Montessori: the next episode

Just as we ushered in our youngest, it was time for our eldest to leave. Back in June Levi turned two and he started his tenure at Montessori Learning Center. Pretty nice to have your older brother around to show you the ropes...at least for a couple of weeks before the end of year picnic and his "graduation".
Here Micah says good-bye to his loving pre-school teacher Ms. Malika and the school's head, Ms. Anusha. These women are saints and have prepared our baby so well for kindergarten it is amazing.
Thankfully they have their next kid of ours to wrangle and help nurture into boyhood:

Have I mentioned that I love this face?

never-nude

You have excellent taste in television if you can appreciate this image. Zack claims he was not going for a Tobias look, "it just happened!" That's what you get for making cut offs while they are on a moving, rotating 5 year old.
And not to be out done by his brother in the "silly shot" category:

(I think he is picking a spidey wedgie)

Summer: In review

A recap on our busy lives the past few months. Hopefully anyone close to us will understand the frenetic pace we have been operating under and the extenuating circumstances life has presented that has made blogging, well pretty darn unimportant. That being said we would be remiss in not getting to at least 20 posts for the year of 2011!

We all aged a year older on June 1, 3, 5 & 9:

(licking birthday cake batter)
(licking birthday cake frosting)

And hair grew inches longer:

There were gross motor skills developed:

And speech development:

A running bug took hold of us:

There were even adult-only events at the Getty and the Ventura Theater:


There were good times at county fairs:

And sad/scary times:

Picnics on the beach:

Candy-plied road trips to camping amongst the big trees again:
(why yes, those are 5 life saver gummies on one thumb)


And fires to fight:

It was exhausting:
(asleep on bus route 18 in Berkeley)

Resurrected for the first day of kindergarten!

Hmmm...I guess it has been a while. So long in fact that our baby has matured to academic standing. Our first born had his first day of kindergarten today and it went just lovely. I am one proud mama, and even prouder that I did not shed a tear (there was never any concern that Micah would). Micah has been super excited about his school for months, approaching the whole affair with absolute conviction that he was going to love it.

Here he strikes a pose with his new robot backpack before we headed to (late) kindergarten.

Note to the State: could you please allow children to stay in school longer than 3 hours and 20 minutes right in the smack middle of the work day, please? Thanks, working mothers everywhere.

Waiting to go inside with his buddy Sawyer:

Despite his eagerness and excitement at home, I'd characterize his attitude as cool on the actual day. Just taking it all in with calm interest.
I watched (painfully) as his brunette table-mate vocalized her every thought and showcased her self-portrait publicly (she reminded me of a certain bossy brunette kindergartener 29 years ago). I predict she will suck him in and it will not be an auspicious seating arrangement. I always did get in trouble for talking in class.

The assignment was to draw your first day of school self-portrait:
Micah was apparently a green lego alien on his first day of school:

Now I also watched as the pretty blue eyed Russian girl sat next to him (the one in the adorable school-girl outfit I admired earlier) primly(and quietly) doing her drawing. Score Micah! She is pretty darn cute.
Micah also reports that they did not have to write any numbers or letters, contrary to his expectations.

Best part of the day: celebratory smoothie after-school:

Memorable quote of the day recorded for posterity to be thrown back in his face some day soon: "I wanted homework!"