Keeley is off to Kindergarten and absolutley loves it.  She loves taking the bus to school, and has tons of stories to tell us when she comes home (including what her beau "Jack" is wearing each day).  We couldn't have hoped for a better transition to school.  Clothes and what to wear to school is a big issue, she always wants to wear a dress, no more "play clothes" for her...She likes to model her outfits in the morning (as you can see from our pics...). Packing lunch for her lunchbox is a challenge and job in itself, two snacks, lunch, two drinks. Trying to be creative with food and with the daily note she likes in her lunchbox is time consuming and it's only the second week.   She has a couple thermos's - Nana's mini meatballs and Italian bread and butter are one of her favorites, along with a thermos of white rice or buttered pasta.  Sandwiches always come home with little more than one bite out of them (even the fluff sandwiches, which Daddy's calls "candy sandwiches")...Soccer started up again last weekend, after a rain out the first week. She's on an all girl's team this year, as opposed to last year when the teams were coed.  She scored three goals at her first game and is an awesome player.  At this age, some of the kids wait around for the ball to come to them, but she's really agressive (in a good way) and goes after and follows the ball.  Of course with Daddy as the coach, she needs to doubley impress!

Kaelin and Aidan have been continuing to enjoy their first weeks of school and have been learning a lot about the Earth.  They also take yoga class - "Lotus Children". It's taking a bit for Aidan to get use to the concept, and for some reason he has this thing where he doesn't like the word "yoga", he'd rather call it yogurt class :-)  and whether it's because he's a boy, or just three, he sometimes has a hard time sitting in a pose for too long.  They are really thriving at their new school. What an adventure it is every day. This past week they learned a lot about the Earth and continents, they learned about how everything made of wood was once part of tree (pencils, paper, chairs, tables) and about all the food that comes from trees.  They also were taught about recyling and have been making an effort to use both sides of the paper when coloring, asking not to use paper napkins, but rather cloth. Kaelin was very interested in learning about the cosmic nesting boxes that go from largest to smallest and are carved with the Milky Way, Solar System, Earth, North America, United States, Massachusetts, Mansfield, and then their very own school!

Somehow duiring the past week or so Keeley, Kaelin and Aidan have all decided to cut their hair on their own.  Scissors have never been an issue in the house before, all of them are great with them and super safe, but we don't particularly appreciate seeing locks of blond hair on the playroom floor. With no one admitting to who did what and us having to match up the locks with heads to see what shade of blond it is and where the hair came from!

Kaelin has animals on her mind day and night and still wants to work on a farm when she grows up. Daddy was talking to Aidan the other day and when he was holding a sharp object said "You better be careful or you'll poke your eye out".  Kaelin heard that and said, "if I got my eye poked out, then I could get a dog".  I hope she doesn't take drastic measures...

With Keeley in school full days and Aidan and Kaelin in preschool from 12:30-3:30pm, and Ainsley napping from 1-3pm, you can hear a pin drop at the house for a full two hours each day.  It's sort of eery!!  It's almost an empty nest feeling and kind of sad! Then we snap into reality again when all heck breaks loose from 5-7pm each day and the world feels like it's going to explode from chaos with the doorbell chiming, phones ringing off the hook, conference calls, urgent emails, fedex trucks, and somewhere in there a dinner being cooked (or microwaved as the case may be....gotta love those steam fresh frozen vegetables)!

We went to Septemberfest at St. Mary's last weekend.  The kids (and Mommy) enjoyed way to much fried dough. Aidan especially loved putting his own powdered sugar on his and then blowing it off. He was laughing hysterically over this.  They got to ride ponies and take a little train ride.  We also had our monthly trip to our favorite Mexican restaurant where Ainsley proceeded to eat/drink two bowls of salsa (see picks).  No bellyache afterwards either.  Yum on the fried ice-cream where one serving is big enough for all our six spoons.  Hey, friend dough, fried icecream, are we noticing a very bad trend? It's a good think the little ones get healthy snacks at school where they are getting a taste of real whole foods every day.  They were relucant the first week, but now enjoy such things as soy nut butter (as long as we call it peanut butter...).

House projects the past two weeks consisted of getting rid of our old mailbox and replacing it with a nice new one (the whole family took part in this project from digging the hole for a post to mixing cement) and fixing a septic issue (we think Daddy just likes to dig and Aidan just likes to get dirty, so it was an excuse for them).  The girls stayed away from the septic project.

Quickly catching a news clip, Kaelin and Keeley have decided on their presidential candidates.  Kaelin insisted she likes the "old man with the white hair" (now she calls him John McCain) and Keeley is rooting for Barack Obama (it's so cute to hear her say his name) "because he's African American" (her words).

Ballet for Kaelin and Keeley starts up again this week, so we're pretty much back to a full activity season. Schedules are crazy (example--Wednesday--Keeley schoolbus 8:30am, Kaelin and Aidan to school 12:20, Pick Up Kaelin and Aidan 3:20, rush home across town to meet the school bus for Keeley at 3:35, hope it comes on time because the second she steps off it we need to wisk her away to go back across town to piano and voice lessons at 4pm.  Most afternoons we have little more than 2-3 minutes of leeway on our schedules.

Keeley's end of summer song:
Learned my numbers A, B, C, A, B, C,
Learned my letters 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3,
I can even right my name with ease
Aren't you very proud of me, proud of me,
So long summer, it's been fun,
Kindergarten here I come, here I come!!