Story time

Molly decided to join in on Josh's nightly story reading tonight. After a day of craziness, it's always nice to end with a sweet moment!

The terrible pre-twos

We were fortunate with Josh in that he never threw many full-out tantrums. Molly is a different story. In the past few days, she has taken to lying on the floor face-down and screaming, often for reasons I can't figure out. Today all I could do was laugh (and grab the camera) when she laid down under the dining room table and had a full-out tantrum. Here she is looking up for me; when she saw me she put her head back down and resumed the tantrum. I just had to laugh--I'm not THAT gullible, Molly!

She made a quick recovery when she realized she was being ignored.

On another note, here are some new pictures of the house addition. I told the contractors they are better than TV because Josh and Molly are plastered to the glass window watching them work every morning. The only thing more exciting for Josh is the Porta-John in our front yard. I have to watch him--he tells me he's going to the bathroom, then announces he'll be outside. The indoor toilet just can't compare.

She's off!

As you can see from the picture, Molly was less than enthused about her first day of nursery school. Molly had gotten used to sleeping in this summer, so the 7 a.m. wake-up call did not go over well today. She also seemed somewhat upset that she couldn't take the can of spray sunscreen to school, but her teacher said she made a quick recovery and didn't cry until the moms started coming to pick kids up at lunch.

The end of summer

We enjoyed a gorgeous, bug-free Labor Day with Steph and the Finks. The kids played kickball and Frisbee with Steph and Randy, and they entertained themselves well enough for us to enjoy a few hours of hanging out with our friends. Molly starts her four-day-a-week nursery school program tomorrow, so today was our last real day of summer.

Uncle Randy is very popular with the small set.

Auntie Steph volunteered to play kickball with the kids while Emily and I sat in lawn chairs.

It won't be long until Vivy is running around with Josh and Molly.

Gone too soon

While we're very happy about school starting, the end of August also means the YMCA outdoor pools close until next summer. The kids love going to the pool, so we're sad to lose one of our favorite past times for nine months. The last day is tomorrow, and we'll probably be there until the doors close at 6 p.m.

The best thing about the pool is swimming really tires out the kids.

The Big K

We rolled into Charlotte about 10:30 last night, and Josh was a little unhappy about being drug out of bed at 7 a.m. to get ready for his first day of kindergarten. I was a little nervous at first--here's how he looked at the breakfast table:

Luckily he perked up before 8 a.m., and we drove through the remnants of tropical storm Fay and joined hundreds of minivans in the school drop-off line. He was happy to get out of the car with a new teacher, and he didn't even say good-bye to me! All I've been able to get out of him about his day was that he didn't go to time out, the playground was muddy and he went to the library. All in all, we'll call it a good start.

And in honor of our good friend Fay, which is now dumping rain on Charlotte, here are some pictures from one of the worst rains during our Florida trip.

Here's Molly watching the rain and lounging on a chair my mom had pulled under the shelter.

Our week with Fay

We arrived in Florida on Monday night looking forward to a week of swimming and enjoying the Florida weather. What we got was Tropical Storm Fay and five straight days of rain. It has wreaked havoc on our plans, including my flight to Charlotte this weekend to attend a baby shower, which was canceled because of weather.

The only real exciting development to report is that Molly now has enough hair for a bow!
The kids have been swimming twice: once on Tuesday morning, and this afternoon, when they went out despite the weather. Otherwise, we have done a lot of lounging, reading, eating and Olympics watching. Josh is going to be in shock when school starts.