Kindergarten!

I've clearly lost a lot of steam when it comes to writing on this little old piece of the interwebs.  I've lost a lot of steam period!  I'm now almost to 36 weeks and I have some backtracking to do here to try to catch up.

On August 7th, our sweet girl started Kindergarten!

The cute clothes stay in the closet and the uniform is now our daily staple.  I can't say I'm thrilled over that, but it does make getting ready each morning a bit more simple.

As expected, G hit the floor running that morning and not a tear was shed.

By her.

I cried all of the way to school.  

I'm thrilled and proud of her confidence, and her willingness to just push ahead, despite being nervous.

She was greeted by our priest, Father Steve, on the first morning.

She quickly hung up her belongings as #12 in the class, 

and got right to work puzzling.

Roughly one month in, she has not lost her enthusiasm.  Every day is reported to be the "best day ever!"  She loves her specials classes, eating lunch in the cafeteria, and computer time.  She has fully embraced her catholic education, and we have dubbed her our resident Mother Theresa.  She attends mass every Wednesday with her classmates and now knows lots of prayers.  She asks us tons of questions about God and Jesus, and I'm worrying that my once a week Sunday school learning will soon be rendered obsolete in keeping up with my little theologian.  They have religion daily, so she may surpass me soon!

It has been fascinating to watch her soak it all up.  

We participated in what was likely our final swim of the summer with Robby about two weeks ago.  

They continue to just adore each other, while Robby mostly ignores his Aunt Bee or responds effusively with "no" to every request/attempt of communication that I make.  

Sweet T turned 42 on the 28th of August so we celebrated with his parents and Aunt Shirley in Owensboro.  

G continues to sit next to Shirl for extended periods of time to receive "creepy mouse" attention.  Shirl scratched her arms and legs with her fingernails and G practically falls asleep.  Shirl did this with Trinity his whole childhood and he always said Shirley could relax and soothe him so easily.

Shirl time is like taking a xanax only without the fear of addiction! 

Her sister Patsy proves to be quite the opposite.  Abby is as highly energetic as ever.  She flitted around making sure everyone was set with food!  Our social butterfly loves a soiree!

The candles were finally lit, and we sang to our birthday boy.  

On Sunday G got her birthday gifts from Shirley.  

We had a great visit as usual.

September has flown by so far and G's birthday is coming up on the 14th.  

I'm 3 1/2 weeks out from Lady J's birth!

I'm going to try to keep up a bit better.  We'll see if I succeed with that.  I'm usually sleeping, teaching, or peeing these days!

Science and Swimming

Genevieve's summer adventures continued with a week at Camp Invention. It is a camp that focuses on science, technology, and math.  My school hosts it every summer, and it is open to incoming kindergartners.  I wasn't sure if she would be into it, but our repeated readings of Ada Twist, Scientist and Rosie Revere, Engineer clearly have inspired her.  

I'm all about the fairy tale princess fun, but I like to balance out that nonsense with violin lessons and math. She had a ball and could not wait to go each day to work on her robotics and engineering skills.  

At the end of the week we traveled for a weekend in Jasper with Kate and Megan.  Dr. Megan lives in Jasper with her husband and 3 kiddos.  Kate and I made this trip 2 summers ago, but since then we have added 2 children to the mix and a rather large Betsy bump.  

Genevieve and Eloise had a ball with their Bitty Babies.

We spent one afternoon swimming.  G has officially become super comfortable in the water and is like a little fish.  We lined up all of the kiddos.

Meg's kids:

Nolan going into 1st grade

Molly going into 4th grade

Mac- going into whatever he can get into:)  2 1/2 years old

Kate's babes:

Eloise-just turned 3 in May

Annabel-turns 1 year this month

We lined them up and it started out fine-

Then G somehow got sunscreen in her eyes, and the screaming commenced.

This distraction undoubtedly caused a piper to go down.

I repeat, a piper is down.

Poor Annabel.

They dropped her like a bad habit!

Due to recent rains, we had a delay in removing the pool cover.  The children entertained themselves by eating copious amounts of potato chips.  

During our two night stay Megan and Ryan cooked up a storm for us, and the kids had a ball.  We didn't really leave their house.  It was like summer camp.

Kate and I stopped for lunch in Indy before she headed back to Chicago.

Her sweet baby finally got to play with the stroller that her sister and my child refused to share with her all weekend.  

After such a fun weekend we kept the fun rolling with a trip to the historic  Artcraft Theatre in Franklin to see Snoopy, Come Home.  They show kids' movies on Tuesday mornings and it was on our summer list of fun.

G loved the movie, the theatre, and the popcorn.

We packed up and went to Terre Haute for two nights.  

Courtney was in town from California for her cousin's wedding.  As usual, G & C got along beautifully.  Only Courtney could get her in the pond.   I don't love a pond.  Teri was there to help out too.  

Court gave her a push to keep her motivated.  

I stood at the end of the dock, taking pictures and sweating my socks off.  Being 26 weeks pregnant in July blows.  

It was a great visit home.  

Summer So Far

During our first full week of summer we had our 20 week anatomy scan.  We brought G with us, as I thought she would be fascinated.  She was totally into it for the first 5 minutes of the 45 minute ultrasound appointment.  The rest of the time she whined and told the ultrasound lady she was bored.  I fear this may be her outlook on her new sister in general.

Sister is perfect and we could not be happier!  We are still pondering a name, and I'm finding Genevieve is a tough act to follow, in more ways than one.  

G was excited to show off her pictures, once she found out the ladies at the front desk dispensed stickers for good little siblings!

We dropped about $50 in about an hour at our church festival.  Nothing says "summer" like slightly questionable carnival rides.  Genevieve and her friend Elena had a ball.  

We had a beautiful pool playdate with our 2nd place state track meet finishers, Ali and Lexi.  They represented 1/2 of the relay team that took second place.  These girls are fast and they are only freshmen!  

G and Lydia supported them by eating cake.

G and I just finished two weeks of summer school.  I taught incoming first graders daily from 7:30-12:30. My amazing school administrators allowed me to bring my child to school, even though she will just start Kindergarten in the fall.  She was in bestie Marinda's class and was reunited with her long lost pal, Lun Gel! 

They shared many an adventure together the year before last during G's first year of preschool.  They were perfect playmates because Lun Gel did not speak a word of English, and was all too willing to follow the lead of my very bossy and verbal daughter.  I was relieved that even after Lun Gel acquired more advanced language skills this year in kindergarten, she still liked hanging with G!

We have continued with violin lessons in Broad Ripple and popsicle dates to Nicey Treat.

I turned 39 on the 13th.  

I looked pregnant and tired.

I waited last minute to order my own dang cake and they were no longer taking orders.  The cake we got from Whole Foods was terrible.  Like worse cake ever.  

Boo hiss.  I've ordered a cake for Father's Day, which is really a do over for me.  

Our tiny dancer took to the stage for her 3rd year of reciting.

YaYa came backstage for some pre-show prepping.

Aunt Katie was responsible for hair and makeup.  She used a curling iron on my baby's hair and about a can of hairspray.  That volume lasted until about an hour after the show.  I still sometimes doubt how she can be mine with the smooth and fine texture of her hair.  

Then she makes a face like this and I quickly recall that she is totally my clone.

She danced as a little fish with Ariel for her tap dance, and then gracefully leaped around the stage as a bunny with Bambi.

Caroline and Katie saved the day with their pageantry skills. 

YaYa and Bob supported our little lady.

Dad had cataract surgery and no longer wears glasses.  He has worn glasses his entire life and I'm struggling with this new look.

If he shaves his mustache, game over.

I won't even know he's my dad.

She did great and has asked for another year of dance.  Trinity has agreed to continue as Dance Dad, while I keep up with violin.  

Annual Wellie Time!

We loaded up for our Memorial Day Weekend road trip to see Wellie as a kick off to summer 2018!

We took this nut with us-

Abby traveled in the back with Miss G and provided plenty of entertainment and conversation.  There were a few close calls with Travel Bingo, where I thought they might wrestle over who spied a landmark first, but overall they got along great back there!

Wellie outdid herself again with the tree decorating!

Patsy quickly recalled just how small Wellie is!

The sheer size of the tall pregnant woman in comparison is astounding.

Genevieve insisted on taking Wellie to a Hibachi grill.  She adores the entertainment of the Japanese steakhouse, but not so much the food!  The chefs in Pennsylvania clearly had not received the rigor of training that our local Hibachi chefs endure.

Nonetheless, we had fun and left stuffed!

We spent Saturday visiting and G got some laps in at the pool at the Altoona Courtyard by Marriott.  

We live large, my friends.

We took Aunt Rose, Wellie, and Dina with us to the Meadows, the ice cream spot we frequent while in PA.

Wellie was up for a selfie and some FaceTime with my mom.  

We are already looking forward to our next visit.  Rose bought a new home and Wellie is moving in with her.