First Day of Kindergarten

I am happy to report that Tropical Storm Fay bypassed my area and we had only to endure a very rainy day. Henceforth, I am able to share with you the girls first day of kindergarten (minus N. since she was sick).

Here they are in front of their classroom in their uniforms. N. was very disappointed that she couldn't go and told her teacher she was so excited to "enter kindergarten". When we picked E. and A. up that afternoon she proceeded to tell N. how much more fun they had than her. Nice.


E. and A. in their assigned seat. I am so happy that all three are in the same class! Many of you may know that it has been my plan to homeschool my girls, and for that reason it was very difficult for me to deal with them being in public school this year. It is still my intent to begin homeschooling next year, but after meeting their teacher I felt enormously relieved about them being there this year. They had a great first day and N. is so excited about starting tomorrow. I wish all of you out there with school-age children, homeschooled, public schooled, or private schooled, a wonderful year!

I would love to hear about some of your schooling choices/issues/wishes/experiences!

Zeke Plays Dress-Up

Grandma C. bought my girls some lovely silky scarves for their birthdays. These scarves unleashed a hidden desire deep within Zeke's bosom (do dogs have bosoms?) to be dressed like a Russian grandma. Think I jest? Here is photographic evidence. Shortly after this he made us all some Borscht and read some Bulgakov. He always has had great taste in fiction.

August Birthdaypalooza

All three girls have birthdays in August so we do a little thing I like to call the consolidated birthday party. This year they wanted an under the sea party. I had real starfish (carcasses) for the partygoers to take with them and fun little sea creature crafts planned. Unfortunately, 2 out of 3 girls had fevers and it ended up just being our family, my grandma, mother-in-law and a brief visit from my friend and her grandson (Hi Julie!). There were still presents and cake so the girls were still happy. So without further ado I present to you pictures from the birthday and preparation of the cake. Marvel in its splendor (possible overstatement there but my grandma (bakery dept. veteran) said the writing looked nice).

Part One: The Cake

Mmmm....chocolicious. I made this cake into a 4-layer cake filled with raspberry sauce. If you have never had the pleasure of straining a pot of raspberry sauce through a fine mesh sieve, you are missing out my friend. Good times. I have to tell you, in all honesty, that I could have drank this stuff from a mug.



I made a swiss buttercream icing that looked pretty but tasted, well, like butter. I was having lighting issues so it may not be apparent that the icing was light blue. The shells are candies I made from Wilton candy disks and mold I picked up from Michaels. Making those was actually more fun that I anticipated. My favorite part of the cake itself was the icing bubbles coming up from the Swedish fish.



















Part Two: The Party


We found the now-traditional birthday hats at Disney a few years ago. Cute, huh? The girls had a great time opening gifts. They received so many nice things!