Class photo time

It's time for class pictures (see niece Beatrice's adorable picture)! Louis cried too much the first day of class pictures, and even our amazing St. Mark's professional-photographer-parent who did Rosemary's lovely class pictures from last year wasn't able to get him to cooperate. Nor was Rosemary, who was called in to help try to make him smile. So, we went the make-up session and the photographer asked me to stay. Below was the best I could do -- not crying, but a very stern, suspicious boy (and honestly, it really does look the way he looks a lot of the time, at least with new people!):

His sister didn't help him lighten up much, but it sure is a cute picture:

Rosemary's class picture:


Here's the pictures from Rosemary's class (her closest friends are adorable Stella, Flora, and Esme. Esme really hammed it up this year!):
Louis's class picture:
If you think Louis is scowling above, check out his father's REAL scowl:

Camping!!!

Below is from the "abandoned baby series" (click here for the best one in the series). The photo was taken a few days after daylight savings time, when we were up at FIVE AM and decided to all go on a hike in the greenbelt. The kids had a fun time playing in the dried up Barton Creek.
Below are two pictures of Wilder and Louis, really in their element (taken from our Happy Hikers Greenbelt hike on 11/10/2011). The two are as close as ever, to the point that Louis's teacher tells me that sometimes she has to separate them at circle time because they hug too much. Of course, there is starting to be more pushing and shoving...In fact, the day of the parent-teacher conference I saw Louis from afar push a girl down (and I ran off and pretended I hadn't seen it). His teacher really likes him and basically blamed the other girl when I asked her about it though :-) She said that it's "that time of year" when the kids start hitting each other, but assured me that Louis isn't normally the one to start it. I think that's probably true, he's jealous of his sister but normally more of a clown than a violent-type.
Last weekend for Rosemary's "real" birthday we went camping with Amity, Robert, Albert & Flora. Aren't we brave? The last time we camped Rosemary freaked out and screamed most of the night, along with little Sadie. This time, Rosemary was SO EXCITED that she couldn't sleep for two days before camping, but when we actually got to the campsite, she kept asking when it was time to go to sleep. Basically, the part that seemed most exciting to her was to get to sleep in the cabin with Flora and Albert, so she wanted to go to sleep at 1 in the afternoon. After a little afternoon hike, some practice fishing (poor James really wanted to do serious fishing but was patient enough with the kids to let them practice casting), a spectacular smoked pork meal and great wine, sleep we did! Louis slept in the big tent with us, and only woke up once or twice in the night and went straight back to sleep. All-in-all, it was a success and the kids had a ball (and so did we). I felt vindicated -- most of our friends told us there were, in no way shape or form, ready to take the kids camping!

By the way, this was coming off the tail end of a "death march" week for James and I -- we (not always together) had gone out FOUR NIGHTS the week prior! I would have never thought it possible, but we did. Most of the outings were obligatory (Fiesta fundraiser at St. Marks and a work dinner for James), but we did have a fun night out to see Druha Truva, a Czech bluegrass band, at UT & eat awesome Mexican-Japanese fusion trailer-food.

Rosemary's Fourth Birthday

As you know by now if you've been reading this blog, Rosemary and Louis are two pretty well-loved kids. But for Rosemary's fourth birthday party, we had a very special treat -- all FOUR grandparents showed up! I don't for the life of me know why I didn't get a picture of the kids with their four grandparents, but I didn't.... guess we'll just have to wait until next time. In any case, not too many kids even HAVE four grandparents, much less have them all come to their birthday party, so it was a pretty special occasion. The first night when Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan showed up Rosemary was so excited that she couldn't sleep.

For her fourth birthday, we had a camping theme. We set up our new NINE person tent in the backyard (really, it is the largest tent I've ever seen...)
Offered up hot dogs to roast over the fire (we made a fire in our fire pit -- not totally sure it was legal given the curren burn ban, but I think it was OK) and baked beans, with nice cheese and wine and olives (Rosemary's very favorite) for the adults + perhaps James's most amazing smoked salmon EVER...
Gave away bandannas filled with mini-marshmallows and hot chocolate mix...
And debuted the brand-new complete (remember this started in December 2010) TREEHOUSE! Its a work of art!

The kids played in the tent... (they each brought a pillow for the pretend campout)...
Aunt Mo made a state-of-the art, unbelievable S'mores cake, which I still can't believe she did so successfully!
And then we had a sing-a-long, led by the charming Gab (our babysitter Kyle's roommate's boyfriend! His first time to perform, ever!), featuring "Eensie Weensie Spider" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad," and other favorites...






The kids roasted hot dogs and marshmallows (Esme below roasted about six or seven hot dogs)...
We had a very multi-generational party with the grandparents, baby sisters (Elianah below is two months old), and several college-age kids (our babysitter and her friends, Maureen and her crew)...

And Nani organized everyone to put their "found object" (each kid was asked to bring a special piece of glass, shell, or rock in lieu of a gift) into our mosiac stepstone we'll put at the bottom of the treefort in lieu of a gift...
Things started to get a little silly as we hung out by the campfire well past everyones' bedtimes...
All-in-all we had a blast. Rosemary was a very charming hostess, telling everyone that she was happy they came as they left, and smiling and laughing and in generally having a great time (only once accidental croquet mallet to the head the whole time -- pretty good with a fire, a treefort, and loads of sharp sticks around!). My friend Amity told me that it was one of the best parties -- kid or adult -- she'd ever been to, which was very nice to hear. And I kinda have to agree...