Darts anyone?

In explanation of the above pictures...They are from an evening last week when the kids were home with Daddy. I was working the concession stand while the kids had a giggle fest at home playing with magnetic darts!

Amazingly, the kids have already been in school for 7 weeks. We went to school conferences last week and received good reports on both kids. Emma's teacher commented on her love of horses and said that Emma asks her to spell horse all the time. The teacher is starting a personal "word wall" for each of the students and horse will be one of the first words on Emma's list. First grade has been a very different experience with Emma since she is not as far along with reading as Alex was. We have to practice much more often with her. That's okay, though, differences are what make kids more interesting.

On Saturday, we visited with my sister's best friend from high school. In July, she and her family (husband, 3 year old boy, and 9 month old girl) moved to New Braunfels, TX from the Boston area. We had a great time visiting them and seeing their new house. She is painting a very cool jungle mural in the kids' playroom. Her son loves to see what she has done when he gets up in the morning. Her husband, Tim, is looking for a new position down here. If anyone has any leads for a lawyer in Austin or San Antonio, he'll gladly take them.

Yesterday, Emma went to a birthday party while Alex played a baseball game. Emma skated her little heart out while Benjamin just sat and took in the loud music, disco lights, and lots of skaters. Sean said Alex pitched again and managed to get 2 quick outs. He struggled after that probably due to the heat and being tired at the end of the game.

On the Benjamin front, we are finally done with the big round of doctor visits. Whew, I think we went to 4 or 5 visits a week for close to a month between the blood lab, specialists, speech evaluation, etc. Also, last week, Benjamin stood up on his own in the middle of the room. He was holding a beach ball and decided to stand up. Then he took a few steps and looked around like what am I doing? That was it for the walking, but it is pretty exciting.