Summer's Here

Just a precursor to this picture. We live in LA & there are no real "seasons". So sometimes in the summer the trees shed their leaves a little bit. Not all trees lose their leaves in the winter here & most don't even change color in the fall. This saddens me, but I get over it quickly when I can run into the ocean in October and the temperature is in the mid to high 70s! (PS. that's warm here)

This picture is at Mallorie's end of the year picnic for first grade and it just screams summertime to me. They are all so happy to be getting a long deserved break. First grade is such a huge year. They really learn so many fundamentals for the rest of their school years. I know kindergarten is a big one too, but it seemed more about social learning than the hard stuff like reading, fundamental math, writing nicely and in complete sentences and on to paragraphs. Mallorie did so well this year considering that at the beginning we were extremely worried about her social skills. She is one of the youngest kids in her grade because you can start kindergarten in California when you are 4. She was a month ahead of the cut off and sometimes I wonder if I should have waited another year. Well, her teacher was just what she needed to help her really come out of her shell & now she's still shy, but at least she tries and speaks up when someone speaks to her. She even talks to the waitresses and tells them her order. That's huge!


She wanted me to show everyone her blowing bubbles. And her new haircut...she wanted it short, but now she hates it. It'll grow out, but we're happy about not dealing with all the tangles for a while.
And now at Hannah's second grade picnic they were having the water balloon toss and Hannah and her teammate did really well. I love her dirty knees in this picture. I MAKE her wear skirts once in a while, but that does not stop her from playing dirty! She's a mess.

Here she is catching the balloon......

and WOOHOO caught it! Third round...they dropped it, actually Hannah threw it crooked and it landed right on my foot, but they got a good laugh out of it.
We leave for vacation Friday and we are all so ready. Just to get out of here and not have any obligations for a whole week. I love not knowing what we're going to do out there. Just spend time with family!

Have a happy week.

SB