first day of school

Seems like forever ago! We were all so nervous about Clara venturing out to try traditional school this year... but here we are, halfway through first term with a really good mid-term report and girl who loves to go to school every morning.

The traditional first day photo...
... the shoeless one is staying home again this year :-)

You know they can only be serious for so long...

Sadly, they tried this the other way around and it didn't work out....
So excited....
Joining the other neighborhood families on the walk to school....
Lining up outside...
I know her eyes are shut... but it's the only photo I took before I got the "mom, you're embarrassing me" look...
Okay.... still waiting for the boy to get up! He is in a show right now and didn't get home until after 11:00 last night.... I think he deserves to sleep in a bit.

decisions, decisions....

I have finally made a decision... I am not going to password protect my blog. I agonized over this for quite a while and it was finally Jeff who was the voice of reason. :-)

What prompted this whole thing was nothing scary.... just a person who voiced a strong opinion as to how we are raising our kids (mainly our decision to let Clara try school this year). My first instinct was to shut everything down and keep everything to ourselves... people can't form opinions if they don't know what we're up to, right? But I got to thinking... why would I do that? We're proud of our decision to let our daughter have a say in her education. We didn't enter it lightly, but only after hours of family discussion. And most of all.... this was a decision we made for OUR family for this particular child. I'm not projecting my opinions or past experiences on anyone else.... I know every family, every child and every situation is different. Heck... when it comes to school, my two are as different as night and day. What works for Alex does not work for Clara and the opposite is true as well. For me to let someone's opinion get to me would imply that they know my child, my family and my situation better than I do... and given that I live this 24/7, I highly doubt that. :-)

So... enough of that.... moving on.... let the posting resume!!

the last non-password protected post...

I'm so excited to find out that I still have some readers out there! I will hopefully get the password set up by the end of the weekend once I make sure I have contact info for all of you so I can send you the password.

So... in the meantime, for your entertainment, I give you Clara on the first day with her new expander...



This was from back in July and, yes, she did ask me to record her (and post the video). She cracks me up!

changes....

Hi everyone (if there still is anyone out there reading this!)....

I know I haven't posted much lately, but part of that has been due to me rethinking the whole public blog thing and the other part is that I've been sucked into the world of facebook :-) I am currently thinking about password protecting my blog so I can continue to keep in touch with non-facebook friends. If you would like the password, please let me know either by posting a comment or sending me an email via the link on the right.... or find me on facebook!

I'll leave this up for a bit and then set it up with the password!

sew proud

How's that for a cheesy title? :-)

Last week Clara did a Project Runway inspired sewing camp. The girls got to design and make their own dresses. On the first day of camp, they took a walk around the neighborhood to find inspiration for their dress. Clara was inspired by a "beware of dog" sign to make a dog dress. They worked on their creations all week and at the end of the week, they invited the parents in for a fashion show. I didn't take any photos of the fashion show, but I did video it. However, I'm a huge dork and once again forgot that I can't turn the camera sideways when filming so I shot the entire thing sideways... sigh. Is there a way to flip video?

Clara loves the dress she made... she wore it the whole rest of the day on Friday and decided to wear it again yesterday. While she had it on, we went outside for a little mini-photo shoot.

So, here she is.... Clara in her Dog Dress...

From the back....
Sad, puppy dog eyes to go with the puppy dog face on her dress....
Showing off the dog face and paw print appliques she made....
Clara love, love, loved the camp and is dying to take more classes/camps there so she can learn to make more complicated pieces!

kamp '10

The kids had a great time again this year at kamp. In fact, they had such a good time that we have already signed them up for next year!

On parents' night we went (along with my parents) to see the kids. That night they usually have the cabin award ceremonies.

Here's Clara in front of her cabin...
and Clara at her awards ceremony...
... she received the friendship award.

Then we booked over to the boy's side for Alex's cabin awards....
.... Alex received the heart award and...

along with one of his cabin-mates...
... receive the Starburst award.

It was HOT and I was so distracted with hugging my kids, listening to their stories and meeting their friends that I took very few photos. That night after we watched the camp movie from that term, Jeff and I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before camp awards and camper pick-up the next day.

Here are the kiddos on their last day at camp...
At the girls' awards, Clara got an award for swim activity.....
... and runner-up for honor tripper for her trip (Wilderness, I think)....
(she's hard to see... but that's the side of her face next to the girl in the white shirt)

Then it was time to say good-bye :-(

Clara with one of her counselors....
(she was also one of her counselors last year... which made going to camp for a month, so much easier)

And Clara with her other counselor....
We are so fortunate that they are able to attend this camp every summer. It truly is an amazing place filled with amazing people. Both kids have already gotten letters and emails from their friends from camp.... they're already making plans for next year. :-)

The City Museum

I've been a very bad blogger and have a TON of photos to post from the last month or so.... so let's get started with our trip to the City Museum in St. Louis on Memorial Day.

I had shown Alex the website, so this museum was on his "must see" list for our little weekend trip.

Since it looked like rain that day, we started with all of the outside stuff first.... MonstroCity...
It was absolutely amazing! I didn't get any good wide shots of the place, but search City Museum St. Louis in Google Images and you'll see some cool shots of just how big and fun this place is.

Alex really had to work on conquering his fear of heights.... :-)

After playing a while in MonstroCity, we decided to head up to the roof before it started to rain.

The kids had fun going across the stepping stones...
I got brave and joined Clara in the bus that sticks out over the side of the roof....
(click on this link to see photos of the bus and how it truly does hang out over the side)

We didn't stay in too long....
Clara then went off in search of Alex...
She found him in the dome... and they both came climbing down the inside...


Then we went inside and down to the first floor....
Where the kids found the roller slide....

And found crazy coiled tubes to climb through....
Then we went up to the third (?) floor to the skate-less park....
.. where the world's largest pencil resides....
Once Clara finally made it to the top of one of the ramps....
.... she loved sliding down....
Alex tried it too...

Next we went to see the model trains. The kids went through the tunnels to get a better view...
And in the Museum of Mirth, Mystery and Mayhem... we found Jeff's twin....
... well, not as much so now... but when we first met, his hair had a bit of a "Big Boy" flip to it :-)

We then went into the Elmslie and Sullivan section and the Renovated Architecture Hall....




And then I turned around and realized that I was alone and had to go off searching for my family!

I found Alex and Clara climbing down to the second floor, from the third floor...

Then it was back down to the main floor so Jeff and the kids could climb through the caves so then could go down the 10 story slide (or is it a 7 story slide? I can't find that info on their site, and I've heard people say both).

The view from where I sat and waited ....

I'm not sure why I stopped posting while the kids were away at camp! I have a ton of photos to post.... I have still been keeping up with my photo of the day BUT it's been so long since I took them all, it's daunting to try to figure out which photos were taken on which day since I used multiple cameras. I just need to sit down and do it!