Let me get this straight.....

Now that is hard to believe!!! I've been thinking about Nate all day....praying that his first day of Kindergarten is just as "awesome" as Christian's was!!

When did this happen???

Emma starts 5th grade today.

What?? How on earth did that happen.

I totally think it's time for Jesus to come back ASAP!

The Rest of the 1st Day.....

I could hardly wait to see Christian get off the bus! We got to the bus stop 20 minutes early, which was good for McKenna so she could practice peddling her tricycle.

As soon as I saw his face I knew it was a great day!

I wanted to pick him up and hug and kiss on him and cry...but I didn't.

As soon as I asked him how it was, he said "Awesome!"

He was full of stories for the next 45 minutes and then he was done talking about it.

He missed his sister big time. The first thing he told her was that he had a surprise for her. It was a picture he colored of the raccoon in the Kissing Hand! So sweet.

The rest of the night was busy. He was tired, but was not about to admit it. We had his celebration dinner, then he played some baseball with daddy and then we had ice cream cake (he asked for it and then didn't even eat a piece because he was too tired).

Christian's thoughts on the first day:

We went to the bathroom a lot.

We talked about manners A LOT!

I got to make a heart out of licorice.

Recess in kindergarten is way longer than it was at preschool.

I saw a girl crying. I think she missed her mom.

I couldn't remember whether I was supposed to stay downstairs or go upstairs to my class, so I just asked a teacher! (so proud of him that he handled that without getting upset).

We read "The Kissing Hand" and I told my teacher I heard that story already.

Lunch is noisy.

My teacher kept saying "take this home. show this to your mom."

It was awesome.

It was cool.

Later as I was tucking Christian into bed he said, "Mom, I think you needed the Kissing Hand more than I did."

Christian's 1st Day of Kindergarten

The first words out of his mouth this morning were "I don't want to go." That was hard, but thankfully God gave me the exact words I needed at that moment to get him excited. By the time 7:30am rolled around he was ready and so stinkin' proud of that Mario lunch box!

He's the very first bus stop in the morning and the very last stop in the afternoon. He's on the bus for 2 hours a day. That's 10 hours a week. That's 40 hours a month. I don't love it. Seems like such a waste of time when it takes me 10 minutes to drive to school. I'm selfish, I would prefer to have that 40 hours with him. So we'll see if this is something we'll continue to do. The only plus is that his best friend is stop #2 and I know Christian will LOVE having time every day with his best buddy!

Okay, don't judge.....stalker mom here followed the bus. Ha!
Yeah, I followed it for an hour, all the way to school. I wanted to know the route and see how long it actually took.

Stalker Mom used her giant zoom lense to capture Christian getting off the bus and then he spotted me and gave me a smile and a wave! Love that boy! I'm sure he's having a great morning.

I haven't cried yet...the same cannot be said of McKenna. She had a meltdown for about an hour about how she had no one to play with because I am a "mom" and not fun and Will can't talk so he's not fun to play with either. Honestly, I hadn't given McKenna a thought. I didn't think much about how all of this would affect her. So at 9am I called our neighbor to come play and thankfully she arrived at 9:30 and they're playing now! whew...what a morning!

My goal for this afternoon is to make sure Christian feels encouraged, proud and loved. I'm hoping he'll be ready to talk, because I'm going to be ready to listen to all the details of his day. We're going to do a "Thumbs up/ Thumbs down" everyday, where he tells me the best thing about his day and then his least favorite thing about each day.
He's planned our special celebration dinner and McKenna, Will and I will be waiting at the bus stop with balloons this afternoon (I know this is the only year I'll probably be able to get away with that)!

Well, look at that...I blogged all of this and still haven't cried :)

Somebody pray for me.....

My baby goes to kindergarten today.

Meet the teacher!

Can you tell??? I forgot my camera. So these were taken with Ryan's camera phone. Sorry!

Meet the teacher night was a turning point for Christian. It's the first time he let himself get excited about school. In fact, on the way home he said "I feel like a whole new person. I have a new classroom, a new teacher, new friends, everything is new!" He got to practice riding the bus. And he made a new friend named Blake. So, so thankful he made a friend.

He did give me the evil eye at one point. He was sitting at his table silently with 3 other very nervous looking kids. So of course the former teacher in me popped out and I started talking to all the kids at his table, introducing Christian to them and asking them their names, etc. If he could have crawled under the table he would have. He was so embarassed, so I backed off and let them all silently sit there. I guess they'll eventually get to know each other :)
It was a good night.

Hurricane Party!!!!

Thanks to Irene, we had an impromptu hurricane party last night :)

My sister lives three hours east of us and is expecting to get some serious rain over the next 24 hours. Apparently she's not the only person worried about the power going out and her sump pump not working because there was not one generator available for sale anywhere within a five hour radius of their house. So they arrived last night at 10:30 to borrow a generator and they left this morning before 8:00am. The kids stayed up until midnight giggling and having a grand time and today we are all very, very sleepy!

Preparation

Christian is not excited about kindergarten. He doesn't like new things and this is no exception. So in an effort to make kindergarten seem super cool, we paid a visit to his school. We hiked around the environmental center adjacent to his school and then headed to the playground.

I'm not sure if it helped him feel excited about kindergarten, but he sure did have a good time. I know he's going to love school, he just needs to get through the first day. We've decided to have a special celebration dinner the night of the first day of school. I've told Christian over and over that it's to celebrate how "great" his first day of school will be, so he will start planning on it being "great." He gets to pick the meal. He's picked "pizza that the man delivers in his car" and "birthday cake that's frozen with ice cream." So Papa John's and ice cream cake it is!!! And now he's looking forward to the first day :)

Paparazzi

Whenever Will does something new (like roll over for the first time) I'm not the only one running to get my camera. McKenna runs to grab her toy princess camera and Christian gets his DSi, that he can take pictures with. It's pretty hilarious as the three of us stand there taking pictures of our bewildered baby :)

I can't believe he did that....

Ryan took Christian to Hershey Park today!

They pretty much had the best time ever!

Christian keeps telling me how "awesome" it was!

It's a good thing I didn't go....

because Ryan let Christian ride on this.

Ummm...yeah....it's a REAL roller coaster.

He loved it!

Wordless Wednesday!

Well that was interesting....

Did you feel it??

If you live on the east coast I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

The 5.9 earthquake we all felt.

It was pretty surreal and "earthquake" was not the first thing that came to mind when I felt it.

I was in the basement of the hospital walking Will around while Ryan was getting his MRI.

The floor felt like it was rolling for at least 3o seconds (at first I thought I was dizzy...then I thought it must be the construction next door, then I got worried) and I looked at two nurses standing there and said "what is that?" One of them got nervous and headed out the exit door. I stood right by the door (just in case) and then she popped her head back in a minute later and said it was an earthquake.

What??

Thankfully Ryan was NOT in the MRI tube when it happened (that would have been scary). He had just gotten the dye put in his shoulder and they were wheeling him down to the MRI scan room. He did great. No meds. He just toughed it out. It's definitely not his favorite thing to do, but he survived and hopefully he'll never have to do that again. Now we wait on the results. Thanks for praying for him :)

MRI

If you're not busy around lunch time today, 12:30 EST, could you say a quick prayer for Ryan. He will be heading into the dreaded MRI tube. You know that one that squeezes your shoulders and is about an inch from your face! It's not a pleasant experience, even for a tough guy like Ryan. I'll be standing by as his ride home just in case they need to give him a little Valium :) I'm sure he'll be fine, but he could use an extra measure of peace!! This MRI is going to determine if Ryan needs shoulder surgery or not. He most likely needs it and I told him to get it done soon since thanks to Will we've already met all our medical deductibles for the year.

The woods

There's nothing like a shady walk in the woods on a hot summer day!

I know, I know

So I gave the blog a much needed update and in the process I lost all the blog links on the sidebar. Don't worry. I'll get right on it...in my free time :)

Okay...I worked on it! What/Who am I leaving out?? I can't remember.....

My Date

I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but my little girl has grown up.
And it was time to sign her up for ballet.
I told her we were just going to go meet her teacher and get her foot sized for ballet shoes....
but she went up to her room and got herself all dressed up.
She was so excited.
Do you see that face in the carseat??
That's her..."I'm so excited, but I'm trying to act cool about this" smile.
I was worried that she was going to be disappointed that she didn't get to dance,
even though I told her there would be no dancing.
And she was disappointed.
What's a mommy to do??


Well this mommy decided to take her little ballerina on a date.
McKenna officially decided that she loves Friendlys.
We colored together.
She ordered strawberry milk even though she doesn't really like it.
She just likes the color.
We shared a sundae
and she talked a lot.
And I got to just look in her face and listen to all her silliness.
It was the best!

Precious Boy

I kiss him dozens of times a day.

He is the most precious thing.

He got 2 teeth this weekend.

I love his spiky little hair...

And how he grabs my face and slobbers all over it, then laughs.

For Amy

We had a family get together this past weekend!

Amy had to work, so I promised her lots of videos of her kids.

And here they are:

Nate on the slide :)

Abby on the slide :)

Emma on the zip line :)

Silliness

So what do you think???

Can you tell they're cousins?? I definitely think they resemble one another. And McKenna desperately wants Abby to be her sister. I told her cousins are the next best thing to a sister. I'm thankful for the blessing Emma and Abby have been to my sweet girl this summer.

Everybody's Goin' Surfing...

Well, actually just Abby went "surfing." It was cute!

Soccer Girl

She found Christian's old soccer shoes.

She dug the tallest socks she could find out of her drawer.

She put on a dress...why not?

And declared that she was ready to play soccer.

Love that girl.

A Wednesday Recap

Wednesday started off bright & early.

Nate & McKenna played games (much to Christian's great dismay).

My kids, Cousins, and friends....this was the gang I hung out with most of the day.....

plus this cutie.

Lunch. The new Pepperidge Farm Fish bread was a huge hit....no crust :)

Hurt finger.

Three wild guys. And "wild" is a mild adjective to describe their behavior in the pool :)

BFFs

A little piece of the wildness.

Some surfing by Abby! She's amazing! I'll share a video later :)

Then off to our fav. place for dinner.

Topped it off with a little ice cream.

Choc Chip cookie dough & Cookies and Creme

I adore the toothless grin. When I saw it for the first time he said "Now Chrish and I match."

Ended the day with a few fireworks.

A day of great summer memories!

Wordless Wednesday!

The Lord has done great things for us & we are filled with joy!

Back to School HELP!!!

Christian's going to kindergarten in two weeks. Stop my beating heart...breathe deeply...I can do this!!! I am way more nervous about this than he is!! Please tell me this is normal???

Okay, so besides the mini-meltdown I'm having at the thought of putting my child on a school bus, I really do need your help.

This is for all you moms who already have kiddos in school and who somehow have survived putting your babies on that big yellow bus.

I need some ideas...

Do you have any back-to-school traditions in your family?

What do you do to make the first day of school special in your family??

What's your routine like when your kids get home from school?

Do you have any clever things you do to help prepare your child for the first day??

You would think I would have this all figured out since I used to be a teacher and all, but I think that makes it worse. I happen to know just how mean kids can be and how unsupervised the bus is and how insanely wild the playground can get and how kids don't actually eat the healthy lunches their moms pack for them and.....

...this is when I should throw in a little Proverbs 3:5&6 or some Jer. 29:11, but honestly this really is hard and I have no earthly idea how God ever sent his only son to the messed up world when I can't even handle thinking about kindergarten.

Okay, so help me out here and leave a comment!!!

boo hoo

Apparently there is nothing worse than having your big brother put his arm around you.
Boy oh boy she can turn on the water works when she wants to!

Giggle