Last Day of First Grade

Well, school has officially ended for Jenny. She is no longer a first grader, and is officially in the second grade! The time goes by faster every year, and it is getting harder and harder to believe how quickly she (and all of our children) are growing up!

Here is Jenny on her first day of the first grade (August 2011)....

And now, on her last day of first grade (May 2012)....

Congratulations, Jenny, for completing the first grade! Your Daddy and I are so proud of all that you have accomplished this year. You are quickly becoming a wonderful little lady! We are looking forward to all of the fun things we will do this summer! We love you to the moon and back! 

First Grade Field Day

Jaime and I went to Field Day at Jenny's school today. Jenny participated in several events and won several ribbons.

First Day of School 2011

Aiden waiting on the bus.... wishing he was going to school, too.

My first grader!

Getting on the bus!

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First Grade

Dear Jenny,

Tomorrow you start your first day of the 1st grade. How did it get here so fast?? It seems like just a few weeks ago that you were starting Pre-K. Now, here you are, two years older, and two years smarter. You have changed so much in the past two years!
We couldn't have asked for you to be any smarter, you amaze us everyday with your intelligence! I love watching you work in the first grade workbooks we bought you. You do them so well, and you hardly need help. I know you will do great in the first grade!!
Your teacher's name is Mrs. Robertson. We took you to meet her a few days ago. You were very shy upon meeting her, but I know that soon you will warm up to her. I'm sure she will adore you just as much as we do.
I know that you are nervous about starting the 1st grade. After we met your teacher you told me that you want to go back to kindergarten and be in the same class again. I wish I could take your nervousness away, but I also know that nothing I say or do will stop that feeling completely. I can only hope that I can help you to feel less nervous.
When I was in school, my parents always told me to do my best. As long as I did my best, it didn't matter what my grades were, they were still proud. So, I'm going to tell you the same thing. In everything you do, do your best. If you always do your best, you will never have to second guess your efforts. You will always know that, no matter what, it was the best you could do.
So, tomorrow when you get on the bus and go to school, know that we are so proud of you! Know that we are so blessed to have you in our lives. Know that we love you more than you can imagine, and know that we are always on your side. Have fun, and good luck!!

Love you forever,
Daddy, Katie, and Aiden

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Last Day of Kindergarten

Tomorrow is Jenny's last day of kindergarten. I've said it once, and I'll say it 1000 more times - TIME ABSOLUTELY FLIES. It seems like it was just weeks ago that it was the night before her first day of kindergarten. Both times are very bittersweet. We are proud of her, and can't wait to watch her grow and learn. But at the same time, it is so sad to see her growing up so quickly.

Here she was a few days before her first day of kindergarten.

Here she is waiting for the bus on the first day of school.

Here she is getting on the bus her first day.



Valentine Cards

This year Jenny and I worked on her Valentine cards for her class at school. She picked out the cards that had puppies and kittens on them. We also bought some little Snickers candy bars to tape to the cards for her friends at school. She had to make 19 cards, and also had to write all her friends' names on the cards by herself. She took her job very seriously, and the cards turned out great!

Ted the Bear

Guess who showed up at our house this weekend!.....

Ted the Bear!!

Ted is Jenny's class bear. Every weekend her teacher picks a student who gets to take the bear home for the weekend. Trust me when I say that Jenny has been waiting to bring this bear home ever since her first day of kindergarten! Every Friday morning she'll be so excited to go to school in hopes of taking the bear home. Every Friday afternoon (up until this past Friday) has always been so sad because she comes home without it. This past Friday though, the look on her face when she got off the bus was PRICELESS! If I had known she was bringing him home, I would have taken pictures. She was more excited than I have ever seen her about anything. Since then, Jenny has hardly put Ted down! He has gone with us everywhere, he sleeps with her, she took him out to eat with us, he is literally with us all the time.

See what I mean?

I know she is going to be so heartbroken tomorrow when I won't let her bring him to church with us. But I don't want anything to happen to him there, or for us to forget to bring him home. Tomorrow we have to write a story about the Ted's weekend at our house. Along with Ted, she was also sent home a binder with all the stories from the previous weekends that Ted has spent at the other kid's homes. Tomorrow it will be our turn to add our story to his Adventure Book.

Jenny's School Fall Festival

Can you believe it has already been two weeks since Halloween?? Wow! The end of this year is quickly coming to a close, and I haven't even posted about our Halloween festivities. I really need to get it together and start posting this stuff! Lucky for y'all, that's what these next few posts will be about. So, get ready, because I have several fall/Halloween posts. Which means picture overload! You may want to grab a beverage, a snack, and curl up with a blanket in front of your computer screen - this may take a while! =)

Here goes....


The Thursday before Halloween (Oct. 28th), Jenny's school had their annual Fall Festival. The money raised goes to benefit the school's PTA and of course, it's a lot of fun too! Jaime ended up having to work that night so we invited my mom to go with us. It started at 5:00pm, but we didn't end up getting there till closer to 5:30pm. There was BBQ, drinks, cotton candy, and CUPCAKES! They also had several moonwalks for the kids to play in.

Aiden and Jenny had a great time, and neither of them wanted to go home. I'm glad they enjoyed it, and I hope we can take them again next year!

Wordless Wednesday: Butterfly Edition

Jenny brought this butterfly home from school last week. She made it in her art class. She said that the first time they worked on it they had to draw it out with pencil, the second time they outlined it with marker, and the third time they colored it. Then the school had it turned into a magnet. They sent the preview magnet home and we were able to keep it for $5.00. Of course we kept it! It was her first real piece of school artwork, I couldn't just send it back. So now we are proudly displaying it on our fridge!

First Day of School

Jenny's first day of school was this past Monday (August 9th). Jaime, Aiden, and I met Jenny and her mother at the bus stop that morning. (Yes, I was awake at 7:20am) And guess what.....Jenny got on the bus!! The only tears shed were those shed by me, Jenny was a little trooper! She told us all bye, and marched up those stairs and found her seat. The day before we had told her to find a seat as quickly as she could, but that it was also important to not run (confusing, I know). She did perfectly! She sat in the fourth seat behind the driver. She looked so cute in her little iCarly bookbag, although it was nearly as big as she is. Ha!

That afternoon we went back to the bus stop to see her get off the bus, and to find out how her day went. She had a really good day from what I understand. She had no problem finding her classroom that morning or her bus that afternoon. She had P.E that day and they went outside on the playground. I really think Jenny is going to like Kindergarten even more than she liked Pre-K.

Back To School

Can you believe it's already July 30?? Summer has FLOWN by - I can't believe it! School starts here in a little more than a week. That's something else I can't believe....Jenny will be in kindergarten this year!! Wow. It doesn't seem like it should be that time already.

Last week I printed her school supply list off of her school's website and yesterday Jaime and I went to pick up the stuff on her list. We got everything on the list except for the bookbag, because we want to wait until she can go with us to pick out her own bag. Plus there are always TONS of people on the school supply aisles, and it's hard enough for me to squeeze past everyone to get to the things we need, it would have been even harder with Jenny following behind me.

School supply lists are basically the same from when I was in school except that I don't remember hand sanitizer, printer paper, or Ziploc baggies. I've also noticed that schools have become more specific about which brands to buy. For example, the list specifically requested Crayola crayons, and Elmer's glue. Not a big deal, but I don't remember the brand being important before. Although I do have to admit that I am picky about which brand of crayons I use - I prefer Crayola. Ha!

This is our second year buying school supplies, and I have to say that I love it! I was thinking it would be chore-like, and more of a hassle than anything. I was wrong. I think it's so much fun to go pick out all of the supplies she'll use during the school year. I'm sure by the time she's in 5th grade and Aiden is in 1st grade I will be tired of buying them, but for now I enjoy it. Especially kindergarten supplies.

For example, the EXPO dry erase markers. I can just picture our little Jenny up at the dry erase board writing something on it. When I was little I loved writing on the board! I'm sure Jenny will like it too, she loves for everyone to watch her and see what it is she is drawing/writing.

Scissors and glue!?! Our Jenny?? Using scissors and glue?! Oh. My. Goodness. Up until recently we've never let her use scissors. We've always told her that she had to let Daddy or I cut it for her because it was dangerous and she might cut herself. Then I started thinking about how she was going to be starting kindergarten and about all the fun things she would do. Then I realized that those fun things include using scissors and glue. Glue? No big deal. Scissors? She had never done that before. So, I set out on a mission. A mission to prepare Jenny for kindergarten.

So we bought Jenny and extra set of scissors and glue to let her practice with at home. Aren't those the cutest little scissors ever?? I've always told Jenny that I want to make sure she is prepared for everything. I never want her to walk into a situation and not know what to expect or how to handle it. I know that at some point there will come a situation that she isn't prepared for, but I'm hoping that at that time she'll be ready to figure it out without my help. I feel the same way about kindergarten - I want to make sure she is prepared. We've been practicing letting her carry her own plate at home or her own tray at a buffet restaurant (to prepare her for lunch in the cafeteria), we've made sure she knows our address (in case she has issues with the bus she rides), she knows our phone number (in case she needs to call us from the school), we've read the bus safety book about 1000 times, and mostly we've tried to teach her to be sure of herself. We want her to know that she will make mistakes, and that is ok - as long as she tried her best. We want her to know that it's ok to be herself and that she doesn't have to try to be like anyone else. We want her to know that she may get hurt (physically or emotionally), but whatever it is will pass and she will learn from it. Most of all we want her to know that we will love her no matter what, and nothing she can do will ever change that. In our eyes she and Aiden are as close to perfect as it gets, and we'll always love them.

Friday Ramblings

Here are a few things we have coming up next week....

1. Lots and lots of packing. We are moving August 9th. That's in about 9 days. Luckily we are trying to stay more organized for this move than we were in our last ones. Usually on the day we move we have lots of boxes, appliances & electronics, and furniture to move. Once we get all that outta here there are still lots of random things that really didn't have a box to go into or because we were using them up until the very last minute. Those things are then thrown into boxes/bags at the last minute. If it weren't for that last minute packing I think moving would be a lot easier and a lot less stressful. Only because usually those are also the things that we need first once we get into our new place. Since those things got thrown into boxes that were labeled 'Random Stuff', it makes it more difficult to find those things. So this time we are taking steps to prevent that from happening. My most favorite thing about this move so far is that all of our dishes are already wrapped in newspaper and packed up in boxes. The kitchen is my least favorite room to pack, and basically it's already done. We bought paper plates, styrofoam bowls, and plastic silverware to use for the next week or so until we move. It is a little inconvient right now, but on moving day I think it will help us out a lot! Do you have any moving/packing tips??

2. Next week we have lots of school shopping to do! We already bought most of Jenny's supplies, but we still need to get her a bookbag and school clothes and shoes. We'll probably get the rest of her stuff Sunday night so that she and Jaime and go too. I am so excited to buy all of these things for her to go to Kindergarten with. Last year when she started Pre-K that was a big deal, but Kindergarten just seems so much more official - and makes me feel so much more old! Ha!

3. Next week I promised Jenny that we would go back to the lake. Since next week is her last week of summer vacation, I want to try and make sure she gets to enjoy it as much as possible! That will be a little difficult since I really should spend most of the week packing, but I can always find time to spend with the kids!

4. Jenny called me yesterday and we spent nearly an hour on the phone just talking. It was really great to get to talk to her for so long! Things like that really show me how mature/grown up she is getting! While we were on the phone she informed me and she and I need a "Girl's Night" before she goes back to school. So one night next week she and I have plans to watch a movie and make cheesecake! =)

5. Aiden is going to start potty training! We'll see how it goes though since I have a lot of other stuff going on. I really just plan to try and take him in there more often and see what happens. His official potty training won't start until after we get moved, but since he's shown so much interest in the potty lately I thought it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and start now. *I have a post coming this afternoon that explains this more.

6. And finally....Jenny will be here next week! I'm so glad that she gets to spend her last week of summer vacation at our house! I wish that we didn't have so much going on next week though, then we'd be able to do more fun stuff with her and Aiden. But I'm gonna try and squeeze in as much stuff as possible.

I know there is more stuff I could add to this list, but I also have a lot I need to do today too. So I need to get off of here and get started with my errends. I have another post coming later today!

Jenny's Pre-K Graduation Ceremony

This past Thursday (5/20/10) was Jenny's Pre-K Graduation Ceremony. For Jaime and I, this was a very important event. Pre-K may not seem like a big deal, but for us it means a lot!

You see, Jenny did really well at school this year. She is the youngest in her class, and she is one of the better students. She is also one of the few students in the class who can tie her shoes. This year at Pre-K has really transformed Jenny. She can spell and write her name, color really well, recognize letters and number, read some small words, write words if you tell her how to spell them, and so much more! She is also a lot more confident, and she is more independent.

It's really sad to see her growing up so fast, but it's great knowing that she is learning so many new things! To know that she did so well this year makes me think that she will be successful in school. The things she does now will effect her future, and I hope that she will continue to excel in school!

Here are some pictures from her graduation, and I have a video coming soon! Her official last day of school is Wednesday, May 26. Only 3 more school days left! Then it's on to Kindergarten!!

Jenny and her teacher Ms. Clare

Jenny and her teacher Mrs. Kit

Jenny's favorite thing to do in Pre-K

Pre-K C/O 2010!!

Her diploma.

Jenny won an award for 'Most Congenial'.