First day of KINDERGARTEN!

Our sweet girl had a successful first day (and week) of kindergarten! After reading Twas the Night Before Kindergarten and Countdown to the First Day of School Sunday night, I think it really set in with her that it was time. We somehow managed to get everyone up and dressed by 6:15 ready for the big day!

Payton wanted to take a picture with Harper, and as you can tell, Harper didn't. Hilarious.

However this was her face when taking a picture by herself. Stinker.

Payton rode to school with me while Daddy took the two littles to Bamama's house for the day. He met us back at school so that he could walk Payton to her classroom since my students would be coming at the exact same time. She was super excited and ready for her big day! We took a few pictures before heading down the hall...

The students walk into the multipurpose room and sit until the bell rings. We walked her down and Jonathan stayed with her until it was time to go to her classroom. Such a big girl sitting in her line! I think she started to clam up a little at this point-there were a lot of people everywhere! Mommy may or may not have gotten teary eyed at this point as I walked back to my classroom. It was just so real seeing her in a big kid line at my school!

Jonathan walked her into her classroom and she got started on her work. I guess she gave this silly face before he left. He did send me one from his cell phone where she was actually on task and working thankfully!

She came home Monday night and slept from about 4-7. She has had nothing but great things to say about it and had a great week! The only little downfalls we had was when she saw me during recess twice and cried when I had to leave. We'll have to work on that! Other than that, I think she's done great! I think the highlights this week for her were three visits to the treasure box, being the caboose, helping with calendar time, putting the birdseed in the bird feeders in after school, completing a self portrait, writing in her journal, and doing the balance been and bars at PE. We are so proud of our big girl.

Anderson's 1st Birthday Party

Our sweet boy is almost one and we celebrated with a fun ice cream sundae party! We decided to do a more low key party for his first. I know that's opposite of the girls, but I guess after two you learn that the first is really more overwhelming than fun for them anyways, so I thought familiar faces would be a good thing. I was so excited about the theme and that it would be pretty simple. A precious friend of mine designed and printed the invitations and made his banners. I threw some pictures on a USB to scroll on the tv during the party. I ordered the cake and it was delivered Saturday morning. A mad dash cleaning by Jonathan Saturday morning and a quick trip to Wal-Mart and we were set to go. Literally, the party came together in a matter of hours, but it went off perfectly.

It's my party and I can cry if I want to!

He was pretty quiet throughout the entire party. He was just taking in a ll of the action.

Thank you to everyone who helped us celebrate our little man's birthday. We all love this little guy to pieces and are so blessed to call him ours. 

Meet the Teacher

Well, the time has come! Our big girl is starting kindergarten tomorrow and I just can't believe it. She had meet the teacher last Thursday night. Jonathan brought her to my classroom beforehand so I could see her and get some love. She was super excited at this point and couldn't wait to meet Mrs. Fields (although she had already met her, she didn't know she would be her teacher at that point). She doesn't really know anyone in her classroom, but I think that could also be good to make new friends. Mrs. Fields is precious and we are so thankful that she will be loving our baby girl this year.

Apparently she froze up as soon as she entered her classroom. This face in the frame cracks me up. I know her thoughts exactly, "Why in the world am I putting my face in a frame? You are supposed to put a picture in there."

Precious Mrs. Fields.

We are ready for a great year in Kindergarten!

Anderson at 11 months

Our biggest milestone this month is that we have a WALKER! He's been stepping since about 10.5 months, but I can say that right around his 11 month birthday he was probably 75% walking and 25% crawling. I do have to say that I think he is happier now that he's walking and feels like he can go and play with the big kids.

He's sleeping great these days. He prefers to be in bed around 7:30 and will sleep until at least around 6:30. There are times that he just lies in his bed and talks (so I let him) and will fall back to sleep until around 7:30. I have been trying to push him towards one nap a day with the transition of preschool coming up. He gets extremely tired around 11, so I just try to feed him an early lunch, which typically gives him a burst of energy until around 12. Since we've been doing that, he's been taking one long afternoon nap about 3 hours. 

He's still taking a bottle, but becoming less and less interested. He's pretty much down to three per day now, and doesn't have to have one right at bedtime. He's explored lots of new foods, and loves to feed himself, rather than have someone to feed him.

Although I am just now posting this at 11.5 months, I did write this about 2 weeks ago. I've been fighting trying to upload these pictures. 

Summer Fun (3rd Edition)

One day with Pawpaw and Gigi came over the kids got to take their first ride on the tube. They loved it!

We pretended like Anderson rode the wave runner.

Sometimes you just play so hard, you crash!

Big boy loves being outside.

Chef Harper.

The Wood trio.

Harper's 3 year stats

We went to see Dr. Williams last week for Harper's 3 year well visit. They gave her a quick vision test, as well as checked her iron and the normal run down. She weighed 31lb. 3oz. (56%) and was 37.75 in. (68%). Of course when asked what her favorite foods were, she responded with "ball chicken" and milk. Nothing quite like the shame of your child admitting processed chicken nuggets are their favorite food to the pediatrician. Luckily, she's not very judgmental and just encouraged Harper to continue to eat vegetables also. :)

I did her questionnaire a few weeks ago, but just a little more about her: She has really started to enjoy books more lately. She gets really into the story line and likes to retell the events and about the characters. She loves playing outside, including riding her new scooter she got for her birthday. She also loves bubbles and swinging. This summer she has really started to color more and doing a better job other than just scribbling. She knows about 60% of her letters, knows how to spell her name, and is pretty good at counting. I will say that she's not near into as Payton was at this age, but that is totally fine! It is very obvious she's a smart girl and I know she will get it all when she is ready. One of my favorites quotes, "You member Mommy...."when she reminds me about something. She has been known to say the craziest things, "Wait a second guys...." when trying to interject in a conversation. Disciplining her has been quite the challenge the past year, but she is doing much better. After taking sad spoon with us everywhere for a while, luckily we hardly need it anymore. :) She can be very stubborn, yet very sensitive at the same time. She loves playing with other children and adores her brother and sister both. So thankful for that sweet "peanut" as I like to call her!

Disney Day 5

Our last day at Disney was spent in the morning at Animal Kingdom. The girls loved DinoLand, which was closed last time we were there due to rain. I seriously think they could have stayed there all day. Payton got very brave climbing the rope nets to get to the top slides. The only tricky part was keeping yup with them both. 

We walked the nature trail, rode a few rides, and saw the parade. We didn't do the safari because I believe Harper and Anderson were both asleep and we couldn't wake them to only scream the whole way. Everyone agreed that since we did it last time, we would skip it this go around. I had heard the parade there was unique and fun. I think they are discontinuing the parade this summer, so I'm glad we saw it. We enjoyed some pizza and a great view from our tables.

We decided we would spend our last night back at Magic Kingdom riding our favorite rides again and wrapping up our wonderful trip. Everyone was exhausted at this point so we didn't stay too late.

We had a wonderful trip and thanks again to Bamama, Grandaddy, Nana, and Pop for going with us and offering helping hands every step of the way. I seriously couldn't imagine how exhausted we would have been without them because we were beat as it was. Until next time...