Blinded by Cuteness

This shall be a hit and run post, mostly for the sake of putting some new photos up. Which shall wow you with their cuteness, of course, because they feature my children. But first, in the way of updates/tying up loose ends, I will say that we DID end up going to the county fair last weekend, and a good time was had by all. We got rained out after a couple of hours, but it was plenty of time to see most of the animals, eat a little fair food, win some prizes, and ride a few of the rides. Finn is still talking about it. It's a good thing we had a babysitter for Lucy, though, as she ended up running a little fever from her shots, poor thing. All is well now, though.
Thank you all for sharing your car experiences and recommendations. We'll be taking our time with this decision (won't buy until the spring, likely), and we have a very long list of cars to start test driving. That's the fun part!

Next week is Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end to summer (I'm old school - the official end is the equinox). School is back in session beginning tomorrow, and our neighborhood pool will close up shop next Monday. I am both happy to welcome fall (yay for sweater weather!), and in shock that the summer is over. It feels like yesterday that I was sitting outside during some freakishly hot April weather, riding out contractions and wondering if I would meet my baby soon (and I did, that night). Now she's over 4 months old, trying to sit up and roll over, becoming more like a person every day. Today we set up Lucy's high chair and had her sit at the table with us during dinner. She thought it was great, smiling and "talking" to us the whole time. It's just unbelievable how big and grown up she's getting.

In other "I can't believe how big my kids are getting" news, Finn starts his first official day in the 3-year-old room at daycare tomorrow. He began the transition last week, and so far, things have been going well. Which is more than a little shocking, as Finn is notorious for handling transitions really badly. Luckily, two of his classmates are moving over with him, which is helping. He now enters a classroom where he will start learning to write letters and numbers, and participate in a more school-like, regimented curriculum. I worried (of course) that the school was moving him too soon - it's a 10:1 ratio in the new classroom, and Finn still has almost 2 months to go before he officially turns 3. However, he really does seem to be ready to be challenged a little more, so I think it's for the best.

And now for the pictures. They stretch back a few weeks (wish it wasn't such a pain to upload photos or I'd be better about doing it more often - hmm, where, exactly, does a new computer fall on our priority list?), so I'll try to post them in date order to some degree.
Lucy's first day at daycare, August 3, 2009 (14 weeks old)

Every time we bring out Lucy's "toy blanket" (thanks for making it, Mom), Finn insists on bringing her choice toys, and hanging out with her (until his attention wavers, of course - he is only 2). Here they are hanging out on the blanket together a couple of weeks ago - very cute, no?

Sorry for the red eye, but I couldn't resist putting this one up as it's such a good representation of how alert and smiley Lucy always seems to be.

New hair cut, this must be haircut #20 or so...

This past Friday was the end of summer picnic at daycare, with a circus theme. Finn has not yet learned a healthy fear of clowns, and was very excited for his clown hat and face paint.

Yesterday, more blanket time.

And more smiles.

Finn with a new cowboy hat, photo taken by M. tonight. We went to the local mall yesterday for some kids' activities that were being held in the parking lot - musical performances, face painting, balloon animals, moon bounce - something a little different than our typical Saturday afternoon. While there, we bought a ticket for Finn to spin a wheel and win a prize. The lucky duck managed to land on the pie slice that gave kid's choice of the prize OR a $25 gift card to Macy's. I showed my devotion to motherhood by giving up the gift card and letting Finn pick one of the cheap toys instead. He chose this hat. So if the next time you see me I'm wearing shoes that should have been retired long ago, just remember that I'm a good mom. Because I could have done a lot with that gift card...