Misc old pics

I'm finally cleaning up my pictures folder. Here are a few pictures that didn't get put on our blog but should have.

First, here's Claire on her first day at preschool. She goes three times a week. I think she enjoys it even though she insists she doesn't. She has a couple other cute girls that she plays with, but she's adamant about not playing with any of the boys!












I think Claire took this picture in October. Here's Tim trying to fix his chainsaw (again). After Hurricane Ike he found a lot of trees to help cut down. Finally his little chainsaw gave up and he somehow convinced me to let him buy a new (very expensive) one. Of course since then he's only used it once, and the one time he used it, it broke!









In the fall Tyler played soccer at the Y with his best friend Matty. It was really hard to get to the games and practices since I was really sick, but they had a lot of fun.









And here's a fun Halloween pic. Claire was Dr. Siddiqui (our pediatrician), Tyler was Batman, and Scott was Superman.

Here's Claire's first story:

The Wet Princess
By Claire Chartrand

Once upon a time, there was a princess. Her name was Sleeping Beauty. She was trying to find a house, but she couldn't find one. She had to build one. She didn't know what to do, so she got all the things to build her house. She made a beautiful house, and she wanted to go inside it because it was raining.

The end.

Here's Tyler's first story. I did help him a little with the grammar, but he pretty much made it up on his own in about ten minutes while I wrote down what he said. It's patterned after the series, "If You Give a Moose a Muffin," and has some similarities to it. He shared it with his class, and his teacher also had him share it with a second grade teacher, who (according to Tyler) said it was the best student story she's heard in her three years of teaching. I tried to convince him to draw pictures to go with it, but art just isn't one of his interests. I'm surprised he likes making up stories, since both Tim and I are the opposite! Here goes:

If You Give a Horse a Drink

If you give a horse a drink,
He’ll want some ice to go with it.
The ice will remind him that he wants to play with it.
When he plays with it, he’ll get all wet.
He’ll ask you to get a towel to dry himself off.
The towel will get all wet, so he’ll want to hang it up on a clothesline to dry.
Seeing the clothesline will remind him of a zip cord, and he’ll try it for a zip cord.
He’ll break the clothesline because he hung on it.
He’ll want to go to the store to fix it.
When he feels how chilly it is outside, he’ll ask to borrow a sweater.
When you give him the sweater, he’ll notice that one of the buttons is loose.
You’ll give him a needle and thread.
When you give him the needle, he’ll poke his leg with the needle.
He’ll want you to give him some ice for his leg.
And, chances are, if you give him some ice,
He’ll want a drink to go with it.

1st week of school

Last Monday Tyler started 1st grade! That makes me feel old... He was excited to be with his school friends again--he already knew almost half of the kids in his class. His class is supposed to be above-grade, so hopefully it'll be a good challenge for him. Our neighbor across the street sits right behind him in class--we'll see if the teacher decides to keep them in those seats! We were excited for Tyler, but very sad to have him gone from home. We had a really fun summer with him--he was our nonstop entertainment. Claire's excited to start preschool soon.

Tyler's tooth

Yes, we had a busy week. Tyler finally lost his first tooth! He thought he was eating a rock, and luckily he didn't swallow it. So he got his first visit from the tooth fairy, who gave him 40 cents (which is funny, because I thought she told me she was going to give him 50 cents...).

T-ball Tyler

Tyler and his best buddy Matt are in t-ball together this season. They have practices on Thursdays and games on Saturday mornings. He earned money according to the number of catches and stops he made, practicing at home, and got to buy a real bat! During his most profitable home practice, he caught/stopped 402 balls. Needless to say, he's getting really good at catching and hitting!

Tyler's bday campout

Last weekend was the long-awaited camping trip! Please don't look closely at the rocket cake--it really did look a lot better before transport. Tyler loved his new lantern. Didn't like the bugs so much. All the kids seemed deathly afraid of all the bugs. We had a late dinner, so we had to use our lantern to see, and all the huge beetles were flying onto the table trying to get into our food. And there were daddy longlegs crawling all over the bathroom walls! I guess the kids need more exposure to the "great outdoors."

The next day was fun, though. We made a big breakfast, walked around the lake, rented a john boat for an hour, played tug-of-war, hit the fire truck pinata (I think Tim had the most fun with that), and roasted hot dogs for lunch. Tim was a good sport with everything, he was feeling sick the whole time with a cold.

This weekend Tim is taking Tyler and Scott on the father-son campout, so I'm looking forward to having a fun girls night out with Claire. Claire loves to say, "girls stick together," and "Girl Team!" I think we'll rent a chick flick and eat ice cream, maybe do some shopping...