Clean Up, Clean Up - Everybody Do Their Share!

At Austen and Peyton's school, they sing this song - clean up, clean up - everybody do their share.  So they clean up while singing.  Austen is much better at cleaning up than Peyton - at least at home.

They both attend a Montessori school so part of their practical life skills is setting the table and cleaning up after themselves.  The video below is after one family dinner where Austen practically begged us to let him wash the dishes. You can even see Peyton helping out here too.

If this continues, I might not have to do any house work by the time they hit high school!

I Don't Want to Ever Do That Again!

Unlike most of our weekends, this one was pretty relaxed as far as the number activities we had to do.  We only had one birthday party to attend and Peyton needed her haircut.  The weather was perfect outside and the air and water show was on in Chicago.  This made the weekend really relaxed -- we let the kids play, watched the air and water show from our building's rooftop and we decided to go for a family run.

I dusted off the jogging stroller that we bought when Austen was barely one so Peyton could ride in style. We plugged in our iPod, Austen rode his big wheel and off we went.  Austen did great for maybe the first mile and a half but after that he started to slow down.  Tom and I separated for a bit so he could rest and then we met up again to finish the run.

After the run, we took Adler for a walk. Now I'm sure some of you are asking why we didn't take Adler on a run too. Well, she's not a running type of dog. She would probably tire before Austen so she joined us for our cool down portion of our family exercise.

As we were walking, Austen informs us,  "I don't want to ever do that again!"

He follows it up by adding, "It was really boring and my legs hurt!"

Ha...and he was only riding a big wheel!

Tom's reply, "When you get to be our age, you need to do something!"

Playtime at the Park

Austen and Peyton go to the same school and now that Peyton is older, her class hangs out at the same park as the big kids.  So a few times a week they will see each other at the park.  This day, I didn't know that they had seen each other and during dinner the two of them start having a conversation about their day at the park. Guess who isn't too happy with his little sister?  Find out why...

So if you could understand anything from this conversation, Austen and Peyton saw each other at the park.  Peyton is happy to see her big brother but he doesn't want anything to do with her or rather after he says hi, he doesn't want to play with her or for her to follow him.

Peyton is excited to see him at the park in the middle of her day at school. She wants to hang out with her big brother and his friends.  He tries to ditch her and this makes her feel sad.

Interestingly enough both of their teachers told me that when they see each other at the park, Austen is sweet but he does hide from her after seeing her.  He does look out for her too. One day he was carrying her across the park because he thought her class was leaving without her and he was worried about her (they weren't).  Peyton loves her big brother so much she cries when he leaves her or she has to leave or when he hides from her.

Oh the joys of having a sibling. But, I can't imagine them not having each other.

Getting Older

I'm not talking about Tom or me or even the kids getting older. I'm talking about Adler.  She has started to show her first visible signs of aging.  Lately, I've thought that it seems like it takes her longer to get up especially at night when her body is tired but then I tell myself it's probably just my imagination.  But this sign, I know isn't my imagination.  Her eyebrows have officially started to turn gray!  Berners have these great tan eyebrows on their face and they do have white in their fur too so at first I wasn't sure if the gray/white hairs were there all along or if they were new. So I compared her to past photos and yes, they are new.

I guess technically she is 49 but she still seems like the little puppy I picked up at the breeder almost 8 years ago to me.  I don't like that she is visibly aging but I'll take that over anything else as long as she still feels good.