Miles Starts 3's Preschool!

Miles' preschool doesn't have orientation until the week after Labor Day, so his first full day wasn't until mid-September this year. At least no one will accuse them of burning the kids out, right?

I was honestly a little apprehensive for Miles going into orientation. He's so used to always having Brooke around, and when she's not around he can be quite the Mama's boy. While he wasn't super-enthusiastic about the orientation (see photo below), he did fine separating from me and was engaged during the practice circle time.

A week later, Miles woke up for his first day seemingly happy. He kept asking if I'd be going with him, but seemed okay when I told him I wouldn't. He also kept asking about the teachers from his 2's class and I told him that now he'd have Brooke's teachers from the 3's. We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and just needed to snap a couple of first-day pics before we were off. That proved more difficult than we'd expected.

Maybe without the bag?

Sample shot of Matt to show him how it's done?

Getting better...

Finally, with a threat of no dessert, this is the best we got. How fitting that most of the chalk was rubbed off by that time.

Brooke was happy to be in the picture.

Paige, too. His sisters perked him up a little.

He had fun and thus far provides more details about his day than Brooke ever did at preschool. We're so proud of you, Big Guy! Have a great year!

When Dad's Away...

...Apparently I don't take pictures or blog. Matt was out of town for several consecutive days earlier this month, so the kids and I had to fill some extra time staying busy. The weather was decent, so we were able to get in a couple of playground visits.

We also had "breakfast" at Dunkin' Donuts. Not a bad way to start the day every once in awhile.

Brooke had her first fall soccer game (there'll be a post on that later). They won and she scored a goal! She put her jersey on first thing in the morning and wanted to "warm up" before we left for the game.

I took the kids to what I thought was a counter-service Asian restaurant one night. Turns out it wasn't, but they were all very well-behaved and we had fun along with some really good sushi and fried rice. Brooke even tried sashimi for the first time and liked it. That's my girl!

It was a good long weekend, but we were all very happy to have Matt home.

Kindergarten (or How Did This Happen So Fast?)

I'm not sure how it happened, but in the blink of an eye, this little girl:

Turned into this BIG girl:

Kindergarten started last Thursday. It was a day that I'd honestly not been looking forward to. It meant that my baby girl will never be only mine again. She's going to be with a teacher and classmates that I don't really know and there is so much that I will not be able to protect her from. Thankfully, our district still offers half-day kindergarten and we actually know about half of the kids in her class. I've also heard great things about her teacher.

This new phase has been a good lesson for me, once again, in how little I can control. I've been praying as often as I think of it for strength and grace for her teacher, as well as for protection and wisdom for Brooke, and opportunities for her to show love and kindness to others. And I know that she's going to do great. She's always loved school and was SO excited to go on Thursday. Her teacher gave each of the kids a bag of "Ready Confetti" to keep under their pillows to help them sleep and give them sweet dreams. About 15 minutes after she went to bed, Brooke called shenanigans on the confetti being magic because she still couldn't go to sleep. She did say that she had sweet dreams, though.

Because we knew so many people at the school, and because I'd already shed a few tears earlier in the week, I was able to hold it together at drop off. Plus, I thankfully still had Miles and Paige to distract me. We ran a couple of errands and Miles asked literally five times when we could go pick Brookie up. His preschool doesn't start for a few more weeks, so we'll have to find ways to stay busy until then.

It's pretty fun that Brooke is going to the same school that Matt, Mike and Jamie went to, and that she already has so many friends in class. It's about a 3 minute drive and I think we're going to attempt to walk there at some point this coming week. We'll see how that goes.

Best of all, Kali's in her class! I think that she feels like as long as she has Kali, she can face the world.

She was proud to rock her Koala backpack from Australia.

There goes my heart. Off to do awesome things!

August Randoms

We've had some really beautiful weather lately, so we're trying to get outside as much as possible. Miles loves his "woo-woo he can drive that fits two people." He asks to ride it when we're on our way home much of the time (so thanks, Grandma and Papa T!). We've been spending a lot of time in our cul-de-sac.

Miles wanted me to take a picture of his jumping skills.

And Brooke attempted to climb this tree.

And Paige just scooted around with a smile on her face.

At the playground the day before school started, Brooke must've gotten a dose of Kindergarten Courage. She climbed to the top of this structure for the first time ever.

And also go across these monkey bars for the first time ever. Go, girl!

This is what happens when Miles plays with my phone in Target.

And this little lady has been really into "peek a boo" with anything she can find. This day, the kitchen towel was her prop of choice.

Have a great week!

Cousins!

We had Matt's family over for a little Brooke's first day of school/Jamie graduated/Will and Jamie have been married 12 days/my birthday celebration last week. These two are going to be trouble:

We also did a little cat herding, trying to get a good picture of the cousins.

That didn't really work. Maybe just Brooke and Bri?

At least everybody had fun. After the babies went to bed, Aunt Jamie brought out the cupcake pinata. 

We also had about ten other dessert options, thanks to Matt's mom. As always when we're all together, it was a really fun night!