2nd grader

We have a second grader now!   His teacher has a very long name that no one knows how to pronounce so they call her Mrs. Rad (Radisavljevic).  He's excited that his best friend Jake is in his class and his favorite "subject" is gym.  He sees Sophia at school sometimes during recess, but they don't talk to each other - maybe they are too cool for each other!  But he looks out for her, making sure she's on the bus and getting off the bus at the correct bus stop.

He's pretty into sports right now.  He always plays soccer with his friends at school and our neighbors' kids.  He'll also play basketball with our neighbor's kid and he'll shoot around at church.  He really wants to try to play flag football but we haven't been to find a league that works with our schedule.  

Over the summer, he had a blast going fishing and tubing for the first time.  He wouldn't hook his own worm though so I don't know if he would go fishing again if he had to do that!  

We also went to Great Wolf Lodge/Traverse City and Orlando this summer where he really enjoyed being in the water.  He loved being able to go on the waterslides by himself at Great Wolf Lodge and had so much fun swimming/playing in the pool with friends while we were in Orlando.  Strangely, he's not very fond of swim lessons, but probably because it's not as much fun as all the other water activities he's experienced.

Matthew continues to be a sweet, outgoing little boy (when he wants to be) who is very inquisitive and asks a ton of questions to figure out how everything works or why things work the way they do.  He's starting to like to read a little more but would rather be playing video games (of course!...what little boy wouldn't?!).  He's also a very good big brother, always looking out and helping out his little sisters and even playing with them.  He's even able to hold Madeline for a very short period of time but the most helpful thing is that he can lift up Madeline (for example, lifting her out of her jumper or high chair) and place her on the floor.  He can also lift her and move her away from something that we don't want her to play with/touch and he's very good at making her laugh.  The girls are lucky to have him as their big brother!