Growing Up

This week has been so full of growing up moments, I had to pose the kids for some pictures.
The kids performed admirably, of course! :-)
I'm lucky they are all such good little buddies. I hadn't realized how much they do play together, actually, until Cheyenne started school this week. Elliott, while enjoying complete control over all the toys, really is missing Cheyenne.
Rilla with a squinched up nose. She's six months old, as of yesterday.
So we had to take a few quick portraits...


Cheyenne on her first day of school. We were running late (of course) so I didn't have time to pose really good pictures, but the utter poise and responsibility are evident, anyway!
The backpack (cinched up all the way and it still is big on her!)






Cheyenne with her teacher (she's expecting a third child in October, so she'll be out for several months!)




On the same day, Elliott and Cheyenne both had their first dentist appointment. They had their initial checkup, and they normally would have had to schedule a separate visit to have their teeth cleaned, but after the dentist was finished, the assistant said there were two hygienists available, and would I like to have that done right now? I did, and it was nice to get it all done at once, although juggling an antsy baby while holding hands and cajoling kids through X-rays was quite busy!
Elliott was quite enthralled for a long time cleaning the teeth model.






On the SAME day (Yup, it did seem like a long day!), two of our butterflies hatched! Of course, I went upstairs to feed Marilla for ten minutes and by the time we came down again, there they were. So exciting to see them flex their wings and grow. They hatched right before I was supposed to leave for Cheyenne's orientation, so Eleanor babysat Elliott, Marilla AND two caterpillars.

After they'd hung for a while, I moved them outside. Cheyenne had to grudgingly donate some of the sand from the sandbox because the breeze was making a nice little kite out of the container!
The empty shells are so clear and fragile. When they started trying to fly, I helped them crawl onto a leaf, and they were out of sight within seconds. Pretty impressive.

Evan wasn't able to be at Cheyenne's Pre-K for the first day of orientation, so he stayed home the next morning to walk her to school. I didn't know how hard it would be on Daddy to leave his girl there!

Posing with Elliott.
Walking down the road with Daddy.

Very sad, lonely, left-behind boy. I took Marilla and Elliott over in the double stroller later to pick her up. Not sure how often we'll do that, as I have an old garage sale stroller that's sort of tipsy on pavement, let alone on the trails through the woods you have to use to get to school. Anyway, Cheyenne was very happy with school. It is so weird not knowing what's happening with her at all times. There was a show and tell that first day-- Evan and I were saying how much we would pay to be a fly on the wall for that. She took Wodehouse, my wolf puppet from librarian days, and demonstrated how to use a puppet. She did it very competently here, I just wonder if she had the courage to do it at school.

This post has been up on my computer for a day now, interrupted by bedtime, driving to school, frequent nursings, nap attempts, etc., so tenses and timelines are probably weird. Anyway, just wanted to give everyone a glimpse of my big kids!