The last of summer...beginning of school

The adventures of raising a boy...

There is a little boy that lives upstairs from us.  He and Evan have a love/hate relationship.  It depends on how each of the boys are feeling whether they play nice together.  Usually Evan will just come inside if things aren't going well.  One particular day Evan had a mini screwdriver that he was "fixing" thing with outside.  He decided to "fix" a small tree that is in the lawn just outside our door.  Well, Owen didn't think that was a good idea and when Evan wouldn't stop Owen attacked him.  Below is a picture of the aftermath of Owen scratching Evan's face up.  When he wouldn't stop, Evan planted one right hook to the face and Owen went home crying with a bloody nose.  We don't think it was okay to punch, and don't encourage it from our children.  Evan took a lot, stayed as calm as possible and told him several times to get off.  There were even scratches behind both ears.  Enough is enough and Evan ended it.  We have had several talks with him about it not being okay to solve situations by physically fighting.  We've never had this problem before and hope to not have it again!!  Is this normal for little boys, or we just in for a ride with this kid?

 Adam loves to be read to, especially by Kehli.  He always picks the book "A Mother for Cocoa" and Kehli reads it over and over again.

 This one particular day Adam just couldn't get enough and when Kehli was done he got another book and went and found Brett to read to him.  The older kids are so good to Adam and he sure misses them while they are at school.  The first day Adam walked around looking for Bro (Brett) - knocking on closed doors and calling for him.  It was kind of sad!

 Kehli continued with her dance classes through the summer and got to dance at the fair.  She still gets nervous but does a great job and is so proud after it's over.  She has decided to drop the hip hop class so she can participate in Girls on Track, but will stay in the Jazz Funk class once a week.  We took the whole family to the fair that night and enjoyed a free dinner from Famous Dave's (thanks to AgriNorthwest sponsored tickets!).  We also had front row tickets to the rodeo which was lots of fun.  It was the best rodeo we have ever been to - the clown was entertaining and there was very little down time.  The MC's were great, music and sideshows were fun.  We will take the kids again next year.  Brett will never be in charge of the camera again though because I had to delete about 100 pictures.  I did keep a few of them though - like the one below of he and Evan being silly.

 Here are our first day of school 2012 pictures.  Brett's was actually taken on the third day of school.  He is taking zero hour weight lifting and my brain isn't quite working when we walk out of the door at 6:30 for school.  I wonder if I will ever get used to waking up at 5:50 every morning to make sure he gets breakfast and lunch and out the door on time.  No other kids will sign up for zero hour!!

Evan's first day was actually today because they stagger the Kindergartner's starting.  He was more than ready to go and it will be interesting talking to the teachers after school to see how things went.