An afternoon at the park with cousin our Oldest Nephews/Cousins Ethan and Kyle
Of course the kids loved the swing!
Kyle loves to look over his sun glasses! 
Our Youngest Nephew/Cousin Devin is getting bigger by the day and has a great smile!
Kyle and Auntie Cheri at Camping Memorial Day weekend!
Good Friend Kobe is a serious thinker, as seen in this picture at Beth’s Graduation party 
We added another girl to the clan, finally, introducing McKenna, daughter of Mickey & Keith
Samantha at a fundraising DuPage Dragons Baseball Game!
Kyle playing in the pop up dog house at camping this past Labor Day Weekend!
So the question is, why has our life been so busy, besides working like crazy and trying to get some rest. Well, we are getting ready for the Baby. We have spent the last couple months getting the house in a better place altogether. I of course have had more the director role and Bruce has been playing the role of the sole manual worker. We have been transitioning the computer room into Samantha’s new room, leaving Samantha’s old room for the revived nursery. Finding space for all the junk has been a challenge. We had to clean out the attic first. Thank goodness we are having a huge garage sale at work, which created a great excuse to go through some of the boxes. In addition, the news of having a baby boy changed the toy and clothing collection we had accumulated. Lots of clothes were handed down to Baby McKenna and Mickey’s Niece Anna.
Most everyone knows that Mom’s least favorite color is Pink. I guess I should have known that Samantha’s favorite color would turn out to be Pink. I swallowed my pride and let Dad paint Samantha’s room in her favorite color. As you can see below, she is thrilled about the pink. Bruce and I both agreed that it looks a lot like Pepto Bismol.
Her room is at the mid point in the picture. Once the new carpet is installed, we should be able to make a very quick final transition. Auntie Nancy will be coming over to help put up the border this weekend and help me think through the rest of the room. Samantha has new everything. And I even played crafty critter and created a few things to accent the room. The unveiling will come soon so stay tuned for the finished product. Not to be out done, baby boy Berman will also live in the lap of luxury. Those pictures to follow soon as well.
So you wonder, why update the blog today? Well, today was Samantha’s first day at Pre-School, Pre K to be exact. Samantha and Mom had a tearful good bye to our favorite baby sitter Sheila last week and received a great memory book to remember her friends. After visiting the school last Friday, Samantha was very excited about the days to come. Here she is making a funny face in front of the Pre-school sign when she arrived this morning. She is carrying her new Dora Pillow for "rest time."
She was a big girl and carried her back pack on her back as she went into school.
Dad had the honor of taking her on her first day. Mom called from work before they left the house and was virtually ignored by Samantha. From what I have experienced thus far, the independence will continue to happen and I have to get use to it. Anyway, the day went off with only a little hitch. Dad says she immediately joined in for “circle time” and basically ignored him too as he left for work. That did make me feel better. In the excitement of Daddy getting Samantha into school, the “friend blankie” was accidentally left in Dad’s car with daddy not realizing it until he arrived at work. Of course I couldn’t help myself, and now that I had an excuse, I had to call and see how she was doing. The school director told me she was doing fine. She was joining in and having fun. I warned her about the blanket and mentioned that she might be sad at “rest time.” She was very nice and said they would keep an eye on her. To my surprise, she had no problem at quiet time. She even took a nap on the first day, without her blankie.
In the car on the way home, we talked about her day. She said she had fun playing with the toys and reading (no surprise). She said the other kids would not share the markers then continued to say that she was too shy to ask for a turn. She told me she would ask nicely tomorrow. The icing on the cake came when she told me to go to work tomorrow and go to a meeting for a long time. I think it is fair to say she enjoyed school.
After a quick run through the shower, Samantha was excited to mark off her calendar and make sure she was going to school on Thursday. This is the new nightly tradition we have for Samantha. She was struggling to understand the days/dates from day-to-day and what was happening on that particular day so we created a calendar for her that she can cross off each day. It is shown in its temporary location until her room is done. She reads it well enough to know which days are school days and which are days that Mommy or Daddy will be home with her. The only curse of the calendar is that she has started counting down to Christmas already. Yikes. It is just over three months for those of you who are thinking we have lots of time yet, just as Sam. At the end of the night she was exhausted, wanted to go to be early and didn’t want to stay up to read. All in all, it was a good first day of school and Samantha proved to be a big young girl yet again.
So ta ta for now. Coming sooner versus later, the new room unveiling.
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