Once again the best weekend of the year came and went and I ate all the things. We did exactly the same stuff as last year – Greek Festival, Ledyard Fair, Taste of Italy, Taste of Mystic – except my kids are a full year older and easier to take places. LOOK AT HOW SMALL THEY WERE LAST YEAR! SO SMALL! The only real change was this year Evan could go on the giant slide at the fair, which made him the happiest kid ever. And also they ate a lot more, even if most of it was ice cream.

I’m very proud of myself for doing the whole weekend alone with the kids (E had inspections at work), not missing any of our plans, and fitting in three photo sessions. Working (or “working” as I am still calling it for now) is something I love, but I don’t want it to come at the expense of all our family time. The Best Weekend Of The Year only happens once a year, I can’t let photography get in the way of ALL THE EATING.

p.s. Too tired and lazy to make any collages, so be prepared for one million photos. At least Connecticut is pretty and my kids are cute, right?

Thursday:

Ordered the kids a gyro but they didn’t like it. Such a tragedy I had to eat it.

SOMEONE GET THAT KID A BARRETTE

Awwwwwww

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

OMG AAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Saturday Morning:

Riding the bus shuttle, which is very exciting when you watch your brother get on a bus every day and you NEVER GET TO RIDE ONE.

Evan picked almost the EXACT same horn as a prize this same weekend last year. Shockingly, that one broke. Even more shocking, this one “broke” too!

What up, Goat?

This lady said “Do you want to sit on the cow?” and just popped Caroline right on it.

Future rodeo star?

Root beer float. NO WONDER these kids were insane all day. I don’t think they even SAW a vegetable.

Saturday Night:

While I was taking their picture a lady came up and said “HOW DO YOU GET THEM TO STAND THERE FOR YOUR PICTURES????” I said “Practice”. But the truth is Evan would have done ANYTHING for that bubble gun.

Black olive calzone and fried ravioli

BUBBLES BUBBLES MY BUBBLES

Sunday:

Ginger Baby: The Return Of The Hat

Crab and crawfish cakes

Hush puppies

I will take two of everything.

We had a choice of cookies – Patriots or Jets. This was the last Patriot cookie because OBVIOUSLY they are more popular. GO PATS.

MESS.

Besides seeing how much the kids have grown, comparing last year’s pictures to this year’s is really eye opening. I was SO PROUD of them last year, and now all I can see is the flaws.  I figure the same thing will happen next year, but the way I look at it as long as I’m getting BETTER instead of getting worse I’m doing great.

And now I’m super hungry from looking at all those photos. Mmmmmm…crab cakes and frozen lemonade.

This is a sponsored post from Shutterfly and Global Influence, but all opinions and photos are my own. 

Hello September! There are already a few leaves in my yard, we turned off the a/c and I bought two new throw blankets today. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still 75 degrees out, but I’m totally ready for fall (just like every other blogger, right? Why are we all so obsessed with fall?) To mark the end of summer, I put together a photo book with Shutterfly’s new Photo Story iPad app.

They have lots of cute designs and themes to choose from for almost any occasion

(more…)

It’s still Wednesday, right? I feel like it’s been raining for a week (because it has been raining for a week) so when we got a break last night I dragged the kids all over Eastern CT to find a nice empty (but public) field for taking fall family photos. Success!

Respect my mad flower-crown making skillz.

I cut (butchered) Evan’s hair and he aged 10 years.

Looking at clouds. He said he saw a rhesus monkey wearing a powdered wig. For real.

WE LOVE YOU SEPTEMBER

HOW can August already be over? And how can my kid already be in pre-K? And why does it always surprise me when I think about how quickly time passes? Does that ever change?

Last week was sort of the school trial-run for everyone – students, parents, teachers and bus drivers included. We had orientation on Wednesday, which was the first time Evan got to see his classroom and his teacher. I was happy to see that his class is small (15 kids), there are a lot of adults involved in each room on a daily basis and everyone we talked to knew Evan’s name. He was pretty bummed he didn’t get to stay after orientation was over. School has cool Legos.

Playing during classroom orientation

School has an ELEVATOR?! Totally the best part when you’re 4.

Thursday was the official first day that included theoretical bus riding. The town really WANTS the kids to ride the bus – as far as I know they bus almost everyone, unless you are close enough to just walk across the street – because the school is old and in a weird location (a slice of land between two semi-busy roads with very close-together houses on the other side) so they have almost no parking. Not even enough for the employees. And since they moved ALL the town pre-K classes to this one building there are a lot of buses and only one drop-off lane. Basically, it’s a mess, so the fewer parents bring their kids to the school the better.

But because they’re busing SO many kids it’s taking some time to figure out the logistics. On Thursday we were all ready to go and out front at 8:15, even though our bus is supposed to pick Evan up at 8:35. Luckily our bus stop is our front steps, so it’s not hard to hang out.

Our public schools require uniforms starting in pre-K. I love it.

He thinks holding his sign upside down is the most hilarious joke in the world.

Waiting. While they waited I weeded, because yikes.

We saw at least a dozen buses, but none of them stopped.

Waiting for the bus…that didn’t come

Aaaaaand at 8:49 (official school start time: 8:50) I tossed both kids in the car and we drove to school. I had (stupidly) scheduled a newborn photo session that morning and I needed to get going at 9 am, so I couldn’t take the chance the bus wasn’t going to show up at all. Luckily there was one drop-off parking spot open and I ran Evan up to the front door where someone whisked him off to his classroom. He was so excited to go he didn’t even look back but I was a little sad we didn’t have the “I love you, have fun!” hug moment I had imagined on our front steps as he got onto his bus.

To make myself feel worse, I didn’t make it back in time for his bus drop off either – even though they were 20 minutes late. My sitter was there, freaking out because I told her the bus came at 12:15 and there was no bus at 12:15, so I called the school on my way home to make sure Evan wasn’t sitting along in a hallway somewhere without a bus, since he didn’t take one TO school. I was imagining the bus system running like an airline, where if you miss your outgoing flight you can’t catch one back, but they assured me he was on his way. I got home 4 minutes after he did and he said “MOMMY! I rode on a FREE BUS!!!”

I was very glad we had a do-over day on Friday when Caroline and I had nowhere to be and plenty of time to wait for our bus…which came at 9:52. I’m hoping by the end of this week they’ll get here at 8:35.

Waiting for the bus again

It came!

Home from a great second day! His first question was “Do I get to go to school tomorrow?”

I’m taking a class with Clickin Moms right now, to work on my lifestyle photography. It’s only been a week but I love all the stuff I’ve learned so far – and the critique of my work really is priceless. Having a place where people tell me I’m NOT super good at taking pictures is amazing, since nothing but positive feedback doesn’t help me grow.

But not here. Here, please continue to tell me I’m amazing and talented and have the cutest kids in the world.

(Not true, please always feel free to tell me if there’s something you think I could work on. I appreciate it.)