It's Official!

It's official! The real kindergarten has finally begun and Grace is now a "real" kindergartener! She got on the bus for the first time this morning. We are lucky to live right next door to two little girls that also ride the bus. They were very sweet and asked Grace if she wanted to sit with them. They also have a very nice bus driver named Mr. Tom. She rides the "orange" bus. She gets on at 8:10am and school starts at 8:30am. So, she's only on the bus for about 10 minutes. I think she is almost the last stop before the bus gets to school and one of the first to get off after school. School is over at 3:30pm and she gets off the bus on our street at 3:49pm! So, she doesn't have to be on there very long at all. Just enough to give her the experience and me the peace of mind that she'll be OK. She will actually get home quicker by the bus then if I sat in the car rider pick-up line to get her after school. Plus, it's nice that I don't have to get Reesi and Lyla in the van to take Grace to school.

Harpeth Hills Family Picnic

Sunday evening a family from Harpeth Hills invited the entire church to their home for a picnic and night of fun. They had a pond for fishing, volleyball, 3 big jumpy things, pony rides, a paddle boat, and entertainment. The girls had a blast! If you zoom in on the 2nd pictures of the girls on the paddle boat you'll see that poor Reesi was a little nervous on the back of the boat. But she hung in there and was fine. It was quite muddy though as you'll see from the muddy bottoms picture. The ponys were the favorite though. The entertainment was one of our song leaders from church and two of his sons. They played and sang some country songs for us as entertainment. That was fun. After the potluck picnic we had a little devotional time as well with singing. The turnout was not that great considering our church has 1800 members! It kept raining off and on all afternoon and I think that kept a lot of people from coming out. By the time the picnic started the clouds were gone and it was beautiful.

Sounds Game

Eric was invited to a Sounds game by an engineering company so we were treated to a fun night on Friday. We had a nice dinner of bbq, hot dogs and ice cream. They also gave each person a voucher to choose something from the gift shop for $10 or less! That was a fun treat. Grace, of course, was very excited about "getting something". Lyla picked out the hat that you see in the pictures. Grace got a Sounds tank top that she is actually using as a night gown. We stayed the whole time so we could see the great fireworks at the end of the game.

What was I thinking???

Since I started keeping Reesi this week we have been a little bored without Joni around to go places together. Our girls love to paint though and always beg to do this. I got the bright idea that painting outside would be easier because I wouldn't worry about the mess being made. Well, that's not quite how it was! I told them they could paint Eric's compost box and the bird bath. I stripped them down to their underwear and knew that the underwear would just go in the trash. Easy, right? It wasn't too bad for the first 5 minutes. Then guess who decided to get crazy with the paint? Lyla, of course! She was more interested in painting her entire body. Then Grace followed her lead. It was ok for a minute but then I started to worry about her whole body covered in dry paint. So, I sent them to their little kiddie pool. I rubbed them down in the pool and consequently turned the pool water a creamy yellow. Then they went back to painting. But, all this while, little Reesi was hard and methodically at work painting each board a specific color. She had a plan. When you throw Lyla into a situation, all plans fly out the window! So when Lyla came back from her pool bath, she immediately grabbed a brush and started painting...right over Reesi's work! Not good! Reesi got very mad at Lyla, so Lyla got very mad right back at her and tried to quickly paint over more of Reesi's work. I grabbed Lyla and carried her away kicking and screaming. During this situation, Grace had started painting the bird bath. After Lyla settled down, she moved her efforts to the bird bath and did the exact same thing to Grace's painting of the bird bath that she did to Reesi's painting. Again, big fight! I grabbed a small bird house for Lyla to paint all on her own. That was satisfactory for her. Whew! Everybody resumed painting their OWN project. By this time I was sweaty, frustrated and had green paint on my white shorts. Not happy. What was I thinking wearing good clothes for painting? I was trying to think about the girls, not me. They all still ended up with paint all over them because when they would rinse their brush in the water bucket they would sling the brush as hard as they could to get the water out of it and colored water would fly everywhere. Thank goodness this was at the end of the afternoon because I just let them keep going until Joni got there. Then we carried them to the bathtubs for cleaning. A couple of them still have paint in their hair today. What was I thinking?

One funny thing that was said during all of this...The girls were talking among themselves about how great their work was and how hard they were working to make the yard "beautiful". They were saying that it was so beautiful that "they" (whoever "they" are) would surely put them on TV because they were so talented. Reesi said, "They're going to say, 'Those girls are talent'". They repeated that phrase about 3 times. It was so funny because they were totally serious. Grace said she was going to call the TV people to tell them to come see their painting. Sometimes I wish I could memorize what they say on the spot to write down later. The way they phrase things is what makes their conversations so funny.

Sweet Cousins

Grace and Reesi were sitting on this swing facing each other this morning. I kept watching them from out the kitchen window. They were just sitting there talking. They weren't even swinging. It just seemed like such a grown-up thing to do for them. I tried to catch them in this moment but as soon as I walked out they hopped up and starting talking to me. I tried to get them to sit back down and recreate the scene. I did finally get them back on the swing but then just as I snapped the picture Grace leaned forward and gave Reesi a kiss. Cute!

The 1st Day of Kindergarten!!!!

Grace...before school on the first day.

This is a picture that is painted on the wall in the foyer of the elementary school. They are the Hunter's Bend Hounddogs. So Grace is standing by the hound dog!This is Grace's teacher, Mrs. Heim. She seems GREAT!

It finally came! The first day of kindergarten. It seemed to take forever because Williamson county actually started last Monday! Grace's school starts the kindergarten classes on a staggered starting schedule. So today was her first day and it was only a partial day. She'll go again on Thursday and Friday. Next Monday she starts a full day! She actually kept telling me that today wasn't the real kindergarten because it was only a half day and she wasn't riding the bus. She is dead set on riding the bus so she was dissappointed when I explained that I had to take her and pick her up during the first week. She didn't want to acknowledge that as the real kindergarten.

Anyway, she couldn't be more ready to start. She was so excited! I (along with Lyla and Reesi) took her in and they had everyone go to the cafeteria. Then they called us by classes to follow the teacher to the classroom. When we got to the classroom she checked us in and took lunch money from each parent. It actually took about 20 minutes for all of this to happen. During all of this, each time something would happen Grace would try to give me a hug and kiss goodbye. I kept having to tell her it wasn't time for me to go yet. She was ready for me to go and her "real kindergarten" to finally start! They also asked that all of the kindergarten kids buy their lunch in the cafeteria during this first week so they could learn the lunch line routine. She thought it was really neat to get to use the tray to eat on. She had a chicken patty sandwich and pears with chocolate milk. They asked for moms to come at lunchtime to help the kids figure out the lunch line too. I wanted to go really badly. I considered doing it for a while. But I would have had Lyla and Reesi with me. I finally decided that I would have brought more chaos than help so I missed my first opportunity to help with the class.

I'm actually really excited about helping in the classroom and at the school. I am going to be a co-room mom with two other moms. We all decided to take on the responsibility of room mom together so the work wouldn't all fall on one person. I'm excited. Tonight was parent orientation too. Something about all of this is so exciting to me. Ms. Heim, Grace's teacher, seems so great. She's so friendly and warm and seems to really know what she's doing. She talked about the reading curriculum and their routines and ways for the parents to help at home. She said she will send a book home with each child each day for us to read with them. It will go back and forth between home and school for a few days in a row. The parents will read it with the child each day and she will read it with each child, individually, each day as well. She said she sits them in her lap (if they want to sit in her lap) in her rocking chair, individually, each day to go through their specific reading book. I just thought that was so special, that she sits them in her lap.

Grace said she made two new friends in her class today, Hannah and Emma. Hannah's mom introduced herself to me at the meeting tonight and said Hannah talked about Grace all afternoon and wants to have a play date with her soon. Hannah and her family just moved here from Alabama. Hannah is the youngest of 5 kids!!! Emma will be on Grace's soccer team this fall too. Soccer practice starts next week!

So how did I make it through this first day of kindergarten? I was more excited for her than anything. I have been sad for the last few weeks though, even a little depressed about it. Today I felt a little emotional as we were walking into the school and a little as we were walking out, but no tears. As you know, I'm not much of a crier. The tears will come out later when I'm totally stressed about something totally unrelated and ridiculous and I have a big meltdown over nothing! I did feel emotional when we picked her up at the end of the day today too. She's just so big now! I'm sure having two other kids with me during all of this really keeps any emotions from really getting the best of me too!

I'm just so excited for Grace because she is so excited. She couldn't be more ready for this new chapter of her life. I more nervous and scared for her than she is. She was telling Reesi about her new teacher this morning before she had even met her. I showed Grace a picture of her on the internet and she was telling Reesi how nice and pretty and fun she was going to be.

One more little note...Grace NEVER wears jeans, but, she picked out these jeans in the store and that is what she wanted to wear on her first day of school! How funny! She hasn't worn jeans since she was 18 months old and didn't have an opinion. She seems to like these jeans though! I just thought that was really funny. She did say they were too hot on the playground though. We'll see how long the jeans-thing will last. :)

Lyla and Reesi's 1st day alone

This year I am babysitting Reesi for Joni during the school year. Reesi will go to preschool 3 days a week at Harpeth Hills and then she'll be with me the other 2 days of the week, and in the mornings and afternoons of preschool days. I thought this would work well since Grace will be in school all of the time because Lyla would have someone to play with. So today was the first day when Grace was at school and Reesi and Lyla would be alone together. After we dropped Grace off at school we went to the playground and they jumped right into their pretend play together. The picture below is of them digging for treasure. I think they were pirates. The playground adventure ended quickly when Reesi tripped and scraped her shin on the landscaping timbers. If you know Reesi, you know she's not much on pain. We had to rush, ambulance style, back to the house for an ice pack. Lyla made me wait in the garage while SHE took care of Reesi. She was being very sweet. Once Reesi was better they went upstairs to the playroom and I didn't hear from them again for almost an hour! I kept waiting for Reesi to start crying because Lyla did something "on purpose" but it never happened. I was afraid to go check on them. I didn't want to interupt their play and jinx it in any way. I did end up sneaking up to snap a couple of pictures. They were playing very nicely together. When they came downstairs they wanted to paint. I convinced them to make cupcakes as a surprise for Grace for her first day of kindergarten. They did great. They took turns and everything. Lyla had to be done when she starting rubbing the cake batter all over her arms like it was the best smelling lotion at Bed Bath and Beyond! She was promptly put on dish washing duty at that point! So, here are the pictures of our first day with Reesi and without Grace.