Updates - Starting with First day of school

I know, I know - times has gotten away from us. But, after 10 months our baby is finally sleeping through the night. It has taken a lot and had he been our first baby there may not be 4 children. He is awesome and wonderful and the sweestest thing ever belowed by all of us. But the lack of sleep - sheesh!

But we are all sleeping better. And the older kids went off to school. Big ole second and fourth graders. Both have wonderful teachers this year. I love that T, without prompting, pulled out his bow tie for the special day. Love these kids.

Little BB is SO ready for school at almost four but she misses all the cut off dates. In fact, I've been writing letter after letter after letter about our strict state law that does not permit early entrance into kindergarten. The other kids did fine with the cut off date and being older but she's starting to read and we're still two full years away from kindergarten. The teachers and principal at our school say she will have to grade skip but I really don't want that for her. The simpler solution seems to just petition for consideration for early entrance. Alas, it could not be so simple. I've been going around and around with the governor's office and soliciting help from my local state representatives.

Kids are back to their busy activities. S never stopped gymnastics this summer. She trains about 20 hours a week. We're working with her teacher this year about homework in advance. She's also doing taekwondo with her brother and I am teaching her piano. T continue Scouts and taekwondo. They both belt test next week for advancements. Little BB wants to start gymnastics. I thought I could push that off for a while by saying she had to learn to swim first. She did two months of lessons this summer and was swimming. Everyone was blown away by how fast she learned it. I guess that was my first clue she might be different but until the more obvious one of her reading to me when she has not been to pre-school or that I've worked with her (only that we read together - a lot). The older kids had a certified gifted teacher in first grade and she kept hinting about BB especially after she had not one but two imaginary friends. Bonus - they are from Venus.

Work has been crazy busy for both my sweetheart and me. I worked all summer picking up extra days so the other providers could go on vacation. They covered my maternity leave so I felt it was what I needed to do. My husband has been so busy with his work - 60 hours a week. It's tough getting to see each other much especially running kids in opposite directions. Still - we did sneak away for a date for our anniversary (only a month late though). But he is still my most favorite person and a pretty amazing dad.

For now - some photos from first day of school and a couple others. I will try to retroactively post but for now at least I'm back in the game - pending our baby W keeps on sleeping.

Photos: last day of school and then first day of school, BB playing "chest" - she is actually learning but at this point still just board set up, and W playing with his favorite toy (it had to be an annoying talking car)