Ellie’s First Day of Kindergarten!!!

How can it be that we’re here?! I know everyone says that, but it’s SO true!! It seems like just yesterday that we were taking care of this precious little thing:

And now we’re sending off this big girl to the care of others 5 days a week!!!

We started by going to Meet the Teacher night on Friday night. The classroom was chaotic with all those parents and kids, but we did get to meet her teacher, Mrs. Nycz. (Tough last name, right?! It’s pronounced “Nich”, though, so not so bad once you hear that.) Ellie did a great job meeting some of her new friends, and she seemed to take to Mrs. Nycz quickly. We got her school spirit shirt that night as well.

Standing by her school box cubby (Mrs. Nycz didn’t know she goes by Ellie but has already adjusted her paperwork to Ellie in one day – very nice.)

Ellie and Mrs. Nycz

And then the preparation began. Backpack? Check. The one we got her for preschool last year was super cute, personalized, and still in good shape, so we washed it and got it ready for another year. First day of school outfit? Check. I made both girls cute little pillowcase dresses for their first days. Ellie picked the flower trim at the bottom, and Emma picked out the fabric. Teacher gift? Check. Thanks to my new hobby Pinterest, I got a great idea for a cute little Teacher Survival Kit box that Ellie could give Mrs. Nycz on the first day. Here’s how mine turned out:

If you can’t read the note, it says

“You are blessed to get to teach and influence the lives of many… I am blessed to have you as my one and only Kindergarten teacher. I’m looking forward to a great year! Love, Ellie”

We decided that one of our traditions will be to decorate the front storm door for whichever kids are starting school and the grade they’re going into. Then, we’ll take their photos by the decorated door. Here’s what we came up with. (Note that James did the “Ellie”, the sticker area below that and the rainbow – LOVE that man!!)

We packed her lunch the night before, went through what our first day morning routine would be (Can you believe school starts at 7:50?!?! SOOO early!), and had the girls in bed and asleep by 8:30 – sweet!

Our morning started at 6:30 – ugh. Hopefully, that’s just a first day start time. Here are those precious faces we woke up so early:

Post shower with hair braided and ready to go. She LOVED the door and thought it was really cool. Emma’s exact words were “Oh my gosh!” (Not sure I really even want my 3yo saying that, but it was still funny this morning.)

Here’s the braid I did on her hair. She’s all into braids these days which is fun for me:

With the backpack and sister by the tree:

Next up was our first annual first day of school donut breakfast tradition:

Next it was time to drive over to school! The school is about a mile or so from our house. Just long enough that a walk or a bike ride in this Texas heat is too far. Our school doesn’t have buses, so we’ll be driving her 90% of the time. I can see myself taking a walk once the weather is nice, but with little man on the way I may not be up for that for a while. We parked and started walking in. I’m doing well, and then I see the spot where they line up for pick up by class. I start pointing out to Ellie where she’ll be when I come to pick her up and the tears are there all of a sudden. :) I couldn’t even finish the sentence…

This just makes me smile…

Here she is at her table with her new friends – play doh is always a good way to begin.

One last photo with Daddy…

And one last photo with a teary Momma, and we left her to enjoy her big day!

Emma and I joined some other Momma’s and their littles for a breakfast to talk about our big kids going to school. (Thanks, again, for hosting, Brittney!) It was fun to get to see some other Mommas and pictures of their big kids. Then it was off to the OB to see Baby Jerry! (That will be the next blog post.) That was a good distraction. Then, believe it or not, I got some work done while anxiously awaiting 2:50 to arrive. I made my first annual first day of school chocolate chip cookies right before leaving to go pick her up. I was so excited to see her and was quite stunned to see the crazy carpool line! Turns out I was stuck behind a car that had been left unattended and the #2 person behind them wasn’t paying attention to that fact. Finally, we all go around and get to our kids. I teared up AGAIN when Ellie spotted me and I waved and she jumped up and down all excited to see me. After a few more minutes, she was finally back in my care and was SO excited about her day. We went home and had our milk and cookies:

Does she look happy or what?!

We didn’t get a TON out of her, but she made a new “best friend” named Brooklyn, she likes Mrs. Nycz, Mrs. Nycz read her a book, she listened well, enjoyed lunch (“awesome”) and recess and did some sort of craft. She had a blast and can’t wait to go back tomorrow. What more could a Momma want?

I'll leave you with our last annual tradition - an interview of the school girl. This is mostly for her journal that I'll give her someday, but I thought it would be fun for the blog as well:

What is your favorite breakfast food? Pancakes (with M&Ms)

What is your favorite lunch food? Peanut butter and honey sandwich

What is your favorite dinner food? Snack dinner (goldfish, yogurt, fruit, etc.)

What is your favorite dessert? Vanilla ice cream

What is your favorite toy? Dress-up clothes

What is your favorite TV show? Spongebob Squarepants

What is your favorite movie? Disney Tangled

What is your favorite game? Duck Duck Goose

What is your favorite book? Disney Princess Book

What is your favorite restaurant? Taco Bell

What is your favorite holiday? That thing that has a heart, I guess? (Valentine's Day)

What is your favorite animal? A pony

What is your favorite color? Pink and purple and gray and yellow

Who is your favorite friend? Jade and Jasmine

What do you want to be when you grow up? A doctor

If you could change your name, what would you choose? Isabella (??!)

What do you love most about Emma? That she's funny.

What do you love most about Momma? That you tickle me a lot.

What do you love most about Daddy? That he tickles me a lot and that I'm funny.

Where would you like to go on vacation next? Colorado with Aunt Pen and Uncle Bill

What are your most excited about this next year? Halloween (ha - forget Baby Brother!)

Where is your favorite place to go? Church

Back to School Beach Getaway

So, what we REALLY wanted to be doing this last week was hanging out with my sister and her family. When they couldn’t make it, we were and still are definitely bummed. Since I had already planned to take the week off work, though, we decided to see if we could swing a last minute beach getaway instead.

James did some research and ended up finding a fantastic deal on a two bedroom condo near Biloxi, MS. The drive is about as far there as it is to Galveston, and we hear that the beaches are much nicer. That proved to be true. We had the BEST time. We left on Sunday morning, and the condo people were only there until 5 on Sundays. It was possible to get into the condo after hours but more trouble, so we decided to head out early – 5am! The kids did great, though, and napped in the car and watched DVDs like champs. We made it by 3 and took a family nap once we got there to fully catch up.

We weren’t sure our girls would LOVE the beach, so we were grateful to have a pool as an option as well. We need not have worried, though. The sand didn’t bother them at all, and they LOVED making sand castles and playing in the water. We spent 3 days and would do 2-4 hours at the beach followed by another hour or so at the pool. They were in heaven. We ended up picking some great restaurant options, too. We started off with seafood at the Half Shell Oyster House. SO yum, and great service. We highly recommend that one if you’re ever in the area. We had some great BBQ at Hog Heaven and some yummy Italian at Salute. We had our last dinner at the buffet at the Grand Casino since they were doing crab legs and James loves crab. Despite a random vomiting incident thanks to Ellie, it was a great meal, too. The kids wanted to know when they could play the games. Um, never. :)

The drive home went just as well. As soon as we pulled into the garage (after having told the girls not to ask if we were there yet a million times), Emma bursts into tears randomly. (It WAS 9pm at this point, and she hadn’t napped much in the car.) I asked her what was wrong and she whined: I just want to go back to the hotel!!!! SO funny…

Here are some of the photos of a trip that we hope might become an annual tradition. It was so nice to have some great family time before we start into our first of many school years!

This is easily my favorite photo from the trip. So precious to me are those three, and there were lots of moments of them playing together just like this one.

Ellie let us bury her in the sand.

Post-burying

Daddy was next!

Momma had a little fun giving him some extra “chest”

Here are the girls tickling Daddy’s feet while he was buried. :)

Enjoying their ring pop dessert after their beach side lunch

  

Evening walk on the beach

 

Proof that I was there, too. :)

And then you have to check out how great this condo was:

Living Room

Balcony view

View of the pool from our balcony

Momma and Baby Jerry enjoyed the jetted garden tub!

Our bedroom with the ocean view. SO fun to wake up to that each morning.

Kitchen – the master is off to the right of this photo, and the girls room is up that hallway. Nice separation which meant that we could watch a movie in the living room (behind the camera) once they went to bed with no problem.

And the girls’ room. The bottom trundle was Emma’s. They loved it and particular enjoyed having their own TV on which to watch cartoons in the mornings. A luxury they WON’T have at home for a long long time yet.

James and I read the book Radical by David Platt on this trip. (If you read it, you might find it ironic that we read it while indulging in a vacation…perhaps it was.) We’re within a few pages of finishing and I think will consider strongly participating in the Radical Experiment which is a year-long challenge to put some steps in place to be more radical about our belief in Christ and living out our lives for him on this earth. The book spurred on some great conversation, and I love that James and I still connect through reading books (one of the things we did while dating). All in all, we’re so grateful to have gotten to have this little getaway. We spent a lot of time talking about how immeasurably blessed we are. It was a great time with our family of 4 before we have a Kindergartner in the house and not long before we become a family of 5!

American Idol Camp

We got a flier in the mail back in the spring from a dance studio in Frisco advertising a number of camps they were doing this summer. We thought about signing both girls up for one, but goodness they’re pricey! They had an American Idol camp that emphasized singing and dance that I thought Ellie would like, so we signed her up! I had no idea what it would be like exactly…

Turns out they go from 9-3 Monday through Thursday and spend the week learning a group song and dance as well as practicing a snippet of their own SOLO song along with some art and play time. There would be a play/performance at the end of the week. I wasn’t sure Ellie would do the solo song. She’s outgoing, but she definitely has a shy side. She came home from the first day and LOVED it. She was so excited about her day and had so much fun. We had a task that night which was to select her solo song. We were supposed to send her with two choices. She and I talked about it, and we decided to go with Once Upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty (1st choice) and Time of Our Lives by Miley Cyrus. They chose the first one, so we got her to practice at home all week. She wouldn’t practice with her teachers, though, so we had lots of talks about being brave and James and I kept our expectations for the performance low!

She was also supposed to have a costume of some sort. They emphasized not going out and buying one, but Ellie was due for another dress up dress anyway, so I told her since she was singing a princess song that we could go to the Disney store and pick out a dress for her to wear. (I was really mean and told her we’d return it if she wasn’t brave and didn’t sing her song. Rude, right?! I didn’t mean it…) At first she picked a yellow Belle dress (the Sleeping Beauty dresses weren’t in yet), but then she changed her mind and wanted the Cinderella wedding dress. Um, a little over the top for this little show, but I let her get what she wanted. The joys of motherhood….

So, without further ado, I give you Ellie in her first American Idol performance! The little girl next to her was a friend who went up there with her to help her be brave. :) (Listen closely to Emma at the beginning – how sweet!)

 

And here was the group song. You’ll see that we were having some issues with our little veil, so we weren’t SUPER focused on the dancing part. This is just the first half or so, but you get the idea. The last half is very similar:

And for your added enjoyment, here’s both girls singing the song earlier in the week. (We played the song a LOT around our house this week!) This one comes complete with 3 year old nose picking and all:

First Trip to the Dentist

James took the girls to the dentist on Friday for the first time (without me – it was hard not to join them!) From all reports, they did SO great. Check out these precious little photos – and yes, I know we were pretty late on Ellie. Looks like she’ll live to tell about it. :)

How cute is that??

They were so excited to get their own new toothbrushes, too!

Texas Summer Getaway

Since we just did Disney in January with the Cornwells, and since we’re preparing to add to our family this year, we didn’t plan any other trips this year. When we were invited to join the Van Horn clan on Lake Travis for a couple of days around the 4th, we added a little trip to San Antonio before that which quickly became our little summer getaway for this year. We spent two nights in downtown San Antonio and checked out the Riverwalk. We had fun, but it was a little too hot. We did the required boat tour with the girls and went out to dinner, but that was about all we could take of the heat. We quickly retreated to the hotel pool on Friday evening and then got a good night’s sleep before hitting up Schlitterbahn the next day.

 

On the boat ride

They’re so cool they need to wear shades

We were at Schlitterbahn by opening at 10am and stayed until they closed at 8pm. We had the best day! I love that place… The girls did so great and were so brave. They both loved all the long tube rides and weren’t nervous about the little slides down at all. We made one mistake in waiting two hours for a ride that wasn’t worth near that, but the rest of the day we didn’t wait long at all and had a great experience!

Sunday morning, we slept in and then were planning to head out to Lake Travis. Ellie gave us a big scare that morning in that she was super sleepy and lethargic and couldn’t really put complete thoughts together. We were getting really concerned, but we decided to get some fluids and breakfast in her before taking her to a clinic. Halfway through breakfast, she perked back up completely and was back to her usual self. Whew! Turns out we thought back through our day at Schlitterbahn and she never really ate all that well. We tried to keep her hydrated, but it’s hard when you’re out on rides all day. Ugh – scary, but at least she was ok quickly.

We went on to Lake Travis to meet up with all the Van Horns, their kids, and Mom and Dad. The house was gorgeous, and we had a great time mostly just relaxing by the pool. The girls did go out on jet skis with Dad and James, too. They were both so brave again and loved every minute of it. Here are the photos from being there:

Emma loves her Uncle Bill! Still prays for him and “Uncle Penni” every night!

Ellie and Crouchburger having some good QT.

The view from the patio (ignore the towels). Not too shabby!

  Ellie’s birthday present from Aunt Penni and Uncle Bill – a charm bracelet! She loved it.

About to head out on the jet ski with Crouchburger

Ellie with Daddy

 

We had a great relaxing time. Thanks, Van Horns, for the great time! It was fun to see everyone!

Play Dates

Before the Woodbury Fam had to head back to London, we got in one more play date with them! We didn’t get any great shots of them, and Truett was NOT interested in being photographed at all! Geoff was already back in London, but it was great to see Shelley and the kids! So crazy that the next time we see them (near the holidays), we’ll be a family of 5 introducing them to our newest little guy!

We’ve also started a weekly summer play date with the Garland and Kelly girls. We love our time with them, and the girls play together so well together! The Kelly girls missed the one below, but how cute are those littles together!

Sweetness

When Emma is in the car and gets tired, she has trouble deciding whether she wants to sleep or listen to the movie. Love it…