The Last Weeks of Summer

On Monday  I had to pick up the kids from school to take the boys to karate. I was a bit late because Grayson was throwing a tantrum about putting his shoes on when it was time to leave. Anyway, all three kids were sitting outside waiting for me with the school counselor. I unlocked the door to let them get in and the teacher walked up to me motioning for me to roll the window down. She was all smiles and told me  how much she loved all my kids, and again, how respectful and kind all three of them are. They are always the first ones to volunteer to help her get things set up or hold the door open for people, or to say a kind word. She told me I was doing a great job of raising them. Hearing that I have good kids (which I already know I do) from other people makes me so proud of them. It makes me feel better about myself as their mom. I love it when other adults let me know how awesome my kids are!

 I have been cleaning out the boys' rooms over the last several weeks. As I was going through some of their stuff I looked at a few papers to know if they needed to be thrown away or not. In a pile of Zander's things I went through a yearbook page from last year that had everyone's signatures on it from 3rd grade. I was really impressed because he had teachers write notes on his paper and everyone one of them said how much they will miss Zander because he is so nice and helpful and respectful. 

 I found these two pages in a book Lucas wrote from 2nd grade last year. He really is cool and handsome, haha! We love Lucas. 

One night while Stephen was out of town things got a little crazy in the house. There was some yelling and kids not wanting to do what they needed to do, but then it really turned into a circus after dinner. It was one thing after the other. All three boys were doing things that just made everyone laugh and have a good time. It started with Lucas losing his second top tooth so that he couldn't make the "S" sound when he spoke, then we noticed that Zander's scrape on his belly looked like the sign from Star Trek. He took a shower and came out the bathroom looking like Donald Trump, and the icing on the cake was when I went downstairs to get Grayson ready for bed and he was already naked playing in Hannah's jewelry and asking me how pretty he looked.

One the very last night of summer Zander begged to sleep in a tent in the back yard because he didn't get to do much camping this year. I warned him it was going to be cold at night dipping into the low 40s but he didn't mind. So he and Lucas literally soaked up the last few hours of summer for this year, and they had a great time. Neither of them got up to come inside because it was too cold. They enjoyed each other's company. Meanwhile Hannah and Grayson got to have a sleepout in the living room and stay up watching a movie.