Drake's 6th b-day & 1st day of school

This is the day Drake turned 6!  It is also the day he began Kindergarten.  He was very excited!  Here he is sporting his glow-in-the dark, chomping when you walk, shark slippers from Aunt Sharon.

 He's licking the batter and wrapped in 2 towels to keep his school clothes clean.  We were making his cake before he heads off to school. He is in 1/2 day kindergarten and goes in the afternoon.  

Here's the boys at the bus stop waiting for Dane to get on.  He's in 2nd grade!

 Bye Dane!

And now Drake's turn to wait for the bus.

 Bye Drake!

 Drake got a crown for his birthday from his teacher.  I also took cup-cakes up to school for him.  I'm sure he made friends easily today:)

It helps that he knows his teacher already; she was Dane's Kindergarten teacher.  

We think Ms. Bailey is great.

 The long walk home...

 I'm sneaking up on them and I'm trying to be stealth-like

 But really, I'm coming off as a stalker taking pictures and listening to what they are discussing

 And finally Drake gets to eat his cake.  He chose 2-tiered heart-shaped.  Chocolate on the inside with white icing.  He even picked his candles that read "Happy 6th Birthday".

 Then the next weekend we had his party at a water park.  This gave us time to hand out invitations to his new peers at school.  

Dane & Drake being goof balls.

 Drake posing with the construction cake...again he chose chocolate with white icing.  

He knows what he likes.

 And he received a little help from his friends.  My only request:

please no spitting while blowing out the candles.

Everyone had a great time and after dinner grandparents came home with us and we topped our sugar highs from the cake and ice cream off with having Chinese food delivered.  Over-all a great week.

Next week...Andy's birthday.

The next week....Dane's birthday.

The next week...Andy's Ironman in Wisconsin.

The next weekend...our 10-YEAR anniversary....Maui Here we come (after his marathon).  

We scheduled our trip around his competitions:)

Fall sports start again - Soccer (Drake) and Flag foot-ball (Dane) have practices starting this Tuesday.  We took the summer off from sports (their request...I did NOT disagree, as it may not ever happen again that we have a summer without practices and games).  But now it's that time again. :)

Last minute summer details

As busy as our summer was (and that was without either boy doing sports) we still somehow found time to relax in our pool, horseback riding, touring the zoo (atleast 10 times in the month of July), a float trip and hitting six flags a bunch of times too.  Here's a summary of the last few weeks before school started.

 Dane & Drake each had programs at the zoo so when one would be in a program I got to spend one-on-one time with the other.

Drake in the Children's zoo

  The sea-lion show

 on the train

The new Sea Lion exhibit; it's pretty spectacular.

 Drake in front of the "bug house"

 Dane petting a nurse shark

 Drake petting a sting ray

Sometimes I just have to kick my self....this is one of those times.  We found some frog eggs in our pool.  So being the mom who likes to take every opportunity to educate, decided we should keep them and grow them into tadpoles, froglets and then frogs.  Similar to what we did last year with the butterflies, but we caught our own this time. 

 So I googled how to care for each stage and we brought them in. They STINK!  Terrible stink, even cleaning them twice a week.  It was gross.  Goodbye frogs, glad to have met you...have a nice life!

But this is still a cute picture of the boys checking out the hatched eggs-tadpoles.  They even put a frog statue on top of the rocks to they would think it was their mom.  "Because everyone needs a mom!"

 We also have six flags passes and we go quite often.  This particular day we met some good friends there and I took a couple pictures.  I got out of riding this ride today because our friends wanted to ride:)

 Drake & Lily carrying on quite a conversation.

A big event this summer was our one and only ER trip.  This time it was Dane...a first for him.  We were at our friend's lake house swimming and jumping off the dock into the lake.  Chloe, our 95 pound puppy, jumped in after him and scratched his face with her claw.

 7 stitches later

 all smiles...thanks to the medicated popsicle they give out:)

 6 days later the stitches are out; we can barely see the scar.  But like Andy says, 

"Scars are cool."  Although now it's been two weeks and it's a faint line.

 Andy saw this little sign at a foster home he was at and sent it to me.  I thought it was a great idea and made one as well.  It has gone over well.  We went several days without any toys left out. 

 Then the basket looked like this (see below) and I got my windows cleaned and floors swept.  They learned their lesson, but I'm not sure if I like not having all that free labor:)

 

 While eating dinner one evening we looked out our dining room window and saw deer at the salt-lick.  It's so peaceful out here.  Love it.

 Random Drake sleeping picture...can never have enough of those.

 I made deviled eggs (Easter Colors) with our neighbor before she left for school.  48 of them!

 My birthday present!  Now I can ride with Andy on this road bike and with our kids on my mountain bike.  I get the bike fitted for me next week and also get to get new shoes and helmet.  Can't wait:)

Next posting:

1st day of Kindergarten (Drake) and 2nd grade (Dane)