Our first "real" week

Well, we have lived through our first "real" week here-Josh started work and Nathan started school and things went great!

Nathan started school Tuesday and I don't know if I have every seen him so happy. He just loves it. He comes out of school each day in such a good mood. He has found friends, loves his teacher and is enjoying learning. I am a little concerned that he may be talking too much in class or something. I hope that he is behaving well. I keep reminding him of all the rules-I just hope he is being a good boy. When he gets out he has just been so sweet to Jack and so happy. I think not being together all day is really helping their relationship. Here is Nathan on his first day:
We drop Nathan off at school at about 8:00. That means we have to be out of the house by about 7:50 and not only that, but we have to actually walk Nathan onto the playground and stay there until he lines up and walks to class, so we have to be presentable. This has been no small task to get myself dressed and presentable, Nathan totally ready for school, and Jack and Dallen dressed and hopefully fed before we head out the door. Two days have gone well so far, two days could have been better. I am finding that I like being ready that early in the morning though. Usually we come back to the house right after dropping Nathan off so I can eat breakfast, make beds or whatever, but then we are ready for the day and can head out right away if we have errands or do something fun around the house if we have nothing else going on.

Oh and here is the cake I made to celebrate Nathan's first day of Kindergarten. Made me feel like a pretty cool mom. I always wanted a cake like this when I was a kid and I can't even remember if my mom ever made me one. I know she made me lots of other cool cakes but wouldn't you know all I remember is wishing for a school bus cake?

Jack and I have started doing our preschool-Letter of the Week. We did the letter A last week and had a lot of fun. More than anything this just give Jack a chance to feel like he is doing something special too because he is a little jealous that Nathan gets to go to school and he doesn't and it gives me incentive to plan fun activities for me and Jack to do together. For the letter at we cut out pictures of animals, went on an A scavenger hunt, did apple stamping and practiced writing the letter A. Jack is waiting for the letter D though because he remembers when I did this with Nathan and knows we made doughnuts that week. Jack has been in such a good mood since we got to San Diego. For the past two months he has been hard to deal with-throwing tantrums left and right-just grouchy all day everyday. But all of a sudden he is a sweet and fun three year old. Still opinionated and stubborn-he will always be that way and I sort of love that about him (ahem since I sort of know where he got that) but just fun to be around and cute.

After school we pick Nathan up (at 2:30) and since it is always beautiful weather, we stay after and let the boys play on the school playground. The nice thing about this is that I have found a few friends on the playground for myself. One mom has a boy in Nathan's class that he is friends with and then she also has a three year old boy and a baby girl. She and I have sat and talked after school while our kids played a couple of times. She seems like a really great person with similar standards and things so that has been nice. Also we have met two neighbors who have kids in kindergarten as well. One of them lives just two doors down and has a boy in Nathan's class. So that has been nice.

Yesterday we went to the beach again and had a really nice time. We didn't get there until about 4 pm and found that it was packed with people but it ended up being fine. Jack actually got in the water this time and had a blast with Nathan riding the waves. They also built a big sandcastle with daddy and had a great time. Dallen was a challenge there because he is starting to get around and to know what he wants. He wanted the sand and he wanted it in his mouth and if we put him down on a towel he was able to get there. Yes, he did manage to get a mouthful of sand at one point. (Sorry Pam-I know you are going to have a hard time reading that!)

Josh bought a used baby grand piano this week (with money we had specifically for that). He has been sitting here playing beautiful music while I type and it is really nice. It feels fitting for him because music is a big hobby of his and he hasn't been able to enjoy it for many years because we haven't had a piano and because he can't play his trumpet a lot of the time because it is too loud when people are sleeping or because he is worried about the neighbors hearing it. So I am happy that he has this piano now.