Trip to Chicago plus Isaac goes to school

For memorial day weekend Isaac, James, and I drove up to Chicago with my brother Andrew.  I will say nothing more about the trip other than there were some highs and lows.

We switched Isaac to a backless booster.  He looks so small in the car without a carseat around him.

The kids did great in the car. 

We went to the beach and did not touch the water.  Too cold. It was fun anyway and very pretty. 

James wanted to watch the dogs catch balls. 

James loves Andrew and wanted him to carry him nonstop. 

Jeremiah and Andrew are trying to cheer James up. 

Oh, now he's happy!

Zeke was loving the swings.

How many people can go down the double slide at one time?

Going to a sculpture park.  Forgot a stroller, whoops!

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This is back home at Tower Grove park.  I took pictures of a family there and James always insists on having his picture taken too. 

Isaac will find craft ideas in workbooks or magazines and will beg me to do them.  I am not a fun artsy mom!  But sometimes I will get it together and do the craft he wants.  Lately we have made and painted penguins and this is painting prayer rocks. 

When Isaac had his kindergarten assessment they invited him to participate in a free summer school in June.  So this is the first time Isaac has gone to a real school (I have traded with other moms to do preschool for two years).  He was so excited to go and didn't even look back or say goodbye when he checked in with his teacher and sat on the rug with the other kids.  

Of course James needs a backpack and waterbottle too.

This is picking him up from school.  He had fun and met new friends and played on the playground but "it was a long time!"  When I told him his kindergarten in August was going to be longer, he was not so sure about that.  This pre-k program is 8-12 but in the fall kindergarten goes until 3. Yikes! 

Blake was so excited to see how Isaac liked school that he had me wake him up after working all night to go pick Isaac up. 

And in other news, James likes to pretend to use the potty like Isaac.  Just this week he actually started peeing in there.  Incredible! So now he will ask to pee every once in a while and this morning he asked to pee so we let him go to the bathroom.  He didn't want Blake to watch so he left.  Then Blake heard an "uh oh" and James had pooped on the floor.  Whoops--next time sit down!  It is amazing how differently kids can learn to do things. I think James will be way easier to potty train than Isaac.