First Grade!

Last night before bed I asked Luke what he is most excited about and he said learning what 200 + 200 is.
Me: "You can figure that out - what's two plus two?"
Luke: "Four"
Me: "Okay, so what's two hundred plus two hundred?"
Luke: "Four hundred?!"
Me: "Yes! There, you've already learned something as a first grader."

Then I asked him what he is most worried about and he said remembering his lunch code (he has to punch a 5-digit number into a keypad to pay for his lunch). He practiced the number briefly before we read at bedtime. I told him I bet he already has it memorized but he didn't think so and started to take the piece of paper out of his pocket with the number written on it. I stopped him and asked him to tell me the number - and he did. Then he said he'll probably forget it while he sleeps and I suggested he repeat the number over and over as he's falling asleep and then he'll know it in the morning. As I was leaving his room I heard him whispering it and then first thing after coming out of his room this morning he told me the number!

We had the smoothest morning EVER today. Both kids were in a great mood, ate a good breakfast and Audrey even got herself dressed with us only asking once. Crazy. I wish every morning were like this! We got to the school and took pictures by the sign, just like last year. I love the picture of the two of them. Hopefully the rest of his day goes just as well as the morning.

A Desk, A Caterpillar, & A New Bike

Only 1 more day until school starts! We met Luke's teacher tonight, Miss K, who is in her second year of teaching and she seems really nice. In First Grade Luke will have a DESK!! In kindergarten he shared a table with five other classmates. He was in the same kindergarten class with about half of his new classmates and is excited that he will know a lot of kids in his new class. We are in the process of filling out a survey about Luke for Miss K and one of the questions is use 5 words to describe Luke's personality. So far we have creative, friendly, and curious... any suggestions for 2 more descriptive words?

Luke wants me to tell you that he is "Really excited!" & "Happy to be starting First Grade!" :-D

In other news... this week we discovered a caterpillar on our new milkweed plant. Luke ran inside and got one of his books, "Discovering Insects & Spiders" because he remembered seeing the same caterpillar in the book. Sure enough the cateripllar is in the book and it's a monarch! It has eaten 1 and a 1/2 milkweed pods, which we aren't thrilled about, but for two days it has stayed on the plant. We really hope it decides to stick around, make a crysalis, and turn into a beautiful butterfly!

In an unfortunate incident this week between the Jeep and Audrey's big wheel, the big wheel did not survive. Therefore we had to buy a new bike and in my haste I picked a tricycle for 1 1/2-3 year olds and took the tags off before Audrey sat on it. Luckily her knees don't hit the handle bars but she will probably graduate to the big bike with training wheels next spring. She loves her new bike, though, and can pedal better than on her big wheel!

Spa Night

Luke is spending a few days with Grandma & Grandpa T before he goes back to school next week. He has recently become interested in golf because we gave Ben a practice putting green and Luke thinks it's really cool and fun to putt with Dad. Grandma & Grandpa took him to a mini-golf course last night and it sounds like they had a good time, but Luke did get frustrated a few times and kicked the ball instead of using his club!
Since the girls out-numbered the boys in our house, Audrey and I had a spa night - Ben decided to go to the driving range. :-) We whipped up an edible facial mask, the Pumpkin Pudding Facial I found on Health.com here. I figured it would be more fun for Audrey if she could eat it. :-) We had fun mixing it up, then put our hair back and made a nice mesh applying it. Audrey liked squishing it in her hands. Here she is with her hair pulled back - doesn't she look older?! And here you can see she has applied some of the mask.
After getting all the pumpkin off our faces and hair, we painted our toenails. Audrey has been looking forward to this for days! She does well sitting still and only smeared a toe once. :-D All in all it was a fun night for us and we will definitely do it more often!