Esther's first day of school. ever.

Two weeks after turning four, Esther started VPK (K4).  Up until now, she has always stayed at home with me and after the way swim lessons went this summer, I was pretty sure it would not be an easy transition for her.  I will say that she's been excited to start school and be like her big sister and as you can see from the pictures, she had a great big smile on her face before leaving the house!   

Here are the very girly, sparkly, light up shoes I mentioned in her birthday post.

 To my surprise, Esther did not shed one tear when I left her in the classroom that first morning, she kind of gave me a sad face, but was fine once she started playing at the table.  I honestly had envisioned the teacher having to pry her off of me, so I was relieved that she did so well.  I had a little teary moment leaving her, but did better than I was expecting.  Well... when it was time to pick her up, Woody stayed in the car with the other girls, so I could go in by myself to get her.  She sort of had a smile on her face walking towards me.  As we're walking out of the building, I'm all happy and asking her if she had a good day and if she liked it, and she shakes her head no.  I ask again, and she shakes her head no, begins crying and says, "it was really scary."  Okay.  My heart is breaking wide open at this point and I pick her up and carry her the rest of the way to the car.  She's sobbing by the time we reach it.  This is sort of how the first week went... she would reluctantly walk into the classroom, no tears, have a great day according to the teacher, and then by the time we would get to the car to go home, she would lose it.  We decided she could hold it together during school, and then when she got to me, she would release everything bottled inside.  Exhaustion and a hungry tummy also contributed to these "meltdowns."  These continued the first few weeks, happening at least 3 times a week.  And they were hard.  The meltdowns would show up in different ways, like tantrums... several times, I had to pull over on the side of the road to try and calm her down.  So... because she is a very young 4, I decided to give her until week 6 of school to see if we could work through this, and if not, I was going to take her out.  Although she was doing great in class, the after effects were really hard on all of us.  Well... I am happy to say that beginning with week 5 and since, there have been no tears!  I don't know that I would say she loves school, but she definitely likes it now.  It just literally took 5 weeks!  And just in the last week or so, she has begun singing new songs, reciting poems, etc. just out of the blue that she's learning at school, and she's so proud to share them with us.  I don't get much feedback from her when I pick her up, but by dinner time, she starts sharing information about her day, which has been really fun to hear!  She really likes Chapel and she also likes her Spanish class.  I'm really thankful that she is enjoying school now.  I'm also very thankful for her sweet teachers and those who do carline that make a "big to do" over her and make her feel special... my sweet middle one!

We went ahead and celebrated Esther's birthday at school that first week.  Fridays are "casual days," so she wore her new favorite color, pink.  A friend in her class, that we'd met this summer at swimming lessons, has the same birthday.  I'm glad Ms. Lisa let us go ahead and celebrate 2 weeks after, instead of waiting and celebrating in June, 2 months before!

celebrating Chloe

Okay, my hope is to catch you all up since the middle of September in the next week, so here we go!

The weekend before Chloe's actual birthday, Woody's family was able to come down and visit for a few days.  We celebrated Chloe's birthday on that Saturday, starting off with a trip to Splash park.

Later that afternoon, we celebrated with dinner and cake... yummy cupcakes from Luli's...

I couldn't resist this onesie when I picked the cupcakes up...

and Chloe had her very own cake...

gotta love the family shot...

So I put Cheerios on the cake for decoration thinking it would be cute for the flower... Chloe picked each one off individually and ate them totally ignoring the rest of the cake until Woody scraped them off in hopes she'd dig in.

Not too sure about this sugary stuff...

She finally got into the cake and seemed to be enjoying it...

but then began flinging her hands, trying to get the icing, etc. off

until she'd had enough!  The girl knows when she's done! 

Here are some shots of the cupcakes being enjoyed...

And one final shot... you think they're related? 

Happy Birthday Chloe!  We love you!

growing up

(I'm a little bit behind...I wrote this almost 2 weeks ago and realized I never finished it or posted it!)


Sometimes I wish that I could hit a pause or even a stop button on life.  The girls are growing up so fast before our eyes.  It really hit me last Sunday when Chloe started walking and we were preparing for Arden to start school the next morning... and with that the realization that Esther will start school next fall!  Needless to say, I was a little "emotional" this last week.  


I thought about the milestones Arden reached this summer... she lost her first two teeth. We were totally not prepared for this-she's four! In July, she began reading! I'm so proud of her.  And even though it's been a couple of months, I'm still so surprised when she reads something aloud to me and I think, "how did you do that?"  The other day she came home from school with a book from the library and sat down and read the entire thing by herself.  I asked if her teacher read it to her or the class, thinking she'd memorized some of it by chance, but no, she'd never heard it before.  It was so neat teaching my students to read and being excited for them when it clicked.  Being a mommy now and watching it "click" for Arden and seeing her excitement is a-mazing!  
  
We also watched old home videos last weekend to show Arden and Esther video from when they first started walking.  Watching Esther learning to walk also meant we heard Arden learning how to talk.  I don't think we've actually looked at these since we took them and so it was really eye opening to hear Arden barely speaking.  (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this  might help a little bit.)  The Lord has done such a wonderful work in her life and to think that just two years ago she could only say a few words and now she's reading and in preschool is just amazing-praise Him!! 

And the big event... Arden started VPK (K4) on Monday.  She is going 5 days a week from 9 to noon.  I'm sure some of you are thinking, what's the big deal??, so I will tell you.  Beyond Sunday mornings at church and a once a week, 45 min. ballet class she started last year, Arden has always been at home with me.  She's never been in a mother's morning out program or any type of preschool program until now.  I was really hoping for a 2 or 3 day program to ease her (and me) in, but VPK where we live requires 4-5 days.  So our life has taken quite the change this week.  I'm happy to report though, that Arden LOVES school and  was sad when she learned she couldn't go on Saturday.  Being our social one, I knew she would thrive and it has been really fun seeing her so excited.  I also think it has helped me not be so sad.  It's hard to cry when your little girl is so happy!  I will admit to shedding some tears the first day of school.  Woody prayed for Arden before she got out of the car...that started it!  And then I walked her in, helped her find her cubby and seat and she got right to coloring, as happy as can be.  I found myself lingering at the door, not wanting to say goodbye... my little girl was all grown up!  On my way back to the car there were a few more tears shed and that was that.  I did great the rest of the week until Friday morning when I dropped her off in the carline for the first time instead of walking her in.  She was so proud to walk in by herself and I shed a few more tears pulling out of the school.  

I'm not the only one though that had an emotional week.  Life for sweet Esther has also changed.  Her best friend is dropped off at school every day and now she gets more time with Mommy.  I've been looking forward to this time with Esther and I've seen glimpses of how much she is also enjoying it, but for most of the week, she seemed to long for her sister.  I think she was also just confused for most of the week about what was going on.  On the days she went with either me or Woody to take Arden, she took her backpack and said she was going to school too.  It was really sweet, but also made my heart really sad!  I'm thankful that A and E are so close and it has been really neat to watch them go straight into playing together when we come home after school.


So if you're still reading this and wondering where all my emotional rambling is going... I guess it really struck me this week how fast our girls are growing and how life is changing.  I'm so grateful that the Lord has blessed our lives with each of them and provided the opportunity for me to stay at home with them.  I want to make sure I'm making the most of each day to love and nurture them, train them according to His Word, and of course be silly and have dance parties and tea parties too!  I know they're all still very young, but I just want to savor as much of life as I can right now.  

lost

Yes, I'll confess we were "Lost" fans, but that's not what this post is about.  It's about Arden losing her first tooth!!  A couple of weeks ago, we were at her dance class and one of the other 4 year olds in her class had lost a tooth.  Two teeth in three weeks to be exact.  We were all talking about how early it was to be losing teeth and I liked the way one mom encouraged the little girl, "God just knows you're a responsible girl and capable of taking good care of big girl teeth."  Well, low and behold two days later, I was about to help Arden finish brushing her teeth and noticed that one of her bottom teeth looked crooked...turns out it was really loose!  Two days later, we'd gotten home from Marineland and had finished dinner.  Woody and I were cleaning up the kitchen and Arden ran up to us and said without any expression, "There was just a tooth in my mouth."  In my head I was thinking, "What on earth is she talking about..." when I saw a little blood in her mouth and it clicked and I said, "Arden, you lost your tooth!!  Where is it?? " (thinking, oh no, she swallowed it!)  Arden replied like it was no big deal whatsoever and said, "It's in the trash."  At this point, Woody and I are laughing and trying to congratulate Arden and make a big deal out of what seemed like nothing to her.  Woody then helped her get cleaned up and I, of course, ran to see if I could find the tooth!  Thankfully, she threw it in the small trashcan in the girl's bathroom and not the kitchen trash, so I was able to retrieve the tiny little tooth with no problem.  

I asked Arden if she liked losing a tooth to which she replied, "No.  But now I'm ready for a big girl tooth."