Last days of summer vacation

Gram and Papa visited us the last few days before school started last month, during their long 40th anniversary road trip.

While they were here, we went to the school's field day at a local park - a nice idea it would be good to continue in future years. It's another example of how lucky we are as a CPS family. At a time when more than 40 elementary schools have been closed and almost all others were forced to make budget cuts, our school was left intact - and got corporate sponsors for its field day to boot.

One of the activities was a tug of war. Can you spot our kids? Here's a hint: Levynn's not making much of an effort. :)

Kids got medals for participating in a certain number of events. You can't tell from the picture, but they were beat here. It was very hot, and they just had run around the track - a full 400 meters under the watch of their gym teacher.

That night they fulfilled a long-held desire, to ride in a horse-drawn carriage. Thanks, Gram and Papa!

Pop princess

Here's Levynn before she left for the Taylor Swift concert at Soldier Field last month.

Checking back in about the checkup

One of the things from the summer that we missed here is the annual update of the kids' growth numbers. Would you believe they grew?

Levynn stood at 51 inches, up 2.5, and weighed about 5 pounds more at 54.

Lincoln should hit 4 feet by next time, now that he's up almost 2 inches to 46.25. It's hard to say what he gained in weight, given his condition at last year's checkup, but he was up one way or another to 47 pounds.

First day of school

Where did our summer go?

You're probably wondering the same thing. We haven't been updating this. But it's been a challenging few months for us, and some things just haven't gotten done. This is one of them. We'll try to change that this week with a little catching up.

In the meantime, we can tell you that the kids had a smooth start to the school year today. No expressions of sadness that summer had ended, no expressions of reluctance to return to school, no tears or even worried looks.

And Levynn, in particular, was extremely excited after school - not to be leaving but to have the class she has. It may be too early to say for sure, but what's not to like about a teacher who's been in the system for 20 years and is starting her 10th year at the school; "has lines on her face," as Levynn put it; breaks the ice with a true-or-false quiz - about herself; and promises to prove she can do a cartwheel (on a gym day when she's not wearing a dress). Sounds like a winning combination to us! Dad would agree even if she hadn't been born in Massachusetts and didn't love the Red Sox.

Lincoln has a teacher who's new to the school, but we hope she's a winner, too.

Another LEGO birthday, of sorts

Now we have a 6-year-old, too.

To celebrate it, Lincoln wanted to go to LEGOLAND today rather than have a party. So that's what we did.

And that wasn't the only LEGO part of his day.

He opened some LEGOs at home, too. He let Levynn help build - which was fair, given that he built what she got two weeks ago!

LEGOLAND added some new things since we last were there, and Lincoln was very excited about them. There is a new 4-D movie featuring some of the characters in the sets he received today.

There is a new room dedicated to elaborate scenes from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, as you can see below.

And there are life-size LEGO statues of Harry Potter and Hagrid.

Then there's the cake. We found a neat one with a flag, and Mom added LEGOs.

Happy birthday, Lincoln!

What he's learning

Summer break begins

Today was the last day of school for the kids, which gives us a first-grader and a fourth-grader. Where have the years gone?

And they both finished with sterling report cards. All of Lincoln's many categories were "well-developed - surprise, surprise - and Levynn boosted her math grade back to an A to get all As again.

We think it helped that Levynn had a new teacher for the last two months or so. Had we mentioned that? Her original teacher, who had not impressed us (although Levynn liked him, sweet girl), suddenly left that career behind in April to take a job as a consultant for an educational book publisher. That left us even less impressed, as you can imagine.

Anyway, he was replaced by a teacher who had been working with special education kids. Dad and Lincoln knew her because she had been working with kids in his class. We expressed to her our concerns about Levynn's math progress, and she took an interest. She also went more slowly in math than the other teacher had, staying in one part of a unit longer to give the kids more time to understand it. We think it worked. Unfortunately, we're afraid the rest of the year's math is a blur to her. But the teacher gave us a booklet of extra work focusing on all those things for Levynn to do this summer.

As for Lincoln, who perhaps should have been doing some third-grade math himself, his last day had more pomp and circumstance. Parents were invited into the class for the last hour for an unofficial graduation-like ceremony and kindergarten-wide celebration.

Then Dad and the kids went directly into summer break mode. We went home just to drop off backpacks and headed for Lincoln's first piano class, another early birthday present - this one courtesy of Gram and Papa. (Hence that keyboard.)

It was a surprise, and he was very excited. By the time the classroom door opened and the teachers beckoned him inside, he was a little nervous. But at the end of class he came charging out, gave Dad a hug and said, "I LOVE my piano class!"

Here's a little peek into his 10-minute private session.

Another swimmer

Lincoln found his courage recently and finally tried going underwater with his goggles. That's all he needed to do to get going because he's been doing this ever since.

Now we need to learn to catch

Don't judge Levynn's hitting based on that hooping video! She's made great strides in recent days, as we've been out there playing ball several times.

It really took off after Levynn attacked Dad with such ferocity during some pool noodle light saber battling that he remarked, "You're swinging that thing harder than you swing a baseball bat!" That pumped her up. She grabbed the bat and suddenly had a totally new batting stance and swing. It carried over to today. Lincoln had been hitting better than her - more consistently and harder - but not anymore.

Lincoln's holding his own, though.

Dad needs to break in the new gloves now.

Holy hula hoops!

Levynn's become quite the hooper. Apparently, she does it a lot at recess. And she won a contest at school last week, beating the entire third grade for longest sustained hooping.

Have a look for yourself.