Just write. In the whirlwind of the past month I'm a bundle of emotions, from sending my *baby* to Kindergarten, to entering the final month of my last pregnancy to a plethora of one-on-one time with my baby girl who has grown to be so incredibly independent, so much so that when she has her emotional meltdowns, I have to remind myself how incredibly normal they are as she is only three.
In the meantime the blog has been neglected, not because I lack things to write about, but because I lack the mental organization and general writing skills to write something approaching coherent when everything feels just so big in my mind. School. Independence. Worries. Fears. Babies. Sibling Rivalry. It's all big and complicated and then further complicated by my own concerns about blogging as a journal vs. news feed, but in reality, life is made up of lots of wonderful little moments too, so to "catch up" I'm going to work backwards through my digital photo "in-the-last-month-stack" for a while, leave my photos unedited and share lots of the little things we've been doing!
This weekend, we got to celebrate the birthdays of 3 friends, which meant an entire Sunday afternoon of cake, fun and lots of party trinkets and cool sunglasses and harmonicas.
Then yesterday at the very, very last minute, we ended up booking a mini-photo shoot with our favorite photographer who happened to be in town for the weekend and agreed to do a fall mix of maternity-ish/family photos to commemorate my last pregnancy. The kids' favorite part was throwing leaves and Matthew insisted daddy take a phone photo of him with his "leaf hat" before we finished!
School in general has significantly busied our lives, but it was an especially busy week at the house! We signed the kids up for a free "big sibling" class at the hospital! Not that they need to get more excited, but it certainly helped them build even more excitement for their new sibling! Catherine right now thinks it's a girl and Matthew a boy, so unfortunately someone's going to be disappointed. Catherine also still tells me there's two a lot, so she'll be disappointed on two fronts! Speaking of that, this week also included the kids' dental check-ups. They both did extremely well and go back and do the wh
ole appointment by themselves. Catherine was pretty danged proud of herself! Matthew also took this opportunity to announce to everyone in the office what I was going to be for Halloween as well as (in his words): "the baby, you know, but it won't be born, it's just mommy's big fat tummy." However, Matthew is still extremely displeased that when we scheduled his appointment 6 months ago we didn't realize he would have to miss both gym and music which he found quite unacceptable. I tried to schedule better for next time :-)
Speaking of school, Matthew's been doing really well. Here's a pic his teacher sent of his "monster muffin" they made on pajama day! I was able to volunteer in the class a few days later for writing time and got a great glimpse at his class and day, as well as his writing project. He says his favorite part of the day was not having to get dressed for school :-)
And here he was all ready to go to school! Pajama day also happened to fall on Matthew's "all about me" day. He brought home a shoe box he got to use to take in some of his favorite things. He chose a book, a lego car he had built, his allowance "chart" that we use to track how much he's saved toward his goal, a rock from his rock collection, his marshmallow catapult, a puppet he made at the museum and pictures of his sister and extended family. He was so excited!
The weekend previous, I snuck away for a girl's weekend in West Yellowstone. We had a nice, relaxing time and took a great, flat, five mile hike to Fairy Falls and back. However, what was most exciting is that along the trail it takes you to a hillside to get an "aerial" view of Grand Prismatic, which is a shot I've wanted for a long time! I'd love to go back when it's a little warmer and less steamy but it was still an amazing view with some great gals willing to hike with the slow, pregnant chick!
Meanwhile at home, I was unfortunately missing out on one of my favorite Bozeman events, the Raptor Festival! James had it covered and brought home kiddos with tattoos, face paint and a new bird house they had built which is pretty much how to do a festival right in Bozeman!
Measuring their wing span:
I have an entire post *almost* ready to go up about our new lego solution, but here's a picture of Matthew with an awesome Triceratops he built!
The weekend prior to raptor fest, some very dear friends threw me and a good friend and fellow book club member a book themed baby shower! While I am very thankful I got pictures of all the lovely ladies who attended, I got so busy chatting (I know, me?!?!?!) that I didn't take any pictures of the details. There were themed dishes, each based on a children's book, lovely decorations, an amazing book-themed invite and the baby got lots of adorable clothes, new books and more! Matthew and Catherine even got a few surprise gifts, including these sibling shirts. As you saw before, I decided to let them wear them to sibling class, but here was the first time they tried them on after begging to do so! There's a matching shirt for the baby so I'm trying really hard to make sure they are all clean at the same time so I can get a shot with all three kids! I had a tough enough time with just Matthew and Catherine and their big brother/little sister shirts!
Matthew's school has had quite a few activities since he started! One of the first weekends there was a fall festival, last weekend they hosted a Friday night movie night in the gym which the kids love and then a few weeks ago was their open house! Here's Matthew's bulletin board project, with his picture of Sky and 4 race cars and their track!
We also took advantage of some great weather a few weeks ago for a weekend hike with friends!
Where of course we took a long break for wading and rock splashing!
Seriously gorgeous!
As my battery is about to die, I'll go ahead and wrap up here with the promise of more backward blogging with pics of Catherine's first weeks of preschool, some more hiking and some more general Watson household mayhem - as well as our anti-mayhem Lego plan :-)
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