We are fully into the swing of school now. Painfully early mornings of seminary, long days of classes, and late nights of homework and sports activities. Some days it's very hard, but the kids love being with their friends, love playing in the band, and enjoy trying new things. For example, this is the first year that Christian is doing cross country and robotics and he's enjoying both of them very much. He's one of the fastest kids on his team.
Peter has been doing well at preschool too. 2 hours/day on M,W, F. Not too much but enough that hopefully he will make some friends with kids his age. Right now he always seems to prefer ones that are older than him, even if it's only by a few years.
On the first day of school, Benjamin and the rest of the drumline had to be there extra early to welcome in all the kids.
Since then they've both played at multiple games and marching band competitions. Peter is always my buddy at those. Christian loves to come for the football. We've gone from me explaining things to him to now me asking the questions. He's developed quite an interest in the game. Suddenly he knows all the NFL teams and players and stats and constantly wants to watch games in the evenings, when just last year he couldn't have cared less. He's got a great one-handed catch too and will often play football with Peter in the backyard.
Peter's new thing is soccer, though. Every day he wants to put on his cleats and play soccer with me. So I signed him up for a class and he's loving it. Coach Ken is great with the kids. Here he's being "Coach Octopus" and trying to keep them from getting by him. (Peter's in the green shirt).
Other random happenings:
Touch-A-Truck is one of Peter's favorite events every year. This year was no exception. The garbage truck was his first stop. He also loved the race car, the military tank, the helicopter, and the various tractors. What a little boy's dream.
Peter has also been hiking with a local preschool hiking group. It's so adorable to see all these little kids exploring the woods and finding cool things to investigate. His favorite little friend there is Emory, a precocious, brilliant 6 year old homeschooler. She's my fave too. He has good taste.
We attended the state fair again this year. Kelly and I decided that we really need to go without little kids sometime. It wasn't quite what we'd hoped thanks to a tired, somewhat cranky 4 year old. We managed to have a decent time anyway, though, mostly thanks to the lego table and the unlimited free chocolate milk the Guernsey dairy was offering.
Benjamin has yet to attend a single church dance, but Bella has been willing to attend a few. I love that in our ward, the kids go as a huge group and all get along really well. I hope these friendships last a long time.
