The Start of Something New

No one was more excited or ready to start preschool last week than AJ.

Five days after he cried because he couldn't get on the bus with the big kids his very own bus came to the house to pick him up.

The school district has a preschool program for kids who need a little help with speech or who have other delays.  AJ's English is great for someone who arrived a year ago having never even heard the English language spoken, but he still needs a bit of help to catch up to his peers.  They are also going to help him develop his fine motor skills and cognitive function.  A bus comes to the house to pick him up and drop him off 4 afternoons a week. He loves it and I love that it is FREE. 😀

First day on the bus and he is all smiles!

 Lately he really likes to pretend  he is a dog.  "Dog Smalls" is what he likes us to call him when he is in puppy mode. (Smalls is the nickname his cousins gave him at the family reunion and he decided he liked it.  I like that I can finally say "You're killing me Smalls!" 😛).

Dog Smalls

Jameson is now playing flag football and had his first game this week.  He is a funny kid who both likes and dislikes something at the same time so you never know what answer he will give you if you ask him about it.

Flag football

Britton and Jenna had 2 races in the last 2 weeks.  One was the Weber Invitational and the other was the Murray Invitational.

Britton running up the trail at the Murray Invite

Jenna, Britton and AJ

They really love hanging out with 100 of their friends at each race.  It is a lot of fun when you have such a big team. 

We went to an Ethiopian New Year Celebration at Sugarhouse Park yesterday.  Ethiopia is on a completely different calendar than the rest of the world and on Tuesday, Sept 11th they will officially be in the year 2011.  We had Ethiopian food and the boys had fun with the bounce house, face painting, snow cones, playground, watching dancers and playing with friends.

 Face painting

Ethiopian dancing

The gold balloons say 2011

There was a good mix of Ethiopian families and also American families that have adopted Ethiopian children.  We learned a lot about the Ethiopian culture yesterday, which is always a good thing. AJ was a little too lazer focused on getting another snow cone to really appreciate the culture going on around him. 😀