Open House

Luke's school had an Open House tonight. It was fun to have Luke escort us around the Kindergarten building and then over to the Big School. The Big School is just that --BIG! It's 4 stories, houses the First through Eighth Grades, plus the "specials" rooms and the library and the gym. Matt and I kept getting lost, but Luke is really learning his way around. It was very cute to see him greeting all of his friends, especially with his shadow Michael right behind him. Luke would say "Hi Maggie!" and Michael would echo "Hi Maggie!" The best part was seeing all of Luke's projects hanging up all over the place.

Guess which Queen is Luke's? The smiling happy one or the one with scary teeth and a knife?


Our parish priest, Monsignor Maloney, has a dachsund named Mabel. Which portrait of Mabel is Luke's? The one with "Mabel"" written nicely on it or the one with Mabel hunting the big scary spider?

But this one is awesome--in art class Luke learned about Van Gogh and made a picture inspired by Starry Starry Night, which is especially cool if you remember this blog post.

Presidents' Day Playdate

Thank goodness for Alyssa and her beautiful pictures! We had an "old school" playdate at my friend Diane's on Monday when the kindergarteners were off. The kids had so much fun, although chasing Justin was challenging for me and I felt like I didn't get to talk to anyone. Oh well, that's what Moms' Nights Out are for, I guess!

This is Molly and I do believe she has a bit of a crush on Justin. They played together a lot and she kept force feeding him sippie cups, which Justin seemed to like!

Monkeying around.

This picture made me laugh out loud. Lola, Daniela and Luke posing together?Really? How did that happen?

That is all kinds of trouble right there. See why I couldn't talk to anyone?

Hooray for sunshine!!

Ok, I'm not naive enough to think that spring is actually here, but it sure has been a nice preview. I've been so much more productive the last couple of days and I've been much better with the kids. Makes me realize how much the winter was grating on all of us! The entire side of the house and backyard are mud bogs and I had to don my rain boots this morning just to go out to the shed. Then I cut my finger opening it and decided that cleaning up the yard and garden could wait a while longer. The kids got out the bikes and scooters this afternoon and we found the push car for Justin. We bought it for Michael's first birthday, but Luke always wanted to hijack it, so we rarely used it. With the older boys so much bigger now, I think Justin might actually get a lot of use out of it this spring and summer!

Driving Home

So driving to pick up my kid every day is definitely not as easy as if he took a bus, but if I didn't drive him, then I would miss out on our car conversations. Here are some of the choice conversation bits from today's drive home. You can tell Luke was on a bit of a sugar high from Valentine's:

Luke: Why is the Veggie Tales Wizard of Oz different from the real one?
Me: Because Veggie Tales is trying to teach a lesson. It's teaching that you should obey your parents, but that no matter what you do, your mom and dad will always love you.
Luke: Mom, that's something I need to work on. Knowing that you love me even if I'm bad.
Me: You think when you get in trouble and we move your magnet that we don't love you?
Luke: Yeah, isn't that weird?

Luke: Jesus is the Messiah. We were all Jews before we were Christians.
Michael: I like lemonade.

Me: Luke, did you get any girly valentines?
Luke: Yes, I got some princess ones.
Michael: Why do girls like princesses so much?

Luke: (going through his valentines) Oh look, this one is from Audrey. She's such a sweet girl.

And there was also a lively debate over which is the best: gummy bears, worms or fish.

Can't wait until Justin can join in the conversation . . .or maybe I can.

Pizza Party!

Last Saturday, we celebrated Luke's Student of the Month honors at his martial arts school. In the chaos of getting everyone organized and out the door, I forgot the camera! These shots were taken by one of the instructors. I'm hoping Alyssa will email me any good ones she took (hint, hint!).
I was a little nervous because it was a mixed group of friends--some of Luke's fellow yellow-belts, some neighbors and some EBC friends, but everyone got along great. Master Circle led the kids in a bunch of games, which were hilarious to watch and then everyone had pizza. It was an awesome party!

100 Days of School

Luke's class celebrated 100 Days of Kindergarten on Friday--although I think they might have been off by a couple because of the snow days. Their project was to bring in 100 of something. Luke made this spider with 100 pipe cleaners. I thought it was pretty cool. Luke thought it was so cool that he was quite distraught when he found out that he had to leave the project at school through next week and couldn't bring it home right away.

What can I say?

Except that Ponesse boys like pasta!

What we've been doing

Pretty much just this. We're on Day 2 of no school due to ice and sporadic power outages throughout the city. Yesterday, we got out long enough to take Luke to martial arts where he got a private lesson by virtue of us being the only ones brave enough to venture out! Today, we went to visit some friends for a couple of hours to burn off some energy. Hoping we are back to school tomorrow!