First Day of School and John's Birthday

I'm going to interrupt my summer vacation posts with a post about the busy couple of days we have had.  Wednesday was John's first day of first grade and it also happened to be his birthday.  When we told him that the two events were in one day he said, "That is the best birthday present anyone could ever give me."  What a cutie.  I hope he loves school this much for a long time.

This is John's friend Mason.  Mason just happens to be our next door neighbor.  John and Mason have been in the same class for two years.  Mason is tall and John is very very short.

 Gus waiting for the bus.  He can't wait until he can ride the bus.  I'm already worried about John and Gus riding the same bus.  How many days do you think it will be before the sweet bus driver will revolt?

 Anders with his buddy Audrey.  Audrey is Mason's sister and therefore is also our neighbor.  She loves Anders.

I believe John was the first one on the bus.  No back to school blues for this kid.

When John got off the bus after school he ran up to me, gave me a kiss, said, "Hi, Mom.  Can I play with my friends?" And that was it.  He was off.  He said school was fun and exciting and not much else.  Later in the evening we celebrated his birthday.  When I asked him a week ago what he wanted for his birthday dinner he said, "a feast."  I asked what he wanted as part of his feast and he said, "Oh, you know...pizza, mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, fries, chicken legs, mashed potatoes..."  I finally had to stop him and tell him that he really needed to pick one main dish.  He ultimately chose pizza, but he wanted the kind we could make ourselves.

 The goofy birthday boy with his Mickey Mouse birthday hat, a Disney birthday button and a special birthday sticker.  

The presents.  These weren't even all of the presents since John got to open the presents from his grandparents before school.

 My grandparents wrapped a little gift for Gus and Anders so they wouldn't feel so left out.  They were much appreciated.

 John has an elaborate cake picked out for his birthday party, but for his actual birthday he simply requested chocolate cake-pops with whipped cream icing.

We also had chocolate peanut butter ice cream in waffle cones.  John was one happy camper.

The day after John's first day of school it was Gus's first day of school!  As excited as he seemed to be about the big day, I thought for sure there would be tears when I dropped him off.  But I was wrong.  He was pretty excited to go.  We actually went to Gus's school to meet the teacher last week.  When we were leaving, we asked Gus if he knew what was going to happen the next time we came to his school and he said, "Yeah, you're going to leave me."  I had to keep telling him we weren't leaving him, just dropping him off.  All the same to him.

Ready to go!

He said I had to show you his cool Spider-man backpack.

His teacher, Mrs. Best, sent a picture home today.  He looks so happy.  What a big boy!

Dinner at the Beach

Andrina had a wonderful idea to have dinner at the beach.  I often don't think about things like that.  Scratch that.  I do think about doing fun things like that and then I think about the mess.  Like eating food covered in sand.  But we had a great time and I'm so glad we went.

 These three quickly ate a bite or two and then ran to the water.

 Hans was waiting for the waves to come rolling in.

There is just something sweet about a picture like this.  You can't see their faces but you know they are smiling and having the time of their life.

 Still not the outdoorsy girl, Machara decided to pose for some pictures instead.  She has the model pose down already.

It was a beautiful evening with a beautiful view.

Painting

What do you do when you visit with two very artistic girls?  You paint of course!  Eva and Machara love anything artsy and you will often find them painting or coloring.  Andrina even has an easel set up in her kitchen with paints that are easily accessible.  I don't think it took long for Andrina to figure out why I have my paints in a locked cabinet.

Beautiful Machara

 The painting started off civilly.  Eva looks like she is sad, but I assure you this was her concentration face.

Aunt Andrina, the art enabler, with the kiddos.  If you notice the paint on John's face...this is where it started to turn messy.

The boys decided to show everyone why we don't paint very often.

Eva thought it looked fun, but decided to paint her face in a girly sort of way.  Meaning it was easy clean-up.  I love how her birdhouse is completely pink.

 Machara opted to keep her artistic designs on her craft and not her face.

 Gus got paint in his mouth.  I'm not sure why he keeps painting so close to his mouth...or his eye.

 Anders just painted everything.

Really.  Everything.  Andrina just laughed and laughed.  Keep laughing, Andrina.  It won't be long before Michael starts to do all of this boy stuff.

Believe it or not, I was so busy hosing off kids that I didn't actually get a picture of their cute birdhouses.  You'll just have to take me at my word that they are cute.  And that the kids actually painted them.