Today Tommy attended his first day of preschool. Hard to believe he’s old enough to go to school already, but here he is! Doesn’t he look dapper in his little LVDS uniform?

 Placing his new backpack in his classroom cubby.

Big smiles with Mrs. Toth. All weekend he kept commenting on how pretty she is!

A quick family snapshot before we said our goodbyes. No tears this year, just lots of smiles. 

After I picked him up he talked nonstop about his new friend Johnny and the scrub-scrub song he sang when he washed his hands. He proudly showed me the Dora sticker his teacher placed on his hand and did NOT want it to be removed for any reason whatsoever. He told me that he colored with the brown crayon, his favorite color, and sure enough there was a fantastic brown drawing in his backpack when we got home.

All he wanted to do when he got home was race up to my room to watch Clifford on PBS. Once I got him settled I unpacked the rest of his bag and found this. (Click on the photo to enlarge the poem).

Way to make a mommy cry!

Last Friday was Tommy’s “Meet the Teacher Day” at his new school, Las Vegas Day School. He met Mrs. Toth, his teacher and her assistants, Mrs. Spurlock and Mrs. Done. Wouldn’t you know…he found the classroom airplanes right away.

Practicing hammering with longtime pals Taylor & Logan. He’s been buddies with them since their newborn days, so it’s pretty cool that they’re in a class together.

With Mrs. Done. She’s from Oregon like Mommy!

Tommy found the trike on the playground and it was instant love. We think this new school will suit him just fine!

Enjoying a special lunch with just Mommy & Daddy. Annalise was at home with Alecsa so Tommy could have our full attention for this important day.

After a busy day at the beach, we ventured down to the Port of Los Angeles for the annual Festival of Sail. Tommy loved viewing the big “pirate ships,” posing as a pirate and exploring a few of the boats.

Tommy LOVES his babysitter, Alecsa. She’s definitely one of his favorite buddies and he loves to color and draw with her (or make her watch Cars or Top Gun with him for the zillionth time). Here they work on writing “letters” together.

Hugs and smiles!

Tommy’s had a fun summer. He attended summer camp two mornings a week at Shenker Academy, kept busy with trips to the Sahara West Library, the not-frequent-enough romp at the park (too hot!), and played with friends as often as we could. But, since we live in the scorching desert, we also spent a lot of time couped up in the house.

And avoided pants. This is his interpretation of Risky Business meets Top Gun…landing toy airplanes on his aircraft carrier while sporting the tighty whiteys. Move over, Tom Cruise! (Due to his love of all things airplane, he’s seen the latter movie…we’ll save the former for MANY years down the road)

He’s been into Etch-a-Sketch lately. I recently bought him the big classic red one, to increase his sketchin’ real estate. Most of his creations resemble stair steps, sometimes deliberately and precisely spaced.

We have escaped from the house a few times. In recent weeks we discovered the joy of Bounce U‘s open playtime. He bounces, jumps, runs, slides and just wears himself out. At the end of the hour-long session he is a sweaty mess, but he takes a GOOD nap that afternoon, which says a lot considering he’s eschews shuteye for the afternoon episode of Super Why! more often than not.

Getting wild with M3. These boys are inseparable.