Such a Slacker

So now that it is the eve of the first day of school I figure I should maybe write a bit about the summer that I have basically neglected. . .

First of all the twins are about to turn two and I can see they are going to be good at it. Jonah has been getting quite comfortable throwing about the classic five finger stop signal along with a crusty look and a firm "No." (Which still sounds a bit like "Nuh") Jonah, I have to say is usually pretty cute about it. But if you want a serious attitude you go to Luke. This kid takes the metaphorical cake for dishing out man sized rejection- A narrow glaring look, lower lip sticking right out there and best of all the elbow. It's like the toddler version of giving someone "the bird." Start at a distance and watch the arm slowly reach across his body untill you have breached his bubble and his elbow is raised fully to his face and shoulder pulled as far from you as he can get it get. He's quite generous about giving people "The Elbow." Pretty much anyone but Mom (Me) can expect to get it on a regular basis. The only cure I have found is to tell him that you are leaving and then he gets all sweet and says bye bye , smiling and waving. What a little stinker! Not for the faint of heart or those lacking in self esteem.

They still like to play together a lot but I think their time is equally spent fighting- maybe more time spent fighting. I have pried open more white knuckled fists full of hair than I care to count. So they may be balding as toddlers (they are ferocious hair-pullers) but they still have a lot of fun together and are crazy- cute albeit sassy little monkeys.

Hiram starts school tomorrow morning. He's starting a new school but is excited despite missing his kindergarten teacher. I'm sure he will have a great time. He was thrilled to see he has a smart board in his class again this year- a rarity in our school district I guess) Really though I can not believe how quickly the summer came to a close but I am sort of looking forward to a change of pace. Just wish it didn't require so much time away from my boy. Such a good kid.

Mark is scheduled to start his MBA next week at CSU (two nights a week for two yrs) and Noah starts preschool the next week at Hiram's Elementary school. He will also be going to our favorite preschool on his free day (Bright Beginnings Preschool- best teacher ever aka Gramma)
but needs to attend his other school for the speech therapist. He's also doing private work with one of our good friends who is absolutely wonderful. (Yes I am plugging for preschool and speech therapists here so let me know if you need one or both :) )

Life for me has been what it usually is- running in circles trying to improve the house, myself, my kids. It's hard to feel like I am getting ahead instead of putting out fires all of the time but I know we are making progress. Actually we put our front yard in (good bye to the lovely field of weeds we've been mowing for the last couple months. Mark built me a beautiful column thingy to cover our sad little pole. It fits the house nicely. He and Hiram and Noah also surprised me with a truck full of flowers and fruit trees that they stopped off to purchase with the last load of mulch. They like to think of ways to make their crazy Mom happy and they do a great job.

We are getting to know our new ward now and enjoying new friends as well as seeing our old favorites. Our congregation is growing so fast there is a constant influx of new families. We must have read in the records of six families today and I know of at least two others who haven't gotten theirs in yet. Every week there are more and more. I assume it should slow down when school starts but I say the more the merrier!

We had a beautiful family wedding last week and got to see a lot of long distance relatives. That was a lot of fun. I got to remember how much I like dancing with my husband- especially when there is a baby sitter! We also went up to Steamboat for about a day and aside for the ride there and back we had some fun. We did a little swimming, a little mini golf, smidgen of biking. But I have to say then most fun was probably putting the kids to bed (duh) and staying up way to late playing canasta- well, winning canasta anyway :).