Pumpkins….

 

Friends

There are THREE postings this evening, and in earlier posts (which, ironically, you’ll probably read AFTER you read this one), I promise to provide a general update on activities over the last couple of weeks. 

And then I discover that I can’t find the other camera.  And what to do?  I can either break my promise to post an update, wake someone up and ask where the camera is, or force you to suffer through a no-picture blog posting. 

The choice is easy… But I’ll try to make it up to you with this video of Daniel and Rachel describing their pumpkin masterpieces. 

For Daniel, it’s all about what’s happening at school, and things have been going really well, both socially and academically.  He’s making friends, and seems to be one of the more popular kids.  Playing “Star Wars” in the playground unites all of the boys, and recently we’ve started to hear that “girls are stinky”. 

He’s had his first set of assessments, and is doing well across the board, but is extremely strong in reading – as his teacher Mr. M says –> he can read anything, but doesn’t always comprehend what he’s read. That’s apparently normal, though, so we’re asking questions along the way to encourage him to think about it.

We’re back in swim lessons, and so far, it’s like something just ‘clicked’, because he’s been extremely focused and strong.  I’ll have to get some video, because words alone don’t do it justice.

Halloween is coming. Daniel will be “Captain Rex” from Star Wars.  Rachel – well, Rachel deserves a post all onto her own, but I’m going to write it when I’m less sleepy, and hopefully find some pictures.  Until then.  

Love, ADRE.  

It was the summer of the bicycles around here

Friends

In earlier posts, I’ve mentioned how much the kids have enjoyed their bikes this summer, and bragged about the 10-mile bike ride we took. 

The quality of this little video isn’t the highest, but I think it does a good job of capturing the fun that both Daniel and Rachel have when they’re out riding. 

Daniel has been into “Stunts” for a while now, and so you get to see him ride around with his feet on the steering wheel, etc.  Rachel’s tricks are less elaborate, but she’s having a great time being “Lightening McQueen” and racing around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you might imagine, it’s also been the summer of scrapes and bruises.

Bikes are ridden to school, to the store, to the playground.  We need to get or build some ramps for next summer, but I think the season is just about over now.

Oh, and that 10-mile ride?  Completely obliterated by our 17.2-mile trip to downtown Denver on Sunday.  It’s mostly flat, with a gentle downhill slope -losing 470 feet of total elevation going from here to Confluence park, and a fairly easy ride along good paths.  Daniel got a flat tire about 0.7 miles from REI, but was able to get there, and we had them fix him up with a thorn-resistant innertube while we ate lunch. Great attitude and listening, and a fun outing for all.  We took the light rail back home, though.

That’ll have to do for the bike update.  Now for a more general “what’s new around here” posting.

 

Love, ADRE.

Can you tell what’s changed?

Friends:

OK, take a quick glance at the two pictures below and see if you can figure out what’s different between them.

If you said: “Daniel seems to have lost his shirt!” then you are the master of the obvious. Congratulations.

Yes, we lost our first tooth last night, and we’re VERY excited about this. It had been loose for a little over a week, and was gradually getting wiggled looser and looser until, finally, it came out after dinner last night.

Under the pillow it went, and this morning, Daniel came into our room with a disappointed look: “The tooth fairy didn’t come…” which was more than a little surprising to the tooth fairy. So we convinced him to go back and look, and sure enough, he returned with the $1 coin held high.

There’s apparently some bragging rights at Kindergarten associated with losing your first tooth. It’s a status thing of sorts.

By dinner tonight, he was scheming to see if he could trick the tooth fairy into giving him more money by putting pictures of teeth under his pillow. His cleverness was admired, but he was cautioned that the tooth fairy might not be amused by being tricked… Ultimately, he decided it wasn’t worth risking the next $19 in semi-guaranteed funds on a get-rich-quick scheme.

The first photo, by the way, is Daniel’s official kindergarten picture. We got extras to share. The original has nicer colors than this scan, and if you’re reading this, you’re most likely going to be getting a copy in the mail anyway, so I wouldn’t bother trying to print it.

It’s another evening of multiple blog postings. Next up – a set of video that I’ve really been wanting to share.

Love, ADRE.