Adam was back to school yesterday, after a 3-day weekend (thanks to Labor Day). Can I just tell you how much I love that Adam wears two different socks most of the time? Especially with these Ninja Turtle socks. He always wears the orange/red together and the blue/purple ones together – because he likes to keep them in rainbow order.

This girl is just getting so big.

And these two are nothing but trouble together. Yesterday I caught them sneaking food out of the pantry (twice) and today they made a pile out of pillows and topped it with some (unrolled) toilet paper.

They do play nicely some of the time though. Luke had Maggie hand him each of the buttons and they made this truck together. He was very proud of the final result.

Luke loves watching for the school bus to bring Adam home. I love seeing how excited Luke and Maggie get when they see Adam stepping off of the bus.

It’s going to take us a while to get in to a good routine. The bus drops Adam off at 2:30 and we have to walk to the end of the street to get him. It’s not a long walk, but it’s enough that I can’t stand at the end of the driveway and wait for Adam and I can’t leave Mags and Luke in the house when I go get him. So it’s making naps a challenge for those two.

We’ll get there though.

Adam was off on Wednesday and Thursday.

He was ready to go on Friday though.

There was a free kids’ concert at the mall near our house on Friday. Dave didn’t have to work, so we took Maggie and Luke to see it.

Maggie had two more teeth break through yesterday. They weren’t there in the morning (I checked), but were there before I went to bed. It was not fun for her (or me honestly), but she’s up to 6 teeth now.

I got a checkup from Dr. Adam.

The library had a Lego play event this morning.

Adam and Luke both had a lot of fun building and playing with the other kids.

Luke was pretty pleased with the way he set up all the dinosaurs. “Look Mommy! I made something really cool!”

I ran some errands after our library visit.

I came back to find Maggie rocking some polka dot shorts with her striped shirt.

Dave claims they were the only pair of shorts he could find. He’s lucky Maggie is cute enough to pull that look off.

I’m also lucky because Dave spent a while today cleaning out the inside of the van (Margaret supervised). He took out the seats and car seats and vacuumed everything. He has a little bit to do tomorrow to finish it up, but it looks great.

Maggie, Luke, and I were very excited to wait for Adam’s bus this afternoon.

He had a great time and is bummed that he doesn’t get to go back until Friday (they stagger when the kindergarten kids start). Adam said they read three books, played with play doh, colored pictures, and spent some time on the playground.  He said his favorite part of the day was “looking for the shoes” in one of the books they read.

He said his whole class and his teacher were looking for him after lunchtime. Apparently, he finished his lunch and decided to go back to the room on his own. Crazy kid.

The little kids and I had a special surprise waiting for Adam when he got home. He was pretty pleased with his cookie cake.

Today is Adam’s first day of school – ever. He was ready to go (or maybe just ready to get away from mommy and her camera).

“I think I hear the bus!”

They had parents come in from 8:15-8:45. So Dave went and took a bunch of pictures for me. I wanted to go, but Adam requested Daddy, because I got to take him to his orientation, and “it’s only fair”. It’s probably a good thing, because they might still be trying to kick me out of the classroom if I went.

The kids had to draw a first day of school picture of themselves. Adam drew himself holding an apple, after this photo he added a hot dog to his other hand.

I asked Dave to get a picture with Adam’s teacher too, and am so glad he was able to get this one for me.

I just know Adam is going to have a great time and I am so excited for him and all the adventures he will have. I’m still counting down the minutes until the bus brings him back home at 2:30 though. PS – Dad, did you see we got a new gate?

One of my new favorite things is the gate that Dave and Rob built for our massive back deck. I love the deck and it’s so nice to have a way to contain the kids when we are out there. It’s sturdy enough for them to lean on it, yet light enough for me to easily unhook it and move it if I need/want to.

I love that they can play out there while get lunch ready or run in the house to change Maggie, and I don’t have to worry about them escaping.

While running errands after Adam’s photos, we drove past a back-to-school celebration at a local church. It wasn’t for our school, or our church, or even our religion, but we stopped anyway (Dave did double check that it was open to the public).

Adam and Luke both loved the firetruck. Adam talked to one of the firemen for a while and told him that he was “pretty sure” he could drive the truck.

The bounce houses were why we stopped. They had four or five. Luke spotted them as we drove by and said, “Luke go play?” They also had a bunch of carnival type games and the boys got a piece of candy for each one they did.

There was a man making balloon animals (or airplanes in Adam’s case) as well.

It was an unexpectedly fun way to spend some time tonight. Adam has already asked if we can go back next time.

Adam had his 5 year portraits this afternoon.

I was so proud of the Lego sign I made during rest time today. When I asked Adam if he liked it, he told me, “Not really. It’s sort of terrible.” Everyone’s a critic.

Later, when the photographer asked him if he could pretend to be building the sign, he asked if he could really take two bricks off, so he could fix it.

He did a great job listening to the photographer and doing what he was told. I wish I would have had her take a couple of pictures without the props. I mean, who needs that plain boring #5 when you have one made out of legos?

Last night, at 11:55, I snuck in to the boys’ room and snapped this picture of Adam. It’s the last photo taken of him as a 4-year-old. I still can’t figure out how he got to be so old.

The birthday boy got to pick the meals and agenda for the day. He started with a blueberry waffle with peanut butter on top, sausage, and chocolate milk.

Then he moved on to coloring and cartoons, with some legos thrown in for good measure.

Then we took a trip to the playground.

For dinner, the birthday boy asked to go to Chick-fil-a. He loves that they have a playground inside. Afterwards we went to a couple of stores so that he could spend some birthday money that was burning a hole in his pocket. We also picked up some cupcakes for dessert.

I am looking forward to seeing what fun 5 brings.

I took Adam to an event at the library tonight. It was for kids aged 4 to 12 and consisted of science experiments and activities that explored light and color.

The first question she asked the group was if anyone could tell her the three primary colors. Adam’s hand shot up immediately and he was thrilled when she picked him to answer (correctly of course).

After the three main experiments were complete, the kids were given a checklist of activities to complete. Adam had to do a color-by-number worksheet, read a book about colors, make a collage, and do a couple of different observations on his own (with some help from mommy).

After he checked each item off of his list, he was given a kaleidoscope, a glow in the dark star, and a test tube (for at home experiments) as a reward.

Then we checked out some books to take with us. Adam has his own library card now and loves picking out his own books.

We had to read this one as soon as we got home (it was pretty funny).

Everyone loves the Hot Dog Song.