Our Big Kid

Ethan really enjoyed his first day of Kindergarten. He played on the playground, had a snack, made a craft, and got to visit the library. He said his favorite part of the day was checking out a book. He was definitely exhausted from all that work! Tomorrow he gets to try going to both his old school and his new school- he should sleep well tomorrow night.

Last Ethan and Mama Day before Kindergarten!

Today was our last Tuesday together before Ethan rushes off to be a big kid. We played with his hair this morning, he wanted to make it spiky. After a leisurely breakfast and dancing to Curious George's theme song, we made some bread dough. Then we headed out to Starbucks for a special treat. Ethan actually got TWO special treats- a mini donut and a mini scone. Then we went to the library (along with half of the town) and spent some time choosing books and movies and playing with their toys. When we finished, we came home and made some Lego robots that can serve as decoration for the big birthday party. Or little judging from the responses I've gotten so far. We'll see, I did say Sept. 1st. The fewer kids the less stuff I have to do, but I do hope his "best friends" come. We had a fancy lunch of spaghetti os and bread (guess who chose) and watched the Oliva movie we borrowed from the library. After a brief and noisy "rest" we made some rice krispy treats which we enjoyed on the deck. Then we painted the inside of some empty bottles we're going to use to build Ethan's Robot machine- this is entirely his idea. Perhaps too much Wallace and Grommit? We played with more legos and a few other things before dinner time. I can't believe he goes to school in just two days!

Park

Sunday we headed to the park in Middlebury to enjoy the nice weather. Ethan rode his bike for a little while and then we played on the playground.

Fair

When we got home on Saturday, we found out people were coming to look at our house so while we were evicted we headed to the Terryville Country Fair. We had been to this one before. It's not huge, but it's not tiny. It's the right size for Ethan's size I think. We watched a magician for a while, had a treat, looked at the 4H displays of collections, checked out all the barns, and went for a few rides.

Farm days

Last Friday Ethan had no daycare so I took the day off. We went to the farm to see Gramps. The budding photographer took the opportunity to take lots of pictures. We got to check out the workshop in the barn, lots of hay bails, and go for a few rides in the Ranger. We also visited Uncle Bill and Aunt Jeannie for a while where Ethan took this great photo of Uncle Bill. I'm not sure how great he will think it is :)

Last day of fours

Ethan's last day in the four's room is tomorrow so he wanted to make brownies for his teachers. Don't worry the hot peppers are something James left on the counter, they were not an ingredient. Though I'm sure there are those who would enjoy that. This guy measured and mixed and possibly sampled a chocolate chip. He's decorating the boxes now.

Reptiles!

Thursday Ethan and I went to the zoo. We saw a really neat reptile show featuring an alligator turtle, a giant snake, and an alligator. There were also lots of bees flying around. We stayed almost to the end, then we went to see the river otters and tigers. We had a picnic at the zoo, then went to feed the fish. Unfortuately, there was no fish food! So we came home and then went to the farmer's market where we found a yummy ice cream sandwich.

Snakes

Today Ethan and I said to heck with the chores and headed to the mall for their "kids camp." It was supposed to rain, so I scratched the original zoo plan (maybe we'll do it Thurs.) and went to the indoor zoo instead. They had a magic show, a face painting clown, a giant bouncy slide, and a make a crown craft. Ethan lost interest in the magic pretty fast. We got in line for the clown, and waited what seemed like forever. Ethan chose a snake crawling up his arm and it actually went on pretty fast. Then we headed for the slide line. He went down it twice, and then we made a crown. Two more times down the slide and we headed upstairs. I thought I might use the Williams Sonoma gift card I've had for two years. Instead, we had to make an emergency run to the rest room (someone insisted on not going earlier) which is next to the carousel. So you can guess what happened next. By then it was lunchtime, I thought we might try the cheesecake factory. When we found out it was a 30 minute wait, we decided to come home instead. After lunch and some quiet time, we decided to have s'mores for a snack. Yum! We headed to the post office to pick up a package we missed while we were out, then back home to work on birthday invites and make our favorite dinner of macaroni and cheese with pears for dessert.

Farm Days

We crossed off some of Ethan's summer wish list this weekend. We went to the farm Saturday and camped out. We got to spend a great weekend with Gramps and Uncle Bill, Aunt Jean, Billy and his family. We rode in the ranger, picked berries, hunted for bugs, checked out the workshop in the barn, toasted marshmallows and even had our own wild kingdom adventure. We went in the tent about 9:30 and that was about when the show started. No northern lights or shooting stars but an array of sounds I haven’t been treated to before. There were lots of coyotes, and a few other things I couldn’t identify. I got to sleep and about 5:15 we heard quite a rucus. There was some animal sounded a little ways off making the strangest very loud high pitched sound. Then we could hear running. Sounded like more than one thing running. Not long after we heard something run right by the tent into the tall grass, then we heard whatever was chasing it panting and stiffing around trying to find it. It did not sound small. Maybe we should have set up some recording equipment and made our fortune documenting the Yeti. Or at least someone who knows about these things could have told me what we heard. James and I were just laying there trying not to make a peep. Needless to say it was not the most restful night but you should have seen how big Ethan’s eyes got when James said “Do you want to sleep in a tent?”

Donuts & Silly Pictures

 
Last week the farmer's market was a bit nuts. There were so many people we had to park next door at the fire house. We got our donut and some peaches then sat down to eat it. We went looking for the horse that the governor's horse guard was supposed to bring, but it wasn't there. It was some kind of trick miniature horse. It was supposed to show up at 3:30. We waited till 4:05 and it didn't even get there yet so we gave up. But while we were waiting we sat on a bench listening to "the man with the guitar." I should really teach Ethan his name. We also decided to take some silly pictures of ourselves, which you see at the top.

Fun Night

Last Tuesday there was a "fun night" in Southbury. There was obviously a bounce house which Ethan took a turn in, and there was a band with a big frog. Ethan had a great time dancing and bouncing. He hardly ate his dinner but that didn't stop him from an ice cream at Denmos after. It was fun night after all.

A Horse is a Horse

We saw this horse tethered to a trailer driving down 84. We thought it looked pretty funny so Ethan asked me to take a picture.