Car ride from !$%#

Saturday of this weekend was a very busy day. Daddy had a golf tournament in the morning that lasted until almost 1. Mommy also worked in the morning. Lucky for us, Mama came and spent the night and babysat the kids to allow me to golf (thanks SO much, Mama). Next, we had to get Mama back to Lyons by 2:30, then be in Syracuse by 4:00pm for a birthday for Kristin, Brian's wife.

Everything went pretty smoothly and we had a very nice time at the party. The food was great (authentic Syracuse Dinosaur BBQ) and there were lots of parents with kids around Mary Grace and William's age, so the kids played a lot and we got to talk with some other parents.

We packed it up around 8:15 with kids jammies on, fully expecting they would be asleep as soon as we got on the highway for the two hour drive. The fun began as we got on the highway. Both kids were singing very loudly all the songs they knew. ABC, Itsy-Bitsy-Spider, Twinkle-Twinkle, Bingo, Old McDonald, etc. It was really cute to hear them both singing... for about the first 20 minutes.

After about an 45 minutes, Daddy was going insane. So Mommy introduced the kids to the "see who can keep quiet the longest" game. While that brought down the noise level, it didn't induce sleep. William finally fell asleep at about 9:15, but Mary Grace resisted THE WHOLE WAY HOME. At the end of the trip, we observed her shaking her head from side-to-side in a last-ditch effort to stay awake. So 10:15ish, we arrive and put both kids right to bed and so ends our last road trip anywhere... ever...

I'm obviously bluffing, but man.... Sippy cups will be filled with warm milk next time.

Early morning playtime.

This past weekend, Mama was the first out of bed and went to check on William first. To her surprise, he was not in his crib. Checking in Mary Grace's room next, she found both kids playing so nicely in Mary Grace's room.

So William climbed out of his crib and went into his sister's room to play and Mary Grace joined in!

As parents, we definitely welcome this type of situation. :)

Mary Grace's first day of (pre) school!

The day we've been anxiously approaching, Mary Grace's first real time at preschool, has finally come! It's a very gentle introduction to school (I think mostly for the parents). She goes two times a week for about 2 1/2 hours.

Of course, we had to take some pictures before she left. Who do you think looks very excited to be going in these pictures?




This evening, I decided to conduct a little interview.



We've very proud of how well she did on her first day of school and we look forward to the day when she graduates from college, which should be in the next few days according to all my friends with older kids.

Pumon!

We've been listening closely to some of the things the kids have been saying lately. William, when calling someone to go along with him says "pum On" instead of "come on". So, of course, Anne and I have adopted this into our vocabulary...

Mary Grace has been listening to a Sesame Street song CD and her are her words to the second part of I've Been Working On The Railroad:

Pe pi piggly pi oh. Pi pi piggly pi oh. Also, rather than "strumming on the old banjo", it's "scrubbing on the old banjo".

With Mary Grace, we try and try to correct her, but she insists that we're the ones that are wrong.

We had a light agenda this long weekend, culminating in a trip to the zoo today. The kids had a good time, but really enjoyed the wading pool afterwards.

We also went to Seabreeze, the public market and to Mama's house. I got some painting finished, got some wood for the kitchen molding stripped, and canned 14 jars of tomatoes. All in all, not a bad weekend.