Deer!

Perhaps because of our proximity to Bonnie View Nature Area, we see a lot of deer. 

This teeny baby deer was very interested in this teenager walking his dog! I was a mom & told him to leave it alone - that the mama deer would come back!

ST Math

Leah finished 3rd grade ST Math with a few days to spare before 4th grade started & as is tradition, she got a cake, which she wanted to decorate herself! The green bit is an icing scarf & the pink bits are cut from cupcake liners (& so non-edible). 

 She did get about 2-3 weeks off before I made her start 4th grade math, and then last night I got a notification that it's going to switch from a free to a paid subscription. It really is a great math supplement, though, so we'll see! 

Here is the cake (which I searched for on the blog to link here, but I guess I only put on FB) that Jim got when he finished ST Math for elementary school at the end of 5th grade - April 2023!

Birthday Interview! Jim is 14 plus 2 days

Jim's birthday was day before yesterday! He agreed to do the birthday interview!

1. How old are you? 14
2. What is your favorite color? Orange
3. What's your favorite possession? Drum Set 
4. What is your favorite game? Scrabble 
5. What is your favorite song? I mean, I could give you a few: "Typewrite Lesson" by Cornelius; "Lost Kitten" by Metric; "O Superman" by Laurie Anderson; yeah, that's pretty good. 
6. Do you  have a favorite animal? Armadillo Lizard. 
   
7. What is your favorite book? Or just a good book that you've read recently? I don't really read a ton of books anymore. I am reading They Both Die at the End. Let me go check my Hoopla. Probably The Field by Dave Lapp. 
8. What is your favorite movie? Or just a good movie that you've seen recently? Um. Chronicle. What's that about? Three teen superheroes, but it's kinda gritty. 
9. What is your favorite TV show? Can I say Bunch of Friends? Does that count? Why wouldn't that count? It's on YouTube, but it's very much a sitcom in my opinion. 
10. What is your favorite thing to eat? Probably hot honey chicken sandwich. 
11. Where is your favorite place to go? Concerts
12. Who is your best friend? Jacobi
13. What is something you learned last year?  I learned the quadratic formula. 
14. What is something you'll learn now that you're 14 (or this year in 8th grade)? Um, maybe get better at kit drums, cause now you know I have the assistant person & he is very good. He instructs us a lot. 
15. What is your favorite subject at school? English 
16. Who is your favorite teacher this year? Mrs. Hmmm. I mean Mr. Canepa but I don't know if you can count him as a teacher. He's a band teacher. Who were you going to say when you said "Mrs..." Mrs. Richardson, science. 
17. What is something that is hard for you to do?  Homework  
18. What is your favorite thing to do? Shower. It's my little happy place. Nobody annoys me, except when you do. 
19. What is your favorite thing to do with friends? I don't know, I just talk to them at school mostly. We could go to the movies sometime, though, it would be fun. 
20. What do you like about Me (Mom)? You do homework. I don't do your homework!! You do homework with me. 
21. What do you like about Dad? Eh. He also helps with homework occasionally. And he's bad at drums, so I can be better than him. Well,  he's fine, he just doesn't appeal to the youth. 
22. What do you like about Amelie? We can talk a lot about pop culture. I guess we're pretty similar in age ranges and the cultural narrative and stuff. (I laughed) What? I guess cultural narrative isn't usually a good thing, but it is in pop culture. 
23. What do you like about Leah? Umm. Hmm. I don't know, she's pretty cute. We can play a little. We can talk. We're on different wavelengths. 
24. What do you like about yourself? I don't know. Umm. I can occasionally get along well with adults, better than my peers. So I'm their favorite. 
25. What do you want to be when you grow up? Probably a dictator. That's what you said last year. Well, I want to be a dictator. But that might fail, so I'll probably have to produce beats for rappers. Freelance producer. 

Here's the link to last year: Baby Buffaloe

First day of school 2026

Today is the first day of fourth, eighth, and 11th grade! Yet again, we have three kids in three different schools.

Sam got up early and bought donuts and celebration/bribery, and everybody woke up with plenty of time to get ready (hopefully this trend continues!) 

Jim was not feeling a solo picture, but we will definitely take what we can get! 

Leah cares a lot about her accessories!

Amelie gets to sleep in past the time the younger two have to leave for school! Her regular bus made it to school in time for her to transfer over to the career center bus so that is a relief! (& hopefully the trend continues as well!)

Everybody started today, but we had 3 back-to-school nights back-to-back-to-back last week. (

She is awfully cute, but this pose is about to drive me nuts. I blame K-Pop Demon Hunters. 

Here's the link to last year's first day of school post: https://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2025/08/first-day-of-school-2025.html

Mario Movie

Sam took Leah & Jim to the Mario movie. Why no pic of Jim? Who knows? 

Ridgeway Funday & More!

Once again, Ridgeway had their annual fundraiser. (Here's a very brief post from Fun Day when Amelie was in Kindergarten!)

They had a professional face painter! She was amazing! There were so many cool designs. 

There was also a person making balloon animals, but I only saw kids with swords (and I mean, like, 20+ kids with swords! And I genuinely thought that the man could only make swords, but then when we got to the balloon animal station, he had a menu of other things as well! Then Leah also chose ... a sword!) 

Leah & I matched (minus the facepaint)

Leah met up with her friend. Can they swing pretty much anytime? Yes. Did we buy an expensive wrist band to play the other games? Also yes. 

This game was kind of like "What's in Ned's head?" where they had to guess what was in the container. 

Waiting to go in the epic maze! 

And then these photos are from their Australia showcase night - she made a book: 

Here she is pointing out the page she did for the mural: 

They drew pictures of their Australian animal & the teacher had them made into t-shirts. She picked the Cassowary (which I had never even heard of.) 

I'm pretty sure this was her reference photo for the drawing - which also really looks fake/AI, but it was from CNN (?) 

Sunflowers 2026

The sunflowers at MU's practice farm were not as epic as they were last year. (Though Sam thinks there may be more later) but I saw on Facebook that the blooms were open to the public so we went out to snag some. 

It amazes me every time I walk by the kitchen counter how much these look like Van Gogh's sunflowers. 

I forgot again to bring scissors for cutting some of the smaller sunflowers but we did get the memo and had everyone dress up for the photo opportunity. Amelie & Leah accidentally matched. 

We went for Andy's afterwards & spent Leah's birthday gift cards. It was absolutely packed! They both did spill ice cream on themselves. 

(Jim is not pictured because he was away at Camp!) 

Easter

 (You see that these blog posts are all out of order and delayed! ... But you see them!)

We went to church and then had dinner and an egg hunt at Sam’s folks for Easter. They made big baskets for the kids but I didn't take a photo. 

Amelie was running for the eggs!

We dyed eggs, too: 

No family photo, though!! 

Girl Scouts!

Leah finally joined girl scouts & she had her first meeting! They made a video & said to be sure to wear their vests & we hadn't bought one yet, so she wore Amelie's old one to blend in. 

The meeting was out at Rockbridge, so she wore her water shoes for better creek exploration afterwards. 

A beekeeper came & gave a talk and had one of the panels (behind glass) of her hive for display & an entemology student from MU also brought some preserved bugs & live madagascar hissing cockroaches. 

They made a bug snack: 

And bug keychains: 

Leah's a big fan of whatever this type of craft is called & came home & fished out the pony beads & made another one. 

 

Artwork

Amelie brought home a couple of art projects. For one, she had to recreate & modernize a classic painting and do a silkscreen background. Here's her inspiration painting - it really looks like Leah! 

Here's the reference photo she took in our hotel room on spring break. 

And here's the finished product: 

She also did this t-shirt with ink stippling and fabric paint - it's been washed a few times & is holding up great: 

I asked if she wanted to model it for the blog & she said no! 

Sunset weaving: