Pre-school 2019

My little Annie is old enough for Preschool now - whaaaaaaat?! We've actually been able to ease into this stage, which has been *so* nice. In August, Annie started preschool with a lady from church -Miss Katie. She has a preschool out of her home, and Annie gets to attend it with her cousin, Lukas. Annie love love loves it.

 Annie loves preschool. The theme of August was farm animals - so if you know Annie, you know that was her jam. She's always excited about school, and she wears her backpack with glee. She hates taking it off in the car for the ride to school. Here she is on her first day of school:

 Happy girl, am I right?? :)

 Her cousin, Lukas, came home with us after preschool for a little bit. They had fun showering Laura with attention (via stickers). I love these babies. And we feel really lucky to have so much family around for our kids to grow up with. It's fun to see that our kids don't just have cousins, but they are getting some strong friendships with their cousins. Miss Katie has told us about how close Annie and Lukas are at school and how they take care of each other, and it warms my heart.

 Well today, a month later, both Laura and Annie are starting Kids Day Out (KDO). It's at a local church and it's a preschool program. It's 2x/week for 4 hours. Annie has been really excited about it, and Laura is my go with the flow baby. Today was the first day, so here are the mandatory first day of school pictures :)

 Y'all, check out these babies! My heart is bursting!

 So you can see above, Laura can barely handle that backpack. I was dying laughing watching her try to walk around with it on, but she didn't want to take it off. She loves it!

 So today at drop-off, I totally cried. I dropped off Annie, and she did great. She jumped right in with no worries. Then I dropped off Laura, and she cried for a minute. The teacher said to go ahead and leave, and that she'll be fine. My friend who works there texted me about two minutes later and said she wasn't crying anymore and she was munching on her cheerios. Well not me. I was still crying in my car on the phone with Tyler. I've been on the fence about sending Laura or not, since she's still so little. And I still might change my mind, but I do know its a fun and good program, and that she'll grow and learn. I guess what I learned today is that I'll be that mom at Kindergarten that cries like a baby on the first day. :)

At the end of the school day when I went to pick them up, it was a roller coaster. I went and got Laura first. Her teacher said she did great, and that she smiled big enough so that they noticed her dimple. She said it was their goal to keep trying to get her to show her dimple throughout the day. They said she played great with the other kids and was a sweetheart.

When I got Annie, she was in a great mood and her teacher said she did awesome. Right after I got her, she wanted to show me one of the indoor playgrounds. After a couple of minutes, I told her time to go. Usually when she doesn't come, I'll say good-bye to her and start walking, and then she'll quickly start to follow. Well today when I did that, she had a total breakdown. I went over to her and she just cried and said "I want my momma". (cue Mommy's heart breaking!). She and Laura both wanted me to carry them, on top of me holding onto their backpacks and take home art. Whenever I would set one down, the other would just collapse onto the floor and cry. They both were exhausted. I finally ended up putting Annie on my shoulders, wearing the backpacks, and then holding onto Laura. Annie cried the whole way to the car just wanting me to "actually" hold her. Once I got to the car and got Laura settled, I held Annie and asked her all about her day. I asked her:

Did you like it? - "yes"
Did you have fun? - "yes"
Did you play games? - "yes"
Do you want to come back here? - "Yes. I want to come back to school tomorrow."

Showing off their backpacks

 I talked to her a bit, and it sounds like she loved her day but she was just exhausted from it. It's hard work playing and learning. So I got the girls home and down for naps quickly and with ease. They were both wanting rest and both napped for about 3 hours.

 Overall, I think it has been a good kick-off into preschool/Kids Day Out (KDO) for these two. I'm glad it's only a couple days a week, because I'm missing my kids. We'll see how long I last at all of this. ;)

Holisticism & Family FHE

Every month my extended family gets together to have a Family Home Evening. We rotate hosting and providing a meal, and my Dad always gives a lesson. His lessons are always amazing (tonight it was about retention and being steadfast with our testimonies in God.) On top of preparing lessons, we also take turns with assignments - ie: games, desserts, music, entertainment, etc. Well tonight, Tyler and I had the assignment of entertainment...

After brainstorming what we wanted to do, we just decided on showing this video. You might want to see it too, so enjoy!