

(And, just a side note, I left the lock off the gate and now take my phone outside every time.  Good thing, too, because Killian locked us out the other morning after we dropped the girls off at school!)

Reading

We officially have a fifth book lover in our family!  Killian loves to look through books now and he "reads" them out loud frequently (usually leaning on the couch with his heels crossed and tapping the pictures as he turns the pages).  He has just started bringing them to me to read at random times of day.  He'll hand the book to me and then scamper over to the couch at pat the couch.  We read on the couch frequently with the girls and he wants to do everything just like they do.  His favorite books right now are the Eric Carle books - "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?", "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?", and "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?".  He also likes the Sandra Boynton book, "Are you a cow?"  Very different books than the ones the girls liked so it is fun to explore them with him.  I think he likes the Eric Carle drawing style and I think he likes all of them because there is only one thing on most of the pages to really focus on.  At night when we read, if I pick books he doesn't want to read he'll point to the drawer we we keep all of them until I put them away and get the ones he does want to read.  I love having his little body in my lap and sharing reading time and I'm thrilled to have another reader in the family!

Robots

We are LOVING our Kiwi Crate subscription.  Each month the girls work so hard on the activities and love playing with them.  This month was robots.  SO FUN!

Here they are decorating the arms and head of the robots.

Keeley is waiting patiently for that marker.  She clearly gets her patience from her mother.

So focused.

Kayden needed to dot her sticks and decided it was easier to hold both as she did it.

The robots came with some mazes.  After the  robot decoration and assembly was complete, the kids use a magnet wand held under the maze to work the robot through the maze.  We also attached pens to the robots and used the magnet to make the robots "write".  So fun!

The next day we made the other craft a "Bot Buddy."  There was a wind up robot that the kids created covers for and then they could also make trailers or another robot that attached to the Bot Buddy.

Attaching her trailer.

Showing us each and every side of the robot and trailer.  She is very detailed oriented.

Kayden made two trailers for her bot buddy. 

She tried to make the bot buddy look like me.  At one point she was carefully studying my face and I asked her what she was looking at.  Her response, "I want to make sure I put the right amount of grey under the eyes."

We had such a good time putting different items in the trailers and letting the robots explore our living room!