100 Day Club

At Alex's kindergarten there is a list of 100 skills for a student to learn by the 100th day of school. They celebrate the 100th day of school with a party, and a certificate for the kids that know all of their skills.

On Friday, all the kids wore t-shirts decorated with 100 items of their choice. Alex decided on "eyes", which was a lot of fun for me to glue on! At least he helped me count them out. He liked the eyes, because when he moved, the little eyeballs jiggled and made a cool noise. His teacher really liked it when he was jumping around the classroom making the eyes jiggles! :)

On Monday, I was able to attend a special breakfast, and watch Alex receive his certificate from the school principal.

Alex with his teacher

Alex just loves to have me stop by his classroom. He's so proud to be in kindergarten (big kid school), and likes to show me everything in his room.

We are very proud of Alex and all of the progress he has made this year in school.

First Day of School

Lily has started preschool..........and she loves it!!

Although we wanted to put her in Michael's class, there was no space available. Matter of fact, there was no space available in any of the 3 day/week 3-yr old classes, but the was a space in a Friday class. We decided that it would be a good starting point, so we planned a visit. Lily had been to the preschool daily to pick up her brothers, and she had also attended some of their parties with me, so she was familiar with the building and classrooms. The day I took her to visit, she sat right down with the other kids to play with the play dough. She looked back at me a couple of times, and then seemed to forget I was there. Matter of fact, she was doing so well, the teacher (who Michael had last year and we loved), kicked me out!! Although we had only intended to visit for about an hour, she told me to leave her for the morning. When I pointed out that I had not brought her a lunch, she sent me to Chick-Fil-A to pick her up some food! :)

Well, she ended up staying for the full 4 hours, and I picked her up in the carpool lane with Michael. She was all smiles when she got in the mini-van and couldn't wait to pull out the painting she did! She told me about her day, and how there was a boy named Tyler in her class just like her brother. About her painting she said, "I show daddy he get home". She carried her school bag with her most of the day, and as soon as she heard daddy, she ran into the garage with her school bag to show him her painting!!

We also just found out that one of the other children has dropped out of the class, and now she'll be able to go 2 days per week. It's great prep for pre-k next year, and it also gives me a morning home with just Michael. I'm really looking forward to my one-on-one time with my baby!

As excited as Lily was about her first day, her sleep issues, which had gotten much better, resurfaced. This time though, minimal night terrors.......just crying that is more easily calmed. It was a couple of times a night the first few night, but has now settled to just once a night, with an occasional night with no awakenings. Big changes can cause anxieties to surface, but that will continue to get better over time.



So proud of her first piece of art!

The Big Snow

Only one week back at school after the holidays, and we're hit with the "big snow". That's right, 5 inches of snow layered with ice. Now those of you from up north, are probably thinking "what's the big deal?" The big deal is 8......as in only 8 salt/sand trucks for the whole Atlanta area. (Chicago has 274). Now obviously, Atlanta doesn't need hundreds of salt trucks, but when the city is covered with ice, there's nothing it can do but shut down. The storm came in on Sunday night. On Wednesday, Ruben tried to go to work. He made it out of the neighborhood, which is huge as it's very hilly, but the main road outside our neighborhood was closed because of ice in the direction he needed to go. He turned the other way to see what he could do, but after seeing cars on both sides of him trying to climb a hill and sliding all over the place, he turned around and came home. A short while later, they closed the road in that direction too.

He was able to make it to work on Thursday........very carefully. I finally ventured out on Friday, but even I managed to get stuck in ice on the way back into our neighborhood. At least I knew what to do, and didn't just spin my tires and dig myself in deeper while burning up my engine, which is not uncommon to see here in the south!

With all that ice, school was cancelled for the entire week! The kids, of course, LOVED the snow! It's the first time we've had enough to take them sledding. Monday was a beautiful day, sunny and not too cold. Just like the first warm day of spring when you live up north, everyone in our neighborhood was out. The older kids and adults were sledding down the steep streets, while the younger kids, like ours, stuck to the smaller hills. Our neighbor across the street has a steep driveway, and the kids went sledding down the driveway, across the street, and jumped the curb into our yard. They had a blast!! Lily usually went down on my lap, but by the end of the second day, she was sledding by herself! Alex was going up and down the hill as fast as he could trying to get in as many turns as possible, while Michael spent a lot of time rolling around in the snow, and eating it!

Helping Daddy work at home

The first time the kids have been sledding

Yum!