Only a month late! Much better than the last day of school post from June.

This year, Evan is in 5th grade, Caroline is in 4th grade and Lincoln is in Kindergarten (although he keeps insisting to me that he’s in first grade and I literally double checked to make sure I wasn’t the one who was confused).

That means they ALL go to the same school. This is the only year that will happen and boy do we all love it, so maybe one day they will all do something like get an Online high school guitar credit together to relive these days. I love only having one bus time in the morning and afternoon and having a full day at home with just Finnegan. If you would like your child to go to a private school, then visit Ravenscroft website.

The school has sent home information regarding the request that we have access to strong and reliable internet at home. We’ve had internet at home for a while now, but was not strong or reliable, quite the contrary actually. I kept it like that, as it helped me make sure the kids didn’t get too hooked on it too young. I knew we’d be running into this eventually, and had asked around so I could change on short notice whenever it did. In doing so, I had heard about Eatel before. After some research of my own to make sure, we decided to schedule the installation. Once that’s done we’ll call the other company, and that’ll be that! Foresight at work.

Evan has a male teacher for the first time ever and he is having a great year so far. He’s playing the trumpet again and swears he’s going to actually practice this year. Moreover, they are studying things such as internet history, science, and a lot more.

Caroline has the same teacher for 4th grade that Evan did last year. She tells me she still goes to visit her 3rd grade teacher every day and sometimes helps her with the class. I would be super doubtful that that was true…except it’s Caroline. She’ll probably have a paying job in the office by the end of the year somehow Telematics Module. She is going to play the flute in band as well as singing in the chorus.

Lincoln has a Kindergarten teacher who might have just stepped out of a movie about the perfect Kindergarten teacher. His two years of pre-K totally prepared him for “real” school, so he’s rocking everything so far. Some say education received at a Texas Christian school has profoundly impacted them.

Finnegan isn’t in school yet, although I’m tempted to put him in some sort of daycare school 2 or 3 days a week now that he’s potty trained.

New backpacks are all from Pottery Barn Teen, and I would highly recommend them.

I decided not to backdate this to June, but that’s when the last day was. I’ll have a post literally next week with the 2019 first day of school pictures.

And here’s 2018 Last Day of School post

And here’s the 2018 First Day of School post

This year, Evan is in 4th grade, Caroline is in 3rd grade, and Lincoln is going to full-day child care preschool. That means from 9 am until 4 pm every weekday I have only ONE KID to take care of. So far it’s going great, both here at home and at school. Evan and Caroline both love their teachers. Evan gets to take band this year and he’s chosen the trombone, so he’ll also get a pretty good workout carrying it back and forth on the bus twice a week. Caroline is pretty jealous but she’ll get to pick an instrument next year. Lincoln has gotten on and off the bus cheerfully every day, even if he is still mad he’s in a “downstairs” classroom instead of his old class upstairs. I’m not even sure his best friend goes to his daycare anymore, but I’m sure he’ll make a new best friend quickly.

Besides these big kids, Finnegan and I are SO excited to hang out together. He’s so NICE when he has my undivided attention. His language has exploded, he likes riding in the car and he has chosen to take naps almost every afternoon, so I’m getting our disaster house back under control and preparing for some big renovation work this fall. It’s a good time of year for all of us.

The 2017-2018 school year honestly felt like ten thousand years for all of us. When the kids started E was deployed, Finnegan had just turned one, and things were so crazy I barely remember the fall. The last 2 months have felt like an entirely new decade. I’m hoping summer doesn’t fly by too fast, we could all use a little laziness.

All three kids big kids ended the school year on high notes. Caroline won an award for best second grader (based both on behavior and grades), Evan won an award for musical achievement, and Lincoln got accepted to a full day pre-k program for next year, where he’ll continue to get speech services. They all adjusted to school well and are a tiny bit sad it’s over now, because they’ll miss their friends and fun stuff like music and recess during the summer. I will miss school breakfast and lunch, as well as the 2 hours of quiet every afternoon while Finn napped. But we have a ton of stuff on our calendar for the summer, plus plenty of lazy days to spend at the lake, so we are ready. Bring on the summer!

Oh hi internet. Once we made it to Homecoming I sort of forgot I had a blog. But I caught my husband checking the page to see if I had posted anything, so I think even he might appreciate a life update all in one place.

First thing everyone wants to know: Yes, it is super great to have E home. We all missed him a lot, for a bunch of reasons, and now that he’s back things are much better. He had two whole weeks completely off of work and now he’s on sort of half-work for a few more days, so I’m able to schedule doctor’s visits, parent-teacher conferences and hair appointments without having to bring 4 kids.

Speaking of hair, I made some drastic changes. I haven’t had hair this short in a decade, and I haven’t been this blonde since I was a child. It’s been a week and I am still LOVING it. (This is a HUGE photo of my face, but it’s my face so deal with it.)

Once E got his bags unpacked, he immediately tackled the to-do list I’ve been keeping. He fixed a ton of stuff, did a bunch of tech support, finished our taxes, and let the kids climb all over him as much as they want. We’ve been having a great time doing some 5- or 10-year life planning as well as some RIGHT NOW updates, like finally replacing our horrible stove and ancient mattress. Buying a new stove and mattress feels very grown up.

Finnegan has quit sleeping at night, which is fun for no one. He’s also nursing as much as a newborn, which I am not enjoying in the least. I had no intention of weaning him until he was ready on his own, but right now getting 8 hours sleep seems worth a little effort. He’s such a happy, pleasant baby during the day and so easy to put down for a nap, I do not understand why he is trying to kill me every night. This isn’t our first rodeo so I know all the things we can do to sleep train/gentle sleep train/not sleep train/cry it out/not cry it out/etc etc etc. I just need to decide if I’m at the point where I have to do something or if I can just keep hoping he grows out of it any minute.

Caroline had her first cheer competition last Saturday. Her team came in second, so she’s really proud of herself. We aren’t pointing out that there were only two teams in her division. Honestly though, she did REALLY great for her first even public cheer performance – the stage was huge, there were a lot of people and lights and the music is super loud, plus it was a long day for a bunch of small humans. Tons of waiting around for a 3-minute routine. She has two more this year – one this weekend and one in April – and I suspect she’s going to start begging to join a full year cheer team as soon as she can. I’m not sure how I feel about being a full-time competitive cheer mom, but I also don’t want to take away something she’s so in love with. She has already volunteered to quit most of her other activities if she can keep cheer.

Lincoln has an acute case of the Terrible Threes. He’s mad he’s not old enough for all the stuff the big kids do, so he takes it out on everyone in the family by being a jerk, hitting people or screaming. It’s not my favorite age. I did manage to potty train him (yay!) and he’s doing great at school (also yay!) and his speech is really improving (thank god) but he’s living in a glass case of emotion and spends SO MUCH of his time crying. It must be exhausting, but I don’t know how to help him.

Evan is such a mystery to me. He’s a really chill kid until something sets him off, and then he loses his mind. He was doing great at school until suddenly he can’t remember basic math facts. He is very helpful and responsible until he gets a screen in front of him and then it’s like he’s gone deaf and blind. He will be super kind to Finnegan and then do something to intentionally make him cry. He has started lying about small stuff to test us, so I’m trying to both assure him that I will always appreciate the truth and also sort of scare him so he knows he gets in big trouble if he’s caught lying. You guys, I don’t know what I’m doing. He’s going to be NINE next month and that’s so old. I remember being nine. There’s so much going on inside you. This isn’t like having a fourth baby that won’t sleep, this is brand new.

I’ve started planning out our summer already (it keeps me sane while I stare at the two feet of snow in my yard), and the kids are excited for various camps and activities that are on our calendar. We don’t actually need to keep quite AS busy as we did during deployment, but if the snow days have taught us anything it’s that being all together in our house is THE WORST, so between lakes, beaches, camps and trips, I’m hoping to avoid the level of togetherness that makes everyone want to strangle each other.

It’s supposed to snow again next week. I am not ok with this.

Evan and Caroline have started asking about maybe not sharing a room anymore, so we’re going to have to figure that out.

I have mini sessions coming up in a few weeks. If you’re local to Connecticut (or local-ish enough), I would love to take your picture! You can see the link here on my Facebook.

A few months ago, I started to follow the keto diet (aka bacon all day) and I really like it but at the moment my sugar cravings are winning. I need to commit again because I’m in search of a ball gown for a ball in a few weeks and nothing makes me more depressed than trying on clothes.

I think that’s everything even remotely interesting about my current life. I’ll try to get up our Homecoming photos taken by our amazing photographer (not me) soon, because who doesn’t love military homecoming photos?! There are just so many it’s going to take me a minute to cull them down.