Here he is... the man of the week. Travis, off to kindergarten wearing the awesome Phineus and Ferb t-shirt and new green back pack (that I made him get "Hanson" embroidered on and not "Travis" because I told him that was better. But, really I just want to make Luke use it someday.)
I had flashbacks to this moment when he was born in 2005 when I was crying and sobbing about dropping him off at kindergarten. Eventually Travis said, "Mom, you're getting my neck all wet." I knew that I was very close to causing everlasting emotional scarring at that point. So, I put him down and left.
I followed this big kid who was patiently waiting for me to quit embarrassing her by crying about Travis. I really had forgotten I had other children other than Travis that day. At about noon, I remembered I had dropped off Luke and Marie earlier at daycare. Same thing happened when I dropped off Eva at kindergarten with regards to holding Luke (see Aug 2008 blog.) I spent the day at work spying on our friend's son, Carson, who is a week younger than Travis and had his first day of kindergarten at the school where I work. That made me feel better to text his mom with updates..... until they closed the door on me.
Eva's 2nd grade teacher realized this and took a picture of us with my red, puffy eyes. I think she was also trying to stall me until Travis went into his classroom. Oh yeah, "A Hollister shirt for a 2nd grader's first day?" Hand-me-downs from the super-cool, older neighbor girl.
Chris took the big kids camping... all by himself... dog too. They LOVED it! I'm pretty sure Chris won't count Luke as big kid until he's 10 or so.
Eva and Toni in the stream at Little Yellowstone camping.
Travis camping.
Marie 11 mos old.
Eva at 18 mos in the same outfit, which I think is funny because she looks exactly like Me-me. Eva, if only you would've kept away from horses forever like you wanted to with this one.
What is it with babies crawling under tables and markers? All the things that Marie is doing... I feel like I
just did them with Luke.
And, I think they like markers so much because they can crawl with them in their hands and because the big kids leave them everywhere. (Below, Luke at 11 mos with markers.)
Family vacation this year was to Mpls. This is a picture of Luke in awe of the trains at Choo-choo bobs. The Evens were kind enough to take us in for 3 days, feed us, take us to a Twins game, and poor Sue got the flu. This is the only picture I have of their family (Andrew), as Chuck takes the terrific photos. Eva, Travis, Andrew, Chuck and Chris had a great time at the Twins game.
Because we had 6 kids under the age of 7 in the Evens' house trying to take naps at the same time, Me-me needed to get out of there with her screaming. Her scream sounds like a lifeguard's whistle. She had it cranked up that vacation. So, her and I hung out at the toy store for a few hours.
So, babies don't like to just sit in the stroller at this age anymore. And, Ingrid also put Svea in white pants and then we both let them crawl around and laugh and giggle on the gross, disgusting, dirty floor at the mall of america. At least she bothered to put shoes on her kid.
We also went and rode Thomas at family vacation. Luke said it was "tuper awtome."
"I'm supposed to go nurse in that extra wide porta-potty?" Sue says there is an area beyond that fence; that it is not that porta-potty. I don't buy it and I think that's ridiculous. And, of course, I would never bother to walk over there and "hide," (right Nolan?) The stone out in front of the gate that we took a seat on was just fine.
Since this post is about Travis, I will show you how obsessed with Legos he is. Here he is at Lego land.
Here is one of the pictures he took with my camera of everything he builds with legos (I had 499 to erase.)
He holds Grandpa Gerry captive and makes him build legos for hours. He says he's the best at finding the pieces they need because of those glasses.
Luke playing the keyboard from 1991 at Grandma Tree's. "What you wanna heaw? Yife is a highway? O-tay."
More fun summer days at the lake: Hardy Hoffmann, Marie, and Svea Kemp (all around 10 mos old.)
Luke, Hugo Hoffmann, Jack Kemp; feeding the fish at the lake.
Luke opening his Lightning McQueen computer for the 2nd time. Marie sitting in her perch. Laps are like a nest to this gal. 
The kids asked Santa to bring Marie "a little horsie like her friend's, Svea." She got it! She was too excited to finish getting dressed I guess. One of those things that you forget you are taking pictures of. 
Eva got an American Girl Doll look-a-like. I have yet to see her play with it. She says she needs other friends with dolls to play with her?
Travis is the lego man. He got a lego organizer (which made mom very happy!) and these legos from Santa and a lego shirt from Santa. 
Luke seemed nervous about being naughty for about 1 minute while talking to santa, then he walked over and grabbed 5 cookies and spilled hot chocolate everywhere. 
Eva and Travis on the sleigh: 2006. 
Eva and Travis with Liv, who endured my crabbiness of making gingerbread houses. Making gingerbread houses is right up there with rolling out and baking sugar cookies to frost and going to the circus as one of the "top 10 things I hate doing with kids." I'll have to narrow down the other 7. Do you see that open drawer behind Travis? It is always, always, always open because it is where the kids cups are and Marie takes them out and leaves them all over the house and tries to get water out of the fridge, and Luke's been doing that since we moved in. It drives Chris so crazy that Santa put cups in his stocking one year. 
