potty post

can we just take a minute and celebrate the fact that both (yes, both) my kids just peed in the potty for the first time ever tonight?

and ignore the fact that immediately afterward, they did this?

i'm about ready to throw all our bath toys away.

they never stay in the bath.

but since they both peed in the potty, i guess the toys can stay another day.

nothing can ruin my good mood tonight.

preschool can be rough

remember that scene in arrested development where george michael comes home from school to the tune of charlie brown music and then this happens?

tennyson looked very similar after school today.

i guess he played hard.

preschool can be rough.

(and ps... if you haven't watched arrested development... shame on you.)

tennyson the preschooler

today we sent this kid off to school for the first time.

can you believe it?

(and can you believe how perfectly his "alphabet cadet" shirt describes him?)

i've really been looking forward to this day.

i've told mike a few times that i feel like i should be more sad than i am. like maybe i don't have normal mommy emotions. the thing is, i know how much he needs preschool and i have high hopes for him this year.

i think we are going to see a lot of progress.

but still, five mornings a week is a big deal.

and i may have felt my mommy emotions come out a little bit as i was walking him down the hall of his school. i mean, this kid goes to an elementary school! with decorated classroom doors and posters everywhere saying "welcome!"

he's all grown up.

he's taking the bus and everything.

i was really weary of the bus, to be honest. i decided that since i was going with him to school today, that we could try it out and i would make my final decision then.

and he's going to take the bus every day. 

we really lucked out with bus routes. he's the last one to be picked up and the first one to be dropped off, which means he only spends about ten minutes on the bus. the bus picks him up at our door and his teacher is there waiting at the curb when he gets to school.

it's a pretty sweet deal.

and he pretty much felt like a king on that bus.

tennyson's classroom is awesome.

there are only nine kids in there with him.

he gets to spend the day playing with all sorts of toys.

legos, books, puzzles, letters, you name it.

plus he's got a pretty sweet snack hook up (although today he wanted nothing to do with it because... toys.)

a couple days a week he'll have a speech therapist and and occupational therapist that will come into his classroom and work one on one with him. it's going to be so good for him.

(mom's favorite part? five days a week, someone else gets to deal with his potty training all morning!)

at the end of the day, tennyson didn't want to leave.

who can blame him, really?

it wasn't until i pointed out that we needed to go find our maggie that he was ready to get on that bus again.

the whole way home he kept asking "gaggie? where are you? dada? where are you?"

and my mommy emotions struck once more when tennyson was walking home from the bus stop.

how in the world do i have a kid who is old enough to have to walk home from the bus stop?

when we found our dada and our gaggie, we went for a celebratory lunch at mcdonald's.

for the first time ever, tennyson played in the play place. as if he didn't already love mcdonald's enough already, now he knows that there are slides inside.

and just like that, tennyson is a preschooler.

if anyone finds a way to invent a pause button for time, i'd be seriously interested in investing.

exotic toledo

if there is one thing mike and i have failed at during our time here in michigan, it is sight seeing.

we've seen very little of what michigan has to offer, and it is a shame because there are so many wonderful things out there...

sleeping bear dunes, the henry ford museum, mackinac fudge, a billion lighthouses...
i've been dying to go to traverse city just to get moomers ice cream for three years now and we still haven't ever found the time to go do it.

we've only got one year left here in lansing, and we decided it is high time we start exploring pure michigan.

so where did we decide to visit first?
toledo.

totally not in michigan.

here's the thing, though. i love the toledo zoo. i've been raving about it to mike ever since we moved here. i think i've mentioned the detroit zoo a time or two, but toledo is only half an hour farther and i love it so much more. mostly because there is far too much walking to do at the detroit zoo. i like my zoos compact. please don't make me walk a mile between each animal or ride a train from one side to the other.

plus, toledo happens to have the closest friendly's, and there is nothing better than their honey bbq melt and their ice cream for dessert.

so we started "exploring michigan" in toledo.

the city did not disappoint.

we spent the first day filling up on our favorite foods, and the second day we spent at the zoo.

tennyson got to see his "quenguin" friends....

 and kiss the eyeball of pumba...

and ride on a "woah, big turtle!".

 the highlight of the zoo visit was the elephants. we got there right at feeding time and both tennyson and maggie were completely captivated by them. i don't think tennyson realized until this visit just how big elephants actually are. they've been his favorite animal for a month or so now, but i think this visit sealed the deal. plus, how can you resist the utter cuteness of a baby elephant?

(props to mike for taking this picture!)

we also got up close and personal with the hippos (another tennyson favorite) and the biggest orangutan i've ever seen in real life.

it was so nice to have a weekend away with our family. we've missed having mike around this summer, and it has been so wonderful that we've been able to find the time to do fun family outings. i love when we are all together. just one more week until mike comes home for good. and then maybe we'll spend some time exploring things that are actually in michigan. i can't wait. 

meet me halfway

the stars lined up perfectly this summer.

mike was able to stay in michigan for his internship,

mike's brother got an internship in wisconsin,

and my family went to utah for a week in july which left their house open.

a house which just happened to be the halfway point between michigan and wisconsin.

so we packed up our car and met halfway. totally perfect.

the only unperfect thing was that we had planned on going to a park or the zoo,

and it decided to be october outside instead of the end of july.

my poor nephew didn't have any pants with him, except a pair they had just bought that was a couple sizes too big. not that he really seemed to mind.

it was a very lucky coincidence that i hadn't happened to take tennyson and maggie's jackets out of the car yet. laziness for the win.

playing outside with the cool breeze and our jackets on made me yearn for the autumn. is it time to go pumpkin picking and drink apple cider yet? because i'm more than ready.

mike and his brother's favorite part of the trip?

re-enacting family portraits to replace inside the frames at my parent's house.

i wish we lived closer to family.

but we are lucky to have times like this to play together.

overall? it was a perfect weekend.

and i'm so glad we were able to do it.