Brothers

Patch

Ah, Patch. It's hard to know where to start. He is, as you can see from these pictures, one of the sweetest boys in town. He loves to snuggle and hold hands and have innocent, philosophical discussions about all sorts of random topics. He is also easily irritated, occasionally melancholy, and very distractible.

He is now 5 and in kindergarten at a lovely school where they teach the kids how to bake bread, knit, and speak spanish. He thinks it is all a bit of a yawn and would, most days anyways, rather stay home and hang out with me.

For most of this summer he looked like this:

And we are all so, so glad that the cast is finally off!! (8.5 weeks and 4 different casts!). I must say that he handled it well, but, really, what a drag. For the whole family. Next summer, we will be keeping Atti in a padded room, because, quite frankly, I don't think I can handle 3 consecutive summers with a broken limb in the family.

Hello Sam

In case you haven't gotten the memo yet, Sam is now officially old. And big. And Amish. No, just kidding about that last one. He isn't actually Amish, but he is really big. 4th grade this year.

He now eats just about as much as I do on a regular basis, and sometimes wears my shirts. We could just about share shoes, if his feet weren't so stinky. He reads almost as fast as I do, and probably more.

He is as sweet and steady as always. He still hugs and kisses me at school and isn't afraid to wear braids on the playground. Sam is awesome.

Remember this guy?

He is 2 and a half now. And how!

As cute as he may be, boy, is he a handful!! Delightful, hilarious, stubborn, adorable, hungry, cute, and Trouble. (Sam helped me generate that list of Atti adjectives!)

We love him to pieces, or as he says, "I wuv your pieces!"

Summer Break

Sorry for the lack of posts here lately. We started summer with a bang- on a great camping trip with some friends in Mendocino. On our very first night there, my camera broke! So frustrating. Damn you Canon Powershot!!

My plans of dealing with it once we got home were thwarted by us buying a house!!! Yes, our long real estate saga has finally ended with us finding a sweet little home in south Napa. We close this thursday! We are super excited but insanely busy packing-packing-packing! You know how it is...

Then this past friday, Patchie fell at a bbq we were at and broke both bones in his forearm. Another casted summer (Sam broke his arm at the start of last summer). Bad timing all around.

Needless to say, I am short on blogging time and have no pictures to accompany my words. So I am officially taking a vacation from this space. I will be back in mid July, in a new house with a new camera!! See you then.

From garden to table

A pleasant half an hour spent- me and Patch, a big bag of English shelling peas, and some Magic Treehouse on CD...

From this:

To this:

And finally, this:

Goodbye preschool, hello kindergarten

My brown boy graduated from his sweet little preschool last week. He has grown so much over the last two years! The school is a cooperative, so Jeff and I both worked in the classroom, as well as myself serving on the board for two years. You could say that the school has played a large role in our lives for the past two years!

Here is Patchie on his very first day of preschool. I distinctly remember driving him down that day and him telling me how proud he felt to be going off to school for the first time. I felt the same way!

Here he is with Mz. Lori, our fabulous teacher. She was also Sam's teacher years ago, and with any luck, will be there for Atti in another years time.

And here are Patch and Atti, on our way to the graduation. (Sam was in school still).

And here are a few grainy but cute photos of the kids doing there "Finale" performances.

Proud graduate!

Bye NVNS (for now)! Thanks for all the fun. We'll be seeing in a year!