First Day of Preschool!

 
She was very excited. I woke her up that morning and she smiled a big smile. She wanted to wear her new pink dress and had me fix her a cheerleader ponytail. I had made her a new bow and she was so excited about that too. The night before the room was empty and the walls were bare. We did everything after she went to bed so she was very surprised. The first week our theme was I’m Special and we practiced the verse, ‘I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…’Psalm 139:14.

I am having a lot of fun with her, but it’s also harder than I thought. It’s sometimes a challenge to keep her on task and not give in when she says, “I just want to be lazy today.” She’s very teachable though, which is great for me. I pretty much only have to tell her something once and she’s got it. She came into preschool with a pretty good knowledge of the basics. She’s very excited to learn to read. We work on sight words and sounds and I am trying to throw in some blends for her here and there. I don’t think it will be too long. We do fun songs and games and read lots of books, and she loves calendar time. Mondays and Wednesdays are our regular school days from 8-11. Tuesday is our field trip/playdate/park/Maimee’s house day. Thursday is chick-fil-a and tap and ballet class and Friday is Bible school from 8-10. We do an art project in the afternoon. So far this is working and gives us some variety and also gets us out of the house.

So obviously this preschool classroom is in our home. Chris and I have decided that I will teach the kids at home for preschool-1st grade. That’s the plan as of now. We will have to take it year by year, but that’s what we feel is best for our family. I won’t go into all the reasons we chose to homeschool for a little while. I’m trying not to feel the need to defend our decision, although there has been some naysayers so I do need just a short minute to vent a little. Let me assure you my children will not be behind academically, because of my teaching. I do have a degree in Early Childhood Education and taught Kindergarten and first grade not that long ago. I’m not worried about my abilities and I do get my feelings hurt when other people act as if they are concerned that my kids will get behind.

I love the privilege of being home with my babies. Homeschooling will give me the chance to keep them here just a little longer. Mckenzee will do two years of preschool and then start Kindergarten because of her birthday. Riley will begin preschool as she starts Kindergarten and will be in Kindergarten when she goes off to 2nd grade at school. This will allow me to not have more than one grade school child that I am responsible for teaching at the same time.

           

Mission Completion!!

well, just about, almost.

Chris and my dad enclosed our formal dining room to make our new schoolroom/playroom.

I. LOVE. IT.

I think it really improved the house. The french doors are so pretty. and I love the art niche that Chris insisted on making with an arched top on the outside of the wall. So thankful that my Dad knows everything and he and Chris have such mad skills in the building, making, home improvement department. I say I want something done and they can do it.

We still have some paint touch ups to do and we have to put the baseboards back on and the door trim. I say we, I mean Chris. It is gorgeous though and I love the floors, which were a HUGE pain in the hiney for Chris to install. We've had preschool in there for two weeks now. Next post to come.

Here are some before and after pics!

BEFORE- OPEN FORMAL DINING VIEW FROM LIVING ROOM

AFTER-TWO NEW WALLS, ART NICHE, FRENCH DOORS VIEW FROM LIVING ROOM

Mckenzee Turns 4!

I can't believe she is four. I remember holding her tiny newborn self all day long when we brought her home. Mckenzee is a lot of fun these days. She is smart and witty and so pretty and grown up. She has gone from being constantly naked to changing clothes several times a day. She loves dresses and wants her hair fixed and she loves bows. She tells me to make her a cheerleader ponytail or a middle braid. She tells us she loves us and gives hugs and kisses. She is also bossy and sassy and very opinionated, which I am sure I had coming. I love her so much. I like to take her shopping with me and plan things together. She tells me we are best friends. I love my girl!

This year she had a cupcake party the day before her birthday with a few friends. It went so smoothly and the kids were so great. They decorated cupcakes and made a craft. We had pizza and opened presents and came home. Short and sweet and couldn't have been more perfect. They day before her party I took her shopping to find a party dress. She chose a "Fancy Nancy" dress and we made a bow to match. I loved trying dresses on her. She loved it too. She put that dress on as soon as we got home and wore it the rest of the day and for the next four days after that. Not kidding.

On her birthday she took cinnamon rolls to her Sunday School class and requested Daddy's "cancakes" for lunch and we had a great time at dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. She really had a good time there and even flapped her wings when they sang to her standing on her chair.

So, Mckenzee's fourth birthday weekend was so much fun. I am so grateful that God chose us to be her parents. She is perfect and precious and we are so thankful for her.

This Happened

I know. This is one of those pictures that you get in email forwards and you think, "What idiot leaves out paint like that and then doesn't supervise their children?" Well, I'll tell you how this goes down. It only took about 90 seconds and paint was literally everywhere. Thank goodness we were pulling up the carpet anyways.

Mckenzee and I were painting in our newly enclosed playroom. Chris was painting the new wall outside the room. Riley was watching Diego in our bedroom. Chris asked me to come out and look at his wall. I took two steps outside the room and I could still see my paint tray where Mckenzee was happily dipping her paintbrush and painting the wall like a big girl. About that time Riley walked by me and into the new room. Again, I can see the paint tray with the wet paint so I am not worried.

After I give Chris my verdict on his painting I walked back into the room to find Riley dipping his arms into the open paint can we forgot about and slinging paint everywhere. It was all over the carpet, all over the computer and desk and of course all over him and yes, he decided to taste it. All I could say was, "Oh my gosh!" Chris rushed in and scooped him up and took him straight to the bathtub, where we did pause to commemorate the nightmare with a photo.

I cleaned the boy and Chris cleaned the furniture. The clothes and carpet could not be saved. Thankfully, this was FreshAire paint so I was not AS worried as I could have been if it had been something else. The label says Good for Your Family and even though i am sure that doesn't mean you should feed it to your kids I am thinking he won't keel over.

It got worse before it got better because he got it in his hair in his fight to not get cleaned up and when we were done his bath water was completely green so he had to be rinsed with new water.

There's a preview of our new paint color for you. Hope you enjoyed the tale.

Colorado 2010

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Here are some of the 600 pictures we took on our Colorado vacation this summer. We had a great time. We started the trip at 6:00 am Thursday morning and the kids were busting at the seams excited, Riley just because his sister was. He also got to turn his car seat around for the first time. We drove to Wichita Falls and had breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We hit the rode again and made it all the way to Amarillo for lunch at Chick-fil-a. The kids were so great in the car. They each had a fun bag and I would give them something new every few hours. When that got old we would put in a movie or take a nap. They didn’t fuss the whole way. After Amarillo, we drove to Santa Fe, where we stayed the night. We got there around 5pm, had an early dinner and make a Target stop. We took our time leaving the next morning and got to Mogote about noon. I love the feeling of making that turn down to Mogote. I traveled that road so many times as a child and as an adult and it just feels like I’m coming back home. We stayed at Conejos Ranch for the weekend, where my family reunion took place. The kids had the best time throwing rocks in the river and playing in the dirt. They were tired and filthy every day. We ate at our favorite place there in town Dos Hermanas. We enjoyed mexican food and fried ice cream. We ended the weekend with some good ole country music playing and a midnight walk through an old cemetary and burned out church.  I enjoyed my family so much.
Sunday we headed north to Livermore, just up from Fort Collins where we had rented at home for the remainder of the trip. We stopped in Buena Vista for milk shakes and to play at a fun park. We stopped again at McCalister’s for dinner and got groceries in Fort Collins, where they had a Whole Foods!!! We arrived at our Elk Horn Cabin late, late and up a four wheel drive road that we were not prepared for. The house was neat, but no place for kids and much further out than we had expected. There was also the issue of rat poop and rat poison, broken toilets, dirty beds, and dirty cat litter box, that we were unable to over look. We left first things the next morning and asked for a refund, which we got and headed to Estes Park to look for a place to stay. This was an exhausting day. It was difficult to find a place that had fun stuff to do on the property, a place to cook (we had bought all our groceries the day before), accepted pets and was large enough for our family and my parents. We ate lunch in Estes Park and began our search. We let the kids play at a park for a little while. We called over 30 places and visited many and finally at 7:00 that night we found a lovely place way back called Aspen Lodge. It was a little bit Twilight Zone because no one was there, but we stayed anyway and the next morning we had our breakfast in the dining room and it was amazing! Again, a little Twilight Zone, it was just us in this huge dining room, but the food was so good we extended our stay another night. That first day we hung out at Aspen Lodge that morn, Chris and Dad played racquetball, and the kids took naps, while Maimee sewed Riley a blanket. That afternoon we ate pizza and walked around Estes Park and shopped until we could walk and shop no more. The next day we enjoyed the morning at Aspen Lodge again with another amazing breakfast. The chef made Mckenzee a Mickey Mouse pancake. Then, we packed up and checked out and drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. Beautiful. I cannot wait to go back and see it again. Mountains, wildlife, snow, hiking trials. So, so pretty.
Next, we went to Grand Lake and ate too much barbeque and walked around a bit there. We weren’t sure what to do after that. We had planned to stay another day when we made our trip plans, but didn’t have accommodations anywhere. We drove to Denver and parted ways with my parents there. They were going to try and make Trinidad and we still had no plan except to find the kids a park. Thank you iphone and online reviews you can get in seconds we found Washington Park. It was so nice and very big and had the perfect playground for our little ones. We played until dark, got something to eat and headed on our way. The kids went to sleep and Chris was doing fine driving. He stopped and got a couple of 5 hour energy drinks and when we got to Trinidad he felt he could go further so he just kept on driving. Our next stop was Wichita Falls where we stopped for breakfast and then he took us all the way home. The kids were so great on the whole trip. We had fun as a family and can’t wait to go back.