Star Wars Siblings

Lately, Jonah has been getting into Star Wars. He has watched both trilogies and absolutely loves them! Jonah was Darth Vader for Halloween when he was 4 years old. So, of course, he's been wearing the costume as his pajamas. He has also been playing with his lightsabers, in case he ever has to fight off any Siths. The other day, he gave Naomi two lightsabers because he knew he could take her with just one. In fact, he told me... "Mommy, I'm a Jedi Knight compared to Sis."

Let's just hope he never turns to the Dark side...

Jonah's First Day of First Grade!

Summer is officially over... yup, it's back to school!

Jonah started first grade last Monday. He was very excited to go back to school. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that Jonah's Kindergarten teacher decided to change grades, becoming his teacher once again. Not only that, his favorite friend from Kindergarten is his class buddy... yes, they sit in two's now in those cute, miniature desks!

It's a wonderful feeling knowing our son is in school all day...and loving it! He's such a big boy now... having 3 recesses (yes, I said 3) and school lunch... we're so proud of him!

The Terrible & Torturous Twos...

Naomi is two! Yup, two!!!

It's shocking to think that our little girl is turning into a toddler. And boy, is she! It's hard to explain how relentless and tiring yet completely adorable she is...

She's learning names... Mommy, Nah-Nah (for Jonah), Papa, Opy, Nana, Tita and Day (for Dave). She's also learning animal sounds. It's pretty cute to hear her sound out what a monkey or rooster says.

She has moved on from the "Wobbler" room at Daycare to the 2-3 year old room. This has been a tough transition... for the Wobbler teachers. They were VERY attached to Naomi... she was their absolute favorite! The other day, one of her old teachers went to visit her and they both ended up crying when she had to leave. She's already breaking hearts at an early age... ugh.

Her biggest challenge these days is keeping up with her brother. Luckily, Jonah is wonderful with her. Of course, there's a constant barrage of teasing, but nothing compares to his love for her. The other day we were driving home from school/daycare and Jonah wanted to finish his leftover lunch. But this of course meant sharing his sandwich and chips with his sister... or maybe he just didn't want to hear her cry and whine for whatever it was he had that she didn't!

Her birthday party was a pool party courtesy of Nana & Dave. It was a great turnout... in fact, it looked like the local community pool since there were, at times, 15 kids in the pool at once! She's our little water baby... having no problem jumping into Ethan's arms from the side of the pool!

She's an amazing little girl... and we feel so blessed.

Chicago Trip

Ethan, Jonah and I were lucky enough to spend a weekend in Chicago, IL with Alan, Heather and Erin. It was a fantastic, yet exhausting weekend. We made the most of our short time there, filling it full of baseball games and sightseeing...

Day One...

We first arrived Friday afternoon and rushed to the hotel to check in. Soon after, we high-stepped it to the nearest train station to rush over to Wrigley Field to catch the Cubs/Cardinals game. Yes, the field is as old and wonderful as imagined. Lucky me, the game went 11 innings. Right after, it was another hustle back to the train station to catch the Red Sox/White Sox game at White Sox Field. This was an evening game filled with hot dogs, lemonade and fireworks. The game finished in the evening... making our trek back to the train station and hotel an exhausting one...

Day Two...

On this day, Saturday, we had an open morning and afternoon before our evening ball game. With this in mind, our goal was to see as much of Chicago as possible. And boy, did we! We started off the day making our trek towards the Sears Tower. This consisted of standing in line for a total of 90+ minutes to enjoy a blissful 30 or so minutes up top. What a view, though! Our next stop was the famous Harry Caray's Italian Steakhouse... named for the late Hall of Fame baseball announcer. Here, we were given the in-house treatment since Alan's wife, Heather, has a cousin that has worked here for 11 years. At this point, the boys wanted to head to the ball field early to catch warm-up/practice, in hopes to get autographs and pictures. Ethan's sister wanted to make a quick visit to the Art Institute of Chicago - and since I was fine with missing practice, I was more than happy to tag along. This was my first visit to an art institute, and with the reminders from security that flash photography is not allowed, it was quite obvious. It was an amazing experience...and I felt so cultured and sophisticated! But this wasn't going to last long since it was time for the trek to the ball field. Another evening game, once again filled with ball field fodder...

Day Three...

We had a small window of time in the morning to do some more sightseeing before our afternoon ball game so our last tourist stop was the famous Field Museum. We were able to meet 'Sue, the T-Rex' and many of her osteal friends. After a couple of hours, it was time to head back to the ball field for game 3 of the Red Sox/White Sox series.

Needless to say, it was an exhilirating and exhausting vacation! Jonah had a wonderful time and, as usual, was quite the trooper. We would love to go back to Chicago to see more of the city and, of course, maybe catch an Oprah taping! But if I never eat another bag of peanuts, nachos, hot dogs or cheeseburgers all in the same day it'll still be too soon! =)

Our elementary school scholar...

It's true, Jonah is finished with Kindergarten... our little boy is going to be a first grader!

It was quite the year for Jonah. First, he started off as a Grant Bulldog in the Murray school district. He had a wonderful teacher, Ms. Danelle Keith - who happened to be a very good friend of his Nana's. He loved being a bulldog and Kinderbug.

But with our lives constantly changing, we had to transfer Jonah to a school that was closer to his Daycare. We picked Howard R. Driggs Elementary. Now Jonah was a Driggs Dragon! He would spend the remainder of the school year at Driggs. It took some adjusting, but luckily, Jonah really enjoys school so it was only a matter of time.

At all of the Parent-Teacher conferences we would attend, his teacher would constantly rave about how brilliant Jonah was. Not only that, he was very polite and compliant... which was music to our ears.

At the end of the year, he would have to do an end of year assessment. This is a scheduled 30 minute test to ensure the child was prepared for first grade. Ethan decided to bring Naomi along to play on the playground to keep him company as he waited. But before Naomi could take another turn on the slide, Jonah came out with his teacher... and it had only been 10 minutes! His teacher said that he was the quickest and got a 100%. She'd also mentioned that she yearned for all of her Kindergartners to be like Jonah!

Please don't stop the music...

Naomi is quite the mover and the shaker. If it's loud, has a beat or has any sense of melody, she'll dance to it... or at least move spasmodically.
She still moves her hands to the telephone ringing and if it really has a beat, she moves her head intently.
She definitely has rhythm... something she gets from the Figuracion's.

Jonah lost his first tooth!

It took some wiggling and squirming, but Jonah finally lost his first tooth. When we asked him how much he thought the Tooth Fairy would bring him, his reply was, "Probably five dollars."

Yikes, how times have changed...

Needless to say, we gave him $2 since the Tooth Fairy always gives more for the first tooth. We told him he'd probably only get $1 for every other one from here on out... that is, if gas prices and inflation stay steady or on the decline.