Ivanka Trump spends Labor Day Weekend with her kids before the start of the school year

Ivanka Trump took full advantage of the last weekend of summer by soaking up as much time with her children as possible. 

The First Daughter shared a few snippets from her fun-filled Labor Day Weekend on Instagram, posting an image of herself posing with daughter Arabella, nine, and sons Joseph, six, and Theodore, four. 

In the image, the proud mom and her children are all dressed to the nines in their Labor Day finery, with Ivanka, 38, modeling a chic pleated skirt and matching blue blouse, while Arabella is dressed in a white lacy frock. Meanwhile her brothers are both posed up in smart slacks, blue button up shirts and loafers.  

The only person missing from the snap – which was taken by photographer Toby Adler – is Ivanka’s husband Jared Kushner, 39, who likely just returned from his recent trip to the Middle East and London.

The senior White House adviser traveled on a high-level delegation to the United Arab Emirates last week on the first direct commercial passenger flight between the two countries. 

The flight traversed Saudi airspace following a US-brokered deal by the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations with Israel.

Before boarding the flight last Monday, Jared said: ‘While this is a historic flight, we hope it will start an even more historic journey for the Middle East and beyond.

‘This is a very hopeful time and I believe that so much peace and property is possible in the region and across the world.’

After his visit to the United Arab Emirates, Jared then traveled to London, where he met with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to discuss the situation in the Middle East. 

However Jared’s apparent absence at home doesn’t seem to have stopped Ivanka and her brood from making the most of their long weekend.   

Ivanka shared the sweet family portrait shortly after posting a candid snap of her youngest child Theo playing the guitar, looking happy as can be while perched on the floor in gingham pajamas, strumming the instrument. 

By Tuesday morning it was back to business as usual for the family – who celebrated the three kids’ first day back at school with some delicious-looking cupcakes.  

The baked treats, which were decorated with red sprinkles and green leaves to resemble red apples, were topped with a sign reading ‘back to school’ – however Ivanka suggested in her caption that the children, who all attend Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School in Washington, D.C., will all be doing distance learning for the time being. 

‘”Back” to school,’ she wrote alongside the photo. 

Jared was pictured leaving the family home on Tuesday morning shortly before Ivanka posted her image of the cupcakes, meaning that he was likely there to join in the fun before heading to work.  

The latest posts come after a busy Friday for Ivanka, who put her most fashionable foot forward when she left her D.C. home in a stunning green dress by one of her favorite designers. 

The 38-year-old was pictured outside of the house she shares with husband Jared and their children looking incredibly elegant in a $1,280 Emilia Wickstead frock, which she paired with a simple black face mask.  

Ivanka’s dress was incredibly flattering, accentuating her waistline with a belt, while a pussy bow detail at the neck emphasized the overall elegance of the ensemble. 

Ivanka, who failed to flash her usual wave for the camera, finished off the outfit with some chic nude pumps, and a pair of gold hoop earrings.

Her blonde hair was styled in very loose waves and left to hang down around her shoulders.

After leaving her home, Ivanka traveled to Pennsylvania, where she visited non-profit organization Blessings of Hope, before sitting down to discuss her father’s re-election campaign at an event at the Brandywine Manor House. 

Ivanka, who appeared to have had a blowout before attending the event, did a Q&A with political correspondent Erin Elmore in front of an audience of around two dozen people. 

The First Daughter’s appearance came less than a day after her stepmother Melania Trump spoke out to blast a book written about her by her former best friend and advisor, which made claims about a bitter rivalry between the two women. 

Taking to Twitter ahead of a Be Best event at the White House, Melania shut down the book’s claims as ‘delusional and malicious gossip’, while urging people to focus on the issue at hand – ‘the nation’s drug crisis’. 

‘This afternoon I will be hosting a roundtable with some incredible citizens in recovery & the amazing organizations that support them. I encourage the media to focus & report on the nation’s drug crisis, not on delusional & malicious gossip,’ she wrote.  

For the past few weeks, there have been numerous stories about the publication of Stephanie Winston Wolkoff’s memoir Melania & Me.

Wolkoff, who worked on the Trump inauguration and as an unpaid adviser in the East Wing in the early days of the administration, offered details on the tense relationship between Melania and her stepdaughter Ivanka. 

The book also paints an unflattering portrait of Ivanka, showing her as eager to run the show and claiming she was trying take over many of Melania’s First Lady duties.

‘Ivanka was very focused on Ivanka,’ Wolkoff writes.   

The White House has disputed much that is in the book, arguing Wolkoff has some ‘imagined need for revenge.’  

‘Anybody who secretly tapes their self-described best friend is by definition, dishonest,’ Grisham told DailyMail.com in a statement last week. 

‘The book is not only full of mistruths and paranoia, it it is based on some imagined need for revenge. Wolkoff builds herself up while belittling and blaming everyone she worked with, yet she still managed to be the victim. Sadly, this is a deeply insecure woman who’s need to be relevant defies logic.’

The book claims Melania plotted to keep Ivanka out of the photos of President Donald Trump taking the oath of office on Inauguration Day with her ‘Operation Block Ivanka.’

In the book, Wolkoff details how Melania approved seating arrangements for the inauguration platform that would keep Ivanka out of the camera shot during the moment her father was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. 

Wolkoff writes: ‘Ivanka texted me a photo of Barack Obama’s swearing-in, his hand on the Bible, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha standing to his left. She wrote, “FYI regarding the swearing in. It is nice to have family with him for this special moment.”‘

But, instead, Wolkoff writes that she and the incoming First Lady launched ‘Operation Block Ivanka’ to keep the First Daughter out of the shot.  

They took advantage of Wolkoff’s position on the inauguration planning committee to gain advance information on how the day would play out in order to make their scheme work. 

Wolkoff, a former Met Gala planner and personal friend of Melania’s, was tapped to help produce Inauguration Day and the events surrounding it. 

Using her position, she had an executive of her company, WIS Media Partners, take detailed notes on the inauguration platform at the U.S. Capitol building during one of the walk throughs that proceed such events. 

Walkthroughs allow organizers and staff of the attendees to do a practice run of how the day will play out. It allows all the details of the day to be worked out: what time people arrive and in what order, where they will sit, and how the day will play out in precise order.

Using the detailed sketch her employee drew up of the platform on the East Front of the Capitol, where Trump was sworn in with his family and VIP guests behind him, Melania and Wolkoff were able to work out where the cameras would be located on and how the chairs for the family should be positioned to get the images they wanted.

‘Using his sketch, we were able to figure out whose face would be visible when Donald and Melania sat in their seats, and then when the family stood with Chief Justice John Roberts for Donald to take the oath of office,’ Wolkoff wrote. 

‘If Ivanka was not on the aisle, her face would be hidden while she was seated. For the standing part, we put Barron between Donald and Melania.’

Melania and Wolkoff then arranged for Donald Trump Jr., the President’s oldest son, to be stand next to Melania instead of Ivanka, further keeping her out of the shot.

Wolkoff blames ‘exhaustion and stress’ for some of the drama but also acknowledges the pettiness of it.

‘Yes, Operation Block Ivanka was petty. Melania was in on this mission. But in our minds, Ivanka shouldn’t have made herself the center of attention in her father’s inauguration,’ she wrote.  

She notes their Operation Block Ivanka was a result of the first daughter trying to control the schedule for inauguration day and make sure her family – husband Jared and their three children – had prominent positions on the big day.

‘It was Donald’s inauguration, not Ivanka’s. But no one was brave enough to tell her that. Melania was not thrilled about Ivanka’s steering the schedule and would not allow it. Neither was she happy to hear that Ivanka insisted on walking in the Pennsylvania Avenue parade with her children,’ she noted. 

Wolkoff’s book gives legitimacy to years of talk of a rivalry between Melania and Ivanka that has accumulated in an intense, competitive relationship between the two women.

The two most prominent women in President Trump’s life – his wife and his eldest daughter – have little overlap in the White House complex. 

Ivanka, who serves as an adviser to her father, has an office in the West Wing while Melania works out of the East Wing on the opposite side of the building.

They have never hosted a joint initiative or event, and the two women are rarely seen together at events.