The first days of school...

We have officially had the first day of school for everyone here.  Abby had her first day a couple weeks ago.  We are on what they call a "balanced" schedule here, which is essentially a year-round schedule, so she started on July 31.  That seemed ungodly early to me too, I assure you.  But, the 2 week October break is pretty great.

This year was a biggie, because Abby started at a new school this year since we moved in May.  I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a little tough.  We went to the school's ice cream social prior to the first day to find her room and meet her teacher briefly, so she was very excited about about the first day, however, making friends is hard and slow.  

We had a misunderstanding with the bus where she got seating permanently with kindergartners on the first day because she was small and we didn't realize it.  We got that corrected as soon as we found out, but it took over a week for her to tell us.  Now, she is sitting with other third graders and has fun on the bus.

She also has made more friends.  The first week or so, she really only had one friend that she played with at recess, but now we are hearing about lots of people.  She has told me that making friends has been hard.  -but I think it's getting better.  I'm actually hearing silly stories from recess now.  The second full week was a very good week.  I was feeling very home sick for our old school after the first full week, but now I'm feeling like we're going to make it.  Now I just need to get plugged in.  They haven't had anything for parents yet.  I'm still waiting on that.... feeling a little disconnected.  I'm sure it will come too.  I'm just not the best at change.

-and as for Miss Lily...  Today was her first day of Pre K.  She'll be going 3 days a week this year and had a great first day.  She was very excited to be able to take her picture this morning holding a sign "just like Abby does."  She's attending the same preschool she did last year, at our church.

...and of course, it doesn't seem fair to leave you with inaccurate pictures of my girls, so here's the real one (silly faces!):

Things have been a little crazy around here...

I haven't blogged in a bit, and that is because we have been very busy around our house.

The big news is that we just listed our house!  It is officially for sale.  For safety reasons I'm not going to put the listing here, but if you know anyone who is looking for a cute open-concept 3 bedroom house, it's for sale!  It has a great deck and beautiful landscaping.

We've just outgrown it.  Matt desperately needs an office where he can close the door since he works from home many days.  We are also looking for a home with a basement.  We spent about 2 weeks packing up stuff and doing some staging.  Now, we are ready to sell!

As for where we are moving?  Most of the summer, that question was in the air.  It was either Pennsylvania, where Matt's company's home office is or stay where we are.  Both have pros and cons.  We actually took a trip to PA just a week or so ago to see the area.  (The girls stayed home.)

We flew into Newark so we could have a direct flight and I got to see NYC!

After a lot of long talks, we decided to stay where we are.

Just yesterday, we looked at some houses here locally.  Now if we can just sell our house.  Matt says I need to give it some time, but I'm just so nervous.

In addition to all that, Lily started Preschool!

She LOVES it.  This week, she was the snack girl.  We sent in Nilla Wafers (cookies, in her words) and Rainbow Goldfish Crackers, both of which she picked out.

Creation Month at Preschool

Abby made this at Preschool. Cool, huh?

Preschool Field Trip

Today was Abby's first field trip of the year. We decided that we really wanted it to be just Abby and a parent, so she'd be the center of our attention rather than Lily. Matt stayed home with Lily and I went on this one. Matt gets the next one to the Apple Orchard. We went to the park and had a great time. We were under a wind advisory today though and it was brisk out. It wasn't nearly as bad if we were in the sun, but the shade was brutal. I had some fun playing with effects on Picnik with the pictures. I really like the "softening" effects and being able to add text.

Beekeeper Abby

(the preschool director's father is a beekeeper)

First Day of PreK

Preschool Field Trip

Abby had her Preschool Field Trip today and I got to go.  It was a walking trip to a local park.  How, do you say, so you walk 25 three-year-olds through a fairly busy area to the park?  

Here is how:

Abby had lots of fun, as you can see.

(I got in trouble for this one because I took a picture of the backside of the director of the preschool.  I think she'll get over it.)

My favorite picture, hands down, is this one.  Abby walked over to me very upset because there weren't enough bouncy things for her to play with her friends.  As she got to me, they called her back and one of her friends told her to ride with her.  I barely whipped out the camera in time, and it is a little blurry because I was far away and really had to zoom and crop to show it.  That said, worth a thousand words...

I was so glad I got to go.  It was in the air, because siblings weren't allowed, but I worked it out last minute.  I was the only mom in her class that attended and it was nice for her to have the mom that was there.  This is why I am staying home.  That is the mom I want to be.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

We have reached a milestone with Abby. Our first Parent/Teacher Conferences (for Preschool)! Now, as a teacher, I have done my fair share of conferences, and this was similar to what I would have expected. Her teacher had a whole list of "End of Year Goals" for the 3's class. They were broken into catagories:

• Social/School Skills and Behaviors
• Cognitive Skills
• Self-Help Skills
• Motor Skills

I was the most interested in Cognitive Skills, of course, and here were the specific things that she "tested" them on in that category.

• Can identify all body parts.
• Recognize my first and last name (so far they only do first).
• Identify red, yellow, green, blue, black, brown, orange, purple.
• Recite rhymes/sing songs.
• Identify a circle, square, triangle, rectangle (she does more shapes, including oval, octagon, etc.).
• Count from 1-10 (but they go higher).
• Identify numbers 1-5 (she added zero).
• Speak in sentences of five or more words.
• Tell a story. (apparently Abby excels at this!)
• Know alike and different.

Abby aced it all. Her teacher said she "is a bright little girl." Which we knew, of course, but it is nice to hear.

The only area that we want to work on a little is Motor Skills. She isn't really behind on it, but she's not ahead of the curve either. Her teacher had a cutting exercise to show us, of a drawn circle that they were asked to cut out. Abby's was perfectly cut, though she is the only one in her class that didn't get it completely cut out. Hers, at the most, was only 1/4 cut out. Her teacher commented that Abby is a bit of a perfectionist (wonder where she got that), so it had to be perfect or it wasn't going to get done. What can I say- she's definitely my kid.

The Feast

Today was Abby's Preschool Thanksgiving Feast. She has been so excited about it. We've been hearing about it quite a lot around our house. She has been practicing their songs for weeks. When Matt has talked to her about preparing for our Feast on Thanksgiving, she told him that she didn't want to go to two Feasts, she just wanted to go to one at Preschool. So, today finally arrived. I decided to run an errand at SuperTarget on our way and I asked her if she wanted to get something special to eat for lunch after Preschool. Her response was, "No. I want to eat at the Feast." You see how one track mind she has been?

We arrived at church for it, and they gathered all the kids (multiple preschool classes) for their songs. As seems to be her way, she clammed up quite a bit and was very quiet during songs. I'm not even sure she sang all of them. Many of them have motions and she did hers on a much smaller scale. It got better as they sang, but she was definitely shy- too many strangers, I think. When it came time to eat, we shared a plate. All of the dishes were prepared by the kids, except the turkey. Her class was responsible for preparing the rolls. We had turkey, green beans, rolls, cookies, and water. She turned down the dressing and cole slaw (no surprise there).  (Oh, and we did need a snack when we got home.)  Here are some pictures of our morning...