Natalie’s Preschool Graduation!!

We all headed up to the church (one week ago now – not the latest post ever!) for Natalie’s graduation from preschool!  It was VERY HARD to get all of us dressed and up there by 6:30pm so I have very few cute pictures, and zero pictures of me with the grad.  :(  Mommy blogger FAIL!

Seriously though, 7pm for a preschool graduation is LATE! It was past the babies’ bedtime, but they were super troopers, that’s for sure.  Thankfully Mamma and Pop were there to be extra baby jigglers! That way I got to concentrate on taking pictures.  I spent a while “practicing” before the grads came in.  James ran over to hug Miss Anne and Miss Joan (all the bigs’ toddler teachers).

He’s a ham.

Oooohh oh there she is!!

Something a little fun:

Miss Robin, the director, read out what each child wanted to be when they grew up as each one walked across the front.  There were practical things like “Johnny want to be a police officer,” and “Julie wants to be a teacher.”  There were fun things like “Peter wants to be a blue ninja,” and “Megan wants to be a princess.”  But my daughter, my sweet, unassuming Natalie, topped them all when we heard, “When Natalie grows up, she wants to be… QUEEN.”  Aim high sweet girl, aim high.

I managed to get a cute one of her hugging Miss Nancy as she walked across to get her “diploma.”

And hugging Miss Melanie (she subbed the last couple of months while Miss Whitney was on maternity leave.) Miss Whitney was there too but I managed to miss getting a picture of her with Natalie.  :(

One of the 3’s teachers was standing over to the side taking pictures of all the kiddos.  Here is the one of Natalie!

Natalie is so cute!

And may also be a ham. :)

There was lots of cuteness and singing, then they headed over the gym for a reception, and we met them there.  This is where it got a little… rough.  It was pushing 8:00, which is past the bedtime of ALL my children, and I was really running out of hands.  In hindsight, I wished I brought a couple of carriers to strap babies to Matt and me, but I wasn’t thinking.  We’d left the stroller in the car, but they were too tired to tolerate that anyway.

This is a sweet one of Matt, his dad, and the babes.

Mamma and Pop headed home pretty quickly.  I think 8:00 was coming close to their bedtime as well.  :)

Somehow we wrangled all five kiddos and didn’t lose any of them.  The bigs all got a cookie and punch, which they’d been looking forward to for days, if not weeks. :) We gathered up Natalie’s goodies, including pictures from her year and treats from her teachers.  And then she began to MELT DOWN.  So we got out of there!  It was about 8:15 and I hadn’t managed to get pictures of her with everyone I wanted to, but I didn’t really need pictures of the ugly cry.  Ha!

Before the melting, we found Miss Anne and Miss Joan from her toddler years:

And Miss Melanie from this year.

It was a very sweet night, and I think Natalie felt special and loved.  And now I have a Kindergartener on my hands! 

Ballerina Princess

Thursday was Pirate and Princess day at Natalie’s school.  We don’t have any pirate garb, so a princess she had to be!  :)

Dress up clothes don’t typically wash well, so I don’t let the kids wear them outside or to eat in, both things I knew they’d do at school.  So we sort of compromised on the attire.

I’m pretty sure once I told her I would do her hair with the crown and bun she would have been happy wearing anything!

My gorgeous girl.

She became the Purple Princess, which made her very happy!

Natalie sure does love to dress up in pretty things!

Sometimes you have to scoop up all the pictures in your “To Blog” folder, and just post them, even though they are wildly not related to each other.

Natalie got herself dressed up and then this little doll dressed up, and at some point along the way realized they were very similar, so she had me take her picture.  :)  (Or I made her stop and pose, whatever.)

Almost two weeks ago, Joanna and I took one of our MDO days to shop at Target together!  I rode the motor scooter around the store while she walked, and it was very fun!

We even treated ourselves to a little junk food lunch.  :)

Anyway, while we were there the bedding section sucked us in, and I ended up finally buying bedding for our king sized bed!

I was eyeing clearance sets and saw this dandelion duvet cover set, but only in a queen size.  But then Super Joanna found the king – wahoo! 

I just really a whole lot love dandelions.  And I liked the neutral color as well.  The color isn’t great in the photograph, but it’s pretty close-ish.  I also picked up a white bed skirt (which Matt IRONED for me and put on all by himself) and a set of sheets.  The sheets are pretty close to the color of the blue pillows in the picture.  It feels so good to have a real set of bedding on the bed.  Now, in real life, the duvet cover (which I found an insert for on Amazon) is laying on the floor and I’m using my thinner twin quilt until it cools off a bit.  And Matt has moved out to the couch again because I keep the bedroom too cold.  Poor guy.  There are pretty sham covers that match the duvet, so at some point if I ever shop again, I’m going to pick up a couple of super cheap king sized pillows to fill them.

It makes me feel good when my bedroom is a nice place to be.

Switching gears completely… a week or so ago, Kroger had their snow crab legs on sale (and I love crab legs!)  So we splurged on a few pounds to share for dinner.

We decided to forgo plates (it was a wise choice).  I served ‘em up with smoothies so it was practically a balanced meal.  YUMMO!

One day last week (I think) Joanna and I did some school work outside since the weather wasn’t super awful.  I made us some milkshakes (milk, frozen bananas, peanut butter), and we enjoyed a little almost-fall weather.

Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate when nature is right there.  (Eh, who am I kidding?  Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate anywhere!)

I’ve been slowing down week by week, day by day, so we ended up a bit “behind” on school this past weekend.  We have finished seven weeks to public school’s four, so we’re not actually behind on anyone’s standards.  And we can go into the summer further if necessary.  Anyway, I decided to make this week our catch-up week, and it was an excellent decision!  We have a few math lessons (they are Joanna’s least favorite I think) to do plus a ton of reading (it was sort of “extra” in the curriculum) that we can do.  And I’ve skipped some language arts stuff here and there that we’ll do.  I thought about doing a make-up week before my back really went out, so I felt doubly sure it was a good decision after that!  And it’s crazy but I have some kind of appointment four out of five mornings this week – yowza!  Next week we’ll start refreshed with week eight, all caught up with everything!

The kids love to put on CDs and dance in the living room.  James is often asking for “a pretty dress” to dance in.  Today I told him to go find something he wanted to wear, and he brought this dress.  He had it on a few times today, and he was so happy.

Natalie figured out she could put one of the bouncy balls from the baby shower in her dress to be pregnant.

Of course sister followed suit.

Later Natalie gave birth to a cute little pink doll, but I didn’t take a picture.  :)

The heat index was only 90 today and the backyard was pretty shady, so I sent the kiddos out to play for awhile this afternoon.  They love playing out there and can entertain themselves forever with very little in the way of toys or what not.

All was well until James discovered an ant pile.  :(  He was perky again after Momma’s (made up on the spot) remedy of a warm bath with baking soda and then some salve on the bites.

Well, being stuck on the couch, barely able to walk does one thing for me – I think I’m caught up on blog posts!  :)

Preschool!

My kiddos have always gone to Mother’s Day Out and Preschool up at the church, starting just after they were six months old.  I love it; they love it – yay!  I have always worked during that time though, or I might have waited until they were a bit older to send them (who knows?!)  Anyway, back in February when it was time to register, I registered James and Natalie on Tuesdays and Thursdays, thinking I would be watching extra kiddos during the week and hopefully teaching Musikgarten on the MDO days.  Fast forward six months, and wowza!  :)

I decided (for now at least) to keep Natalie and James in on Tuesdays and Thursdays this fall.  Natalie loves learning and would soak up anything I did at home.  But I don’t think I will be doing her much justice over the next several months!  James, as a not quite three year old, still requires a lot of care, and it’s good for me to have a few hours each week as a break from that care.  He loves his class, which is an excellent bonus.  I think once the babies come, these days will be good “normal” days for these two in the craziness that will ensue at our house.

And y’all, my house doesn’t become a war zone on Tuesdays and Thursdays when they’re gone.  Wahoo!

If it sounds a little like I’m trying to justify sending them to school… well, I am!  Ha!  I go back and forth a bit about whether I should be sending them.  :)

Anyway, yesterday was their first day, and they were so excited!  It was a little hard to get everybody dressed and ready to leave the house with bags packed and pictures taken (and school doesn’t start until 9!)

It is SO HUMID outside, and it takes quite a while for my camera to acclimate and lose the foggy lens.  I kept wiping and wiping, but there are quite a few hazy shots.  :)

I think this next one is my favorite with their signs.  I’ll probably play around with the edit on it to make it a little smoother and brighter.  And whatever-er.  I just click things in PSE.  :)

The only difference between the pic above and the one below is that I wiped my lens in between.  It was icky outside!

Loooooooove James’ smile in this next one!

Just before dropping him off – love that scrunchy face crooked neck smile!

I actually made Natalie put her lunch box away a second time because people kept blocking my shot.  :)

It seems they each had an excellent day, and Joanna and I got school done very quickly!

Last Day First Day

This post ended up being kind of like a run-on sentence.  It just kept going!  You have been warned. 

Last week was the last day of Kindergarten/3 year old/nursery Sunday School!

I took my camera just to get a quick shot of each kiddo.

Joanna with her best bud.  (She’s holding her church sandals because Lisa had brought her Toms that she left and Joanna put those on instead.)

This was my best “official pic” of the day.  :)  I deeply deeply deeply LOVE these three ladies who teach the three year old Sunday school.  They are so sweet and loving and always there.  I love that continuity! I don’t know these other kiddos, but they wanted in the picture too!

My Jamesie boy’s LAST DAY ever in the nursery.  Sniff, sniff.  This is our first time since the spring of 2007 not to have a kiddo in the nursery on Sunday morning.  If I wasn’t growing a couple of replacements, I’d be having a rough time right now!

Yesterday was promotion Sunday – time to move on up!

Before church.  It appears we get ready for church much more quickly when Daddy’s not there.  Hmmmmm…

{Matt had training all day Saturday and Sunday, so we had to go without him.}

I posted several because Natalie just looks so stinkin’ cute in each one (which is abnormal and bizarre) while the others’ faces are mid-change or something odd.

A man saw me taking pics of the three at church and offered to take one of all of us.  He said then I could prove I’d been to church that day.  :)

I managed to drop all the kiddos off at their Sunday school classes (which required climbing stairs – boo!) and get to mine on time.  Whew!  Then I gathered them up (stairs again!), got everyone a snack, and found a spot in the 11 service together.  They did a blessing of the backpacks (or children, if you don’t have/didn’t bring a backpack) and gave them each a keychain with a cross on it.  It was very sweet!

All three kiddos went up; James and Natalie will start preschool in a couple of weeks.

The congregation raised hands over the children and prayed for them.  You can see James (over on the left) with his hand raised as well.  Cutie pie!

It was a very sweet addition to the service and an excellent way to send the kiddos off to school!

After church there was a big dinner and the “Back to School Splash” involving water toys and fun.  Since we knew Matt wasn’t going to be there, I made the decision a while back that we wouldn’t go.  I was sad we had to miss it (and someone even asked me to take pictures!), but I knew it was beyond my capability to monitor all three around water outside.  I prepped them that we wouldn’t go (there were still some tears though!) and promised fast food for the way home.  :)  But then I got a text from Aunt Mindy that she and Uncle Steve were bringing over lunch!  That got big cheers from everyone!

It was a lovely visit with two of our favorite people, and it made the day go by more quickly.

I sure was bushed!  I’m not used to Matt coming home after six in the evening.  Yuck!  And then we had our first Bradley class last night.  I’m definitely enjoying today with Matt home.  I’m cramming a weekend worth of rest into today.  :)

In fact, it’s the first day of public school around here, and we hardly did any school at all today.  Ha!  We did do lots of playing and some chores and reading with Daddy.  And it was lovely.  And we’ll catch up on the other stuff this week.  :)

Our First Day of School

On Sunday I decided to pull everything we would need for the week and put it in a basket.  It’s been nice to be able to carry the basket to the couch or the table to work.  This is almost everything:

The Sonlight boxes that brought all of our supplies converted into a castle!

The kids have very much enjoyed relaxing inside and coloring every square inch of it.  :)  Natalie spent a very large chunk of the day inside the castle coloring.

Yesterday we tried doing everything in the living room with me on the couch and Joanna using the little table as her “desk” when she need to do any writing.

Today we tried doing our work at the dining table, and I think it worked better.  Though I find our dining chairs particularly uncomfortable at this stage in my pregnancy.  :)

Everybody needed a sweater or a jacket yesterday.  I’ve been really cranking the A/C down at night, and I (well all of us actually) have been sleeping quite well.  But it makes the morning pretty cool!

Official “First day of school” picture!

Late in the day when the light was prettier, I took Joanna outside for a little photo shoot.  I did the same last year, and I love those pictures!

For kicks, a few from last year to compare…

This year!  Her pensive face, I think.  It’s kind of the default when I tell her not to smile.

Sassy face:

Basically what I want to know is WHO HAS BEEN TEACHING THIS CHILD TO MODEL WHILE I WASN’T LOOKING?

She sure is pretty.  (And smart and helpful and kind and generous and cranky and feisty and wonderful)

And because no photo shoot is complete without a pirate face… apparently.  :)

So far, basically, I’m LOVING this.  I know it’s only been two days.  And honestly, I don’t think it will feel “real” until August 26th when public school starts back up and she doesn’t go.  I’m very glad we’re starting this early though.  It feels good.  Today seemed like a really long day.  I’m not sure why exactly.  It wasn’t what I’d call a bad day, just a long one.  Sometimes the hours just move slowly I guess.  :)  But Matt will be home soon, jump-starting our evening routine.  Then the magic cleaning fairies will come (no? bummer), and everyone will go to bed and I will lay down… for a long time.  :)