October 2012: Hank's new preschool

Hank started a new preschool the first week of October.  When we moved to Santa Clara, he finished out a few more weeks at the preschool he had been attending in Palo Alto but then we decided to take the summer off.  We did get on a waiting list at one school just in case it opened up in the fall.  There are a ton of schools around us but only this one seemed like a good fit for us.  Thankfully, we got a call in September that a spot would be open the first week of October!  So, after four months of hanging with mom and sisters, Hank went back to school!  He goes three days a week from 9-12.  We love this school so much.  He has made some great friends there.  His teachers Miss Premala and Miss Jasmine are so caring and they nurture the children so well.  He has two teachers in his class.  Some days there are 10 kids and some days there are 4 kids, it just depends on the day.  School is out at the end of May, and he starts again in late August for the next school year.  Today we were able to get a spot for summer school - which is three weeks in July.  Yay for me, I mean Hank! ha ha

Here are pictures from his first day of preschool at the new school.  He was so very excited to go to school again!

 

 

 

Posing outside of school.

Checking out his new classroom.

 

Where I found him when I picked him up.  He didn't want to leave!

-a

Happy Independence Day!

We had a great 4th of July holiday today!  Our day was jam packed with celebrations!

First up, our friends Leslie and Steve are members of the cabana club in our neighborhood and they invited us to the party at their pool.  We met up with them around lunch time and stayed all afternoon. 

 

Hank is starting swim lessons at the club on Monday with a personal instructor.  He is excited!

 

The girls wore swim suits today for the first time!  I didn't get proper pictures of them posing in their suits.  Bummer.  They looked so adorable!  The girls were in dire need of a nap at the pool so I took them home to rest.  We let Hank skip his nap today and he stayed at the pool with Brett until almost dinner time.  Hank cried the whole way home from the pool because he was so sad to leave.  When he got home he asked to put on his swim suit again so we got out a clean and dry one for him to wear to our next stop...the neighborhood block party.

 Before we left for the block party we tried to get the kiddos to pose for a picture with their flags.  This was about as good of a picture as we could get.  The rest looked like this...

 

 

 

 

All decked out in red, white and blue strolling through the neighborhood to get to the party.

Charlotte

Ruby

Hank leading the way.  Extremely excited for the party because he heard there was going to be a bounce house there.

The Santa Clara Fire Department brought one of their engines over to the party and hung out for a while.  They hooked up a hose and Hank was really interested in what they were doing.

Fascinated by the firemen working on their hose.  He carried his flag all the way from our house to the party.

Hank's first foray into water balloons happened today.  He loved it and kept running over to get a new balloon every time he broke one.  I think we'll be doing water balloons at our house soon.

 Brett was in a watermelon eating contest...

 ...and he WON!  SO HILARIOUS!!!  Hank was fascinated by the concept of "racing" to eat.  He had a sly smile on his face as he watched Brett go.

Brett and Hank shooting the breeze with a fire fighter.

They showed kids how to shoot the water hose.  How cool is that???

Hank bounced like crazy in the bouncy house.  He bounced during the little kid times and also when it was only supposed to be big kids.  He was unstoppable and refused to get out.  Brett and I kinda liked the fact that he was entertained so we let him stay.  The bad thing about bouncy houses is that Hank doesn't understand his own strength and he takes kids out.  He made an 8 year old cry today.  oops!  The only way we got Hank to come home with us was he accidentally slid out the front door of the bouncy house and we snatched him up and plopped him in the stroller.  He thought about resisting but he was too exhausted and just gave up.  It took us a few minutes to say bye to our friends and by the time we were walking home both girls had fallen asleep in our front packs and Hank was starting to fade too since it was well past their bed times.  Once we got home everyone was happy to get to bed!  (No fireworks for this crew...we couldn't bear keeping them up late since they had already missed so much sleep in the afternoon.  Maybe next year!)

I am pretty sure today was the funnest day of Hank's life so far.  Swimming for hours, checking out a fire truck, spraying the fire hose, playing with water balloons, and bouncy endlessly in a bounce house.  Sounds like the perfect day for Hank!  It was great for us too!

We are so thankful to live in this great country!  Happy Independence Day!

-a

We moved!

Last week we moved to a new house!  The new house is in Santa Clara, has four bedrooms, a laundry room, a dining room, an extra dining area (aka the playroom), a great back yard, a garage, and is just absolutely perfect for us!  Brett and I are so happy to have room to spread out and are thrilled to no longer be cramped in our tiny house in Palo Alto.  Moving and leaving our home and neighborhood in Palo Alto has been very bittersweet.  Although it was a real pain in the you-know-what to have all of us living on top of each other, that teeny two bedroom house was our HOME.  We lived there five years!  It is where we made so many memories.  Our three babies came home from the hospital to that house.  Our babies have grown up in that house.  Brett and I both felt like our hearts were broken in the days leading up to our move.  But I am happy to report that it took about one hour of being in our new house for the sadness to be over.  We have so much space here and it really makes a difference in our home life.  Brett and I tell each other every day that we love this house and are so happy here.

It has been fun exploring our new neighborhood.  On Monday I took the kids to the library which is less than a mile away.  It has a great kids area and Hank enjoyed reading books while we were there and he even checked a few out all on his own.  Today we are going over to the swim club a couple of blocks away from our house to meet a friend and her kids who are members there.  A very exciting thing for Brett about our new neighborhood is that we are really close to his favorite coffee shop - Barefoot Coffee  We used to drive down here from Palo Alto just to get it - it's that good!

These photos are from the first time we brought the kids to the house before we moved in.  I forced us to take a family photo on the front porch.  Hank was not happy and was trying to wiggle away.  (Hank has lately taken to refusing to participate in photos that really matter to me.  We had a family photo shoot with a real photographer two weeks ago and most photos are of Brett, me and the girls because Hank wanted to run around the entire time.  I think we did get one or two nice ones with all five of us.  More on that later.)

We had been talking up the "new house" to Hank a lot in the days leading up to him actually getting to see it.  We were worried about what a move would do to him and how he'd respond to new living arrangements so we wanted to try to get him used to the idea.  For days Hank was asking "when are we going to the new house?".  It was pretty cute and also hard to explain to him how we had to wait.  

To help ease him into the new house we brought a big bag of toys and let him play in the yard.  We also told him he could pick out his new bedroom.  Brett strongly steered Hank to choose the room we wanted for him.  :)

Hank was so excited about all the closets.  He kept going in them and closing the doors on himself so he could hide.  He would then laugh and pop back out.  He did this over and over.  Since we have moved in, he has made me get in the closets with him several times with the doors shut just so he could open them and peek out.

 

 

The girls liked the house too!  Ruby was chill and Charlotte was having a great time.   Since we have moved in, the girls have taken their crawling to the next level!  They are all over the house and really enjoying all the space too.

  

 

It was hard work doing all that exploring so he needed a refreshment when we got back to the van.  Oh, and he needed to "drive" too before he would get in his car seat.

Hank has really loved the new house.  When we get in the car and go somewhere he asks "can we go back to the new house?".  

We feel so blessed to have this house to call home!  It is going to be a great place for more memories to be made!

-a