Zoey’s first day of First Grade, and the first day of Keegan’s second year of preschool (or close enough):

Zoey’s first day of Kindergarten, and kinda sorta Keegan’s first day of preschool:

Here are some more photos from this year.

At time of purchase you can choose between a Child Prize or an Adult Prize. The Child Prize includes the winner’s choice of two of the following:

1. Seattle Pacific Science Center Family Membership
2. Seattle Children’s Museum Family Membership
3. Woodland Park Zoo Family Membership
4. Seattle Aquarium Family Membership
5. Northwest Puppet Theater gift certificate
6. Everett Imagine Children’s Museum Family Membership

The Adult Prize (which you should probably go for—it’s okay, you deserve it) is a two night stay at the Pan Pacific Hotel in downtown Seattle.

Just let us know how many tickets you want, and for each one whether you want to vie for the Child Prize or the Adult Prize.

Thanks, on behalf of Zoey and all her preschool friends!

"Daddy, what does ‘shock’ mean?"

You turned 4 years old today. Okay, that’s not true at all. You turned 4 years old 10 days ago, and this post is late like most things we do these days. But you like to pretend that every day is your birthday, so I know you won’t mind. (Make that 18 days. Blogging is hard.)

We’re completely insane, so we not only had a party for you at our house with friends and family, we had a princess / knight / pirate-themed birthday party for you and some of your preschool friends at a place whose web site is seriously—I’m not making this up— prettyprettyprincessparties.com. It was incredibly cute, and you all had fun dressing up, going on the treasure hunt, whacking the mermaid piñata, and eating the icing off your cupcakes.

You are an amazing little preschooler. About a year ago you still didn’t talk much, until that one fateful morning you decided it was time to start speaking in complete sentences. You haven’t stopped talking since. You have an impressive vocabulary and some adorable speech habits, such as substituting "Y" for "L" and having your own way of saying some words. Some of my favorites are:

"serocerous" (rhinoceros)
"dinosaur x" (tyrannosaurus rex)
and the classic "paskettie."

You love to tell stories and have us make up stories with you, most of which star Busy Bee, Mad Bee, Princess Bee, and a host of other Bees. They live in Beeville, and oh, you would not beyieve the wacky hijinks they get up to.

You love to sing the alphabet song, but instead of "l-m-n-o-p" you sing "m-o-m-o-p."

You’re a great big sister to Keegan, except when you’re loud while he’s sleeping. Which is any time you’re awake and he’s not. He can be in the foulest mood (usually brought on by Daddy being too slow to feed him) and all it takes to make his face light up is for you to sashay into the room. He adores you, and I hope you can manage to always love that as much as you do right now.

You are constantly asking questions and testing boundaries and trying our patience, which is (often maddeningly) exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. You are one cool kid, Zoey, and you make every day an adventure.

We love you tons and tons, Zoey. Happy "Birthday"!

(You, or anyone else reading this, can and should view the whole photo set on Flickr.)

More bloggity goodness, plus new photos, coming soon. No, really!

Rona and had checkups too, and we both have high cholesterol. Rona’s blood pressure is perfect as always, but mine is above the hypertension line. If it’s above next time, too, then I officially have high blood pressure. Rona got some allergen testing results back, and so between those and the cholesterol, we’ll soon be dumping dairy, wheat, eggs, and some other stuff from our diet for a while at least to see if we can get things back out of the red zone.

"Soon" rather than "now" would be because this Friday we’re partaking in a cooking class at Blue Ribbon Cooking School for Nicole’s birthday. We’ll cook a gourmet meal under chefly supervision, and then the food will be served to us in the dining room. Sounds like a perfect last hurrah before our cleanse.

Zoey had preschool this morning, and then came with us to our long appointment at Dr. Tracy’s office. She had fun coming in and out of the room to go get more toys and visit with the other doctors and their patients and the front desk staff.

Moving back to Keegan, tonight we gave him his first food, butternut squash! He loved the eating process, but didn’t seem too keen on the squash itself. We just hope that introducing some solid food will enable him to sleep longer at night. Wish us luck!

And of course, we’ve posted First Food Photos to Flickr:

We’ll post a video soon, as well (with a Quicktime link for Grandpa Robert, too).

Here are the 4 month old stats:

Yes, two weeks ago it was Keegan’s four month appointment. Here are the stats:

17 pounds 1.5 ounces (90th percentile)
26 inches (90th percentile)
42 cm head circumference (50th percentile)

We are looking at new car seats. We have decided to upgrade Zoey’s to a booster/high back car seat because she will be growing into the new booster style in the next 6 months or so. We will need to move Keegan in before that (at 27 inches and 20 pounds). So, that’s the plan.

He has just learned to stick out his tongue. It is very cute. No picture yet. He’s fast. He is getting better at holding his head up and sitting up. He is also teething now. I am also going through all of his clothes. He is wearing the 9 month size right now. All the 6 months clothes are now too small.

Everything is getting starting back up now that school has started. We are still getting used to our new schedules. Preschool is up and running for Zoey at the new location three days a week. Little Gym is on a new day.

Moving right along… Keegan just cut TWO teeth! Yep. The first one (his bottom left) cut about 4 days ago and his bottom right cut sometime during The Night of No Sleep last night. He is very interested in food. Very interested. We are holding off until he is 6 months old (just another couple weeks). Zoey didn’t start on food until she was 7 months old. That was when her first tooth cut through.

In poop news, we had a clogged sewer pipe that was backing up in our garage. Ummm, yep. Spent almost $700 to get that cleared out. And then he tells us that the pipe leading to the street is busted and made of cement and that it will be probably "in the upper teens" which means 15-19,000 (!) dollars. I just about dropped Keegan. So, I guess we will deal with that when we need to. We are okay so far.

We just finished up our preschool’s silent auction last weekend. It brought in more than $5000 for the school. YAY! I am so glad that is over! By the way, Grandpa Earl made an amazing wooden bird house and it sold for $60! Thanks Grandpa!

Zoey is doing well. She loves preschool. She loves the little gym. She is starting to draw numbers and can spell the word "stop."

That’s all we’ve got for now. More catching up (and pictures!) shortly.