First Day of School

The two littlest are sleeping, and I really don't feel like climbing Mt Laundry right now, so instead of wasting time on YouTube, I thought I could do a little blogging. See where my priorities are?
School has been in session for two weeks now and it has been good.

Lizzy is in middle school this year, starting sixth grade. There are so many things that I could say about this, but I suspect they are the things that all parents say when their oldest child reaches this stage, so I will forbear. Did you notice how her glasses are taped together? She broke them two days before school started. 

Barak is in fifth grade, top of the school and cool as can be. 

Sebastian is in third grade. He is excited to enter the world of state testing.

Henry is in first grade. He does not love school so much. He tells me there is too much work involved. He would prefer to just play. Or watch TV.

Ivan started PreK. Again there are So Many Things to say about this. But regardless of how I am feeling, he is happy and loves school. He's so happy to be one of the big kids. 

Baby Gus and I spend the mornings ... actually, what do we do all morning? I feel like it's time to pick Ivan up before I've ever gotten anything done. Mostly I suppose we go grocery shopping or crawl around and eat things off the floor. Anyway, we stay busy.

Aren't they a handsome bunch?

Why yes, three of them did pick out the same shirt for the first day of school. I don't usually buy them all matching clothes, but this is what they each wanted to wear. Which I think is awesome. :)

He is cute, though.

Ivan and I were having an argument about whether or not he is cute. I could not convince him, so finally I asked him how he would describe himself. To which he responded, "Rich. And famous."
So here is my rich and famous boy:

Hot chocolate and peanut butter toast. Living the high life.

Admit it, you'd give yourself a fake beard, too, if you had bath paints. 

August Tain

On Monday morning I looked like this:

And then this happened at 2:15 ish. Except actually this picture was taken the next day, when all the bruising on his face was gone and he was a lot less puffy. I'll spare you the brand new, before-his-bath, newborn pictures. 

Finally we were able to go home on Tuesday evening. After getting him dressed in his first outfit, adjusting the car seat belts and strapping hm in, he decided to fill his diaper, and we had to start over. Babies have great comedic timing. 

The kids all love him and fight over whose turn it is to hold him. We are very happy to have our Baby Gus. :)

Oh, I almost forgot to add his stats:

10lbs 2oz

21 1/2 inches

Good, loud cry

First day of school

Since it's been a couple of months, it's probably time to post pictures of the first day of school.

 Four Washburns at one elementary school. 

Fifth grade is the top of the school! Neither of us can believe the day has finally arrived. 

 Fourth grade

Second grade

Kindergarten

He was so excited about the first day of school. And then he spent a couple of weeks tying to talk us into letting him stay home for various reasons, or flat out refusing to go. But things have settled down into more of a routine, and he loves his class and his teacher. He has already made amazing progress this year, and I am so proud of him. 

Ivan started a little preschool, too. Five of my friends and I rotate hosting once a week for a couple of hours. He wasn't too sure about it at first, but he loves having regular play time with his friends. He has started telling me, "I won't cry at preschool today," which is both a little sad and encouraging. 

We are off to a great start this year!

Christmas

It is August, and not at all the appropriate time to be thinking about Christmas, but I was uploading pictures from my camera, and I found some pictures from a couple of Christmases ago. They made me think of all the Christmas pictures we have taken over the past (almost) twelve years, and since this is my blog and I'm the only one who reads it anyway, I figured I would compile all those Christmases into one place. Even if it is August. And the first day of a new school year. And actually I should be posting those pictures instead.

2006

This is roughly our first Christmas together. We didn't actually own a camera until after Christmas had passed, but this is close enough. I think you can see the Christmas tree behind us if you squint, but don't let that fool you. We left that poor tree up until February.

 Also not really a Christmas picture, but it's in November 2007. This is actually the ONLY family picture I could find from that time period. We look awful, because we were brand new parents and didn't know how easy having only one child is. 

 2008

 2009

 We look tired, because we were tired.

2010

2011

 We had just moved into our first house, and since we went to Colorado for Christmas, we might not have even had a tree.

2012

2013

 I could not find a complete family Christmas picture from this year, but it's the year we moved halfway across the country, and I know I was pretty stressed at this time. That's not even our Christmas tree the kids are standing in front of. 

2014

2015

2016

I actually do have a family picture in front of our Christmas tree for this year, this one is just so much cuter.

2017

I thought I had a pretty consistent picture taking tradition, but looking through them all together, I can see it's pretty hit and miss. And we didn't even start taking these pictures until 2008. Oh well. It's still fun to see how our family has grown over the years. I can't wait to see what our 2018 picture will look like!

Henry, who is four, wanted to write a blog post with me. This is what he had to say:
"I love to play with my mom. I love my mom. Sebastian is my frenemy. My heart is beating when mom is here. I love mom."
He said he needed a picture to go with it, and this is what he chose. :)

Treasures

Today Ivan and I went for a walk. Normally I would say that Oklahoma fails at fall colors. Dismally. In fact this is the first autumn that we have been here that I have not felt like I completely missed the season. I'm not sure whether there really is something different about this year, or whether I've just gotten used to seeing a lot more brown, but I have loved every pop of color I've come across, and I'm convinced that this has been the best fall yet. Just look at this tree!

It was a beautiful morning, in a beautiful place. Recently I've really learned to appreciate the beauty of Oklahoma. It is rather different from where I grew up, but I really do like it here. There may not be mountains or tall trees, but you can't argue with that sky, and prairie grasses make a music of their own.



I was a little early to pick up Henry at school, and his class was outside on the playground. He saw me pull in and ran to the fence, jumping up and down, waving and shouting, "Hi, Mom! Hi!" Pretty soon there was a whole swarm of four-year-olds at the fence saying, "Hi, Henry's mom!" I said hello to them all and gave Henry a high five, but before I could walk away to wait on the bench by the school entrance, a little boy poked a piece of bark through the fence for me. "Here you go," he said. "It's school bark." Of course that meant I received several more treasures as other classmates joined in the gift giving. I was even given a tattered leaf.


This was probably the best moment of my whole week and made me so happy in ways I cannot express. I loved how happy Henry was to tell his friends, "That's my mom!" I loved the innocent generosity of children who were immediately ready to accept me as a friend.