Genevieve is 4!

My sweet and spicy Genevieve turns four years old tomorrow! She's been so very excited about her birthday all summer long. Hers is the last of our four summer birthdays, seven weeks after Aaron's, so it feels like a long wait. But tomorrow is the day and she's so happy. She keeps telling me things that will be different since she's four, mostly things she won't be scared of, like the Harry Potter movies for one. I love how her mind works.

We celebrated her birthday today, with all the food she wanted to eat, plus her requested cake, strawberry with pink icing. My friend posted it on her blog and it is divine. We went to a handy dandy funfest put on by Clemson City and she thought it was all for her birthday. Win! She got lots of great presents from us and her grandparents and when she went to bed tonight she told me it was the best day ever. That's what I like to hear! And we're going to celebrate a bit more tomorrow, so it will keep on being awesome.

My oven isn't level, so everything comes out slightly thicker on one side than the other. Since this was a double decker cake I just strategically put the rounds so the thick and thin parts matched up. Voila!

This is so Genevieve. No clothes on, hair in her face, and so happy about her new gifts. She's a firecracker of a girl and she sure does know how to enjoy life. 

She helped me add on the sprinkles before we blew out the candles. She's not as interested in cooking with me as her brothers, but she comes in sometimes.

So much happiness in this special girl.

Genevieve is a girl of extremes. She feels everything so strongly, so she is so happy, then so sad, then so angry, and whatever other emotion she can feel. I love that she tries to make others feel good. I wish she wasn't so good at setting her brothers off, ha! She loves Chloe with utter abandon. That baby has received thousands of kisses from Genevieve. :)

She's so excited to start preschool. She has to wait about 10 more days, but it's coming up and she's going to love it, I'm absolutely certain. I can't wait to see what this year holds for her. She's going to rock it, whatever it is.

First week of school in the books

Spencer had his first week of school this week and it went awesome!

I can't believe how old he looks in this picture. He is doing so well. He loves everything about kindergarten. 

I took him to school on the first day. I walked him into the gym where the other kids were and sat down with him and asked him if he wanted me to walk him to his classroom. He thought about it for a good long moment and said no. I asked if he was ready for me to go. Another long moment of thought, then yes. Ha! It's like he wasn't nervous at all. Maybe he wasn't. That's not an emotion he feels very often as far as I can tell. I had a much harder time leaving than he did having me go, but no actual tears, just teary thoughts. 

Since then Bill has taken him to school on the way to work and I pick him up in the afternoons. It's working out great. 

I don't have tons more to say about kindergarten except that I knew he would love it and I'm so glad he does. He wants to go back every day and that makes me happy. 

We're reading a ton now. I had gotten out of the habit through Chloe's pregnancy because I was so tired, but we're back on it and have been plowing our way through the Little House on the Prairie books. The kids love it. We're on book two and read a couple or three chapters a day. 

Genevieve starts preschool in 2.5 weeks. She's so excited for that too. We went to a preschool playdate on Wednesday and she had a ball. Her backpack that had been on backorder finally came in and she wore it all day long. It was adorable.

 

Come September 7th when she starts it is going to be really quiet around here in the mornings. I can't wait to see how much she loves it too. I know she will. 

End of the summer

Remember all those articles that come out every year around this time with controversy about parents being too excited for their kids to go back to school and throw guilt around about how we should treasure every moment with them and we're bad parents if we are ready for school to start and get them back into it? I'm sure another round is just waiting to come out in the coming days.

Well guess what? They're utterly ridiculous because kids going back to school is awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. And not just for the parents, but for the kids. So while I'm probably not going to stage a photo of me jumping for joy in the background of my kids' first day of school photo as if I can't wait for them to be gone, well, I can't wait.

This summer has been a total wash. School ended and I went through the last few weeks of my pregnancy, which are always the worst. Then I had Chloe and spent the next month recovering from that. That's mostly past now. But I still only have a seven-week old and her schedule is all over the place. I have three other kids who have decided they need to take all their aggressions of being cooped up and a bit bored more often than not on each other and fight entirely too often. This summer has been horribly hot and humid with very little of the normal breaks for beautiful rainstorms that we usually have. Going outside is pretty torturous most of the time. There aren't a lot of activities to do in our little rural neck of the woods that don't involve swimming, which is really hard to do with just me and all my kids. And let's talk about how most activities are hard to do with me and four kids five and under.

So you know what? I'm really excited for summer to end. I'm excited for Spencer to start kindergarten. He's giddy over his teacher and going to school. I'm thrilled Genevieve gets to start preschool in a few weeks. She can't wait. She's going to love it. I can't wait for the potential of Chloe and Aaron being asleep at the same time occasionally. The idea of sitting on the couch and just not doing anything for a bit and not having anyone come blazing in with some need is tantalizing. I can't wait for the kids to come home after their days happy and make better use of the time they have here at home instead of counting the hours. Despite Chloe sleeping through the night, I still don't get enough sleep because I have other responsibilities when she's asleep and most of the time I don't go to bed at a decent hour.

So crazy articles aside, I am thrilled for the end of summer and the start of school. I'm thrilled for them to be gone so I can breathe again. I'm thrilled for the experiences they are going to have that I can't give them. I'm thrilled for their growth and learning. And I'm ready for a bit of breathing room to get the handle of this four kids life. It's something else. I love them so, so much and I'm grateful for every one of them and their amazingness. I'm also completely overwhelmed at regular intervals and feel totally lost. And let's not forget that I'm there's a real possibility that we could be done with grad school next summer and the happiness that brings me knows no bounds. For now Bill works days, he works nights, he sometimes works Saturdays and all so that can become a reality. He is working his tail off and he is amazing for the effort.

This article touched a chord for me today. It's very true. So onward and upward and let's be done with summer and onto the next phase. No regrets and no guilt. Just excitement for new things. 

Pictures from this week

Sleepy Chloe on my shoulder. So sweet

She deigned to sit in her bouncer, which she does not love yet, for a few minutes late at night while she was happy right before bed.

Spencer asked us to take his picture at the park

More park

Everyone's favorite seat, though we officially call this Chloe's stroller now to avoid all arguments.

Look, she does smile! She's rather long suffering of her sibling's love and starting to favor us with more of these. It's fantastic.

These are pizza rolls. They are amazing. The cheese leaked out the bottom and got crunchy. Oh so good. Home run dinner. We'll be making these again. 

Not a good shot since it's through the screen, but Genevieve and Aaron decided to camp out under the trampoline. Aaron was full on laying on the dried out grass with no clothes on. We've had a horribly dry summer, so the lawn is basically dead. It made me cringe as I was worried about ants mauling him and scratchy dead grass, but he didn't seem to mind at all.