The Big Day

My baby is gone for the WHOLE day! I took Jill to Kindergarten this morning. We woke up early and got everything ready. Ben stayed home with the little ones (still sleeping!) while I took Jill for her first day. I was pretty camera happy and Jill was sweet to go along but I think she was getting tired of it by the time I was leaving. She seemed a little nervous and was pretty quiet in the classroom but she didn't seem scared or sad to see me go. I finally said, "Ok, well I guess you're ok with me leaving now," and she gave me a really big hug and stuck her bottom lip out a little, like she didn't want me to leave . I think that was just a little show for me. I'm sure as soon as I left she started having a great time! :) There was a little girl at her table who was whimpering and her lower lip was quivering and her parents had already left by the time we got Jill seated next to her. She was trying so hard not to cry. Her friend from church, Courtney, is seated at the next table and they thought that was neat. Yes, that tiny little girl in the picture is in Jill's class! Most of the other kids are between their heights, I think. :) The teacher said they'd only be in their classroom for about 10 minutes and then they'd go to music and then gym. Sounds like fun to me! I know she will love every minute of it and I'm just counting down the hours until I get to hear all about it! I'm just extremely proud of myself for not crying and I'm glad that Jill didn't cry either. I guess we were both fully prepared for this. :)

I'm also surprised at how fun it is to just have two kids at home again. I DO miss my sweet Jill who is always ready with a hug and is always willing to do anything I ask her. But now I can give more individual attention to the other two obviously and there's no fighting between my two big girls about who is going to wake up, play with, read to, etc. Natalie! :) I've already read about 10 books to Miranda and she is totally loving it. Running my errands today will be a lot easier with just two to look after. So I'm very happy too. What an emotional day!

Kindergarten Here She Comes

Many of you know that we had Jillian take the acceleration exam to skip kindergarten. She's been reading well for two years, she's 4'1" tall, and everyone who knows her thinks she should already be in school. She took her exam and did an awesome job. There were 4 exams, 50 questions each, and she had 3 days to take them. She finished all 4 in the first 3 hours on the first day. The counselors were so impressed and said based on the pictures she drew alone, she should be in first grade. But... she had to get a 90% in each portion and she got a 98, 96, 94, and 88. Darn that social studies! On the day of the exam, I spoke with a man who was there with his son. The boy had tried to skip a grade when he moved here but he missed one too many social studies questions because they moved from Louisiana and it was a Texas history question. So they were taking the test again because he'd had a way easy year in 1st grade and they wanted him to skip the next year. Her principal said there is another student who did just as well as Jill on the test and got the same results, so that student will be in Jill's advanced kindergarten class too. The principal told me he's placing them both with the teacher over the advanced program and Gifted and Talented, so she'll work with them to really stretch them and make it a positive experience and not boring.

So I guess the social studies get a lot of people! I think they need to change that test! Anyway, it's nice to finally KNOW since registration is TOMORROW! We are so excited to go to registration and meet the teacher night next week. We already bought school supplies and she's ready to go. I've told her the whole time to not be disappointed no matter what and she really doesn't seem to be upset at all, even though she's been saying all summer how excited she is to go to first grade! :)

Collages

I have a lot of magazines that have been read and enjoyed but that are taking up space now. I don't know why I have a hard time throwing them away. This week I decided to make collages with the girls. We all cut out pictures of things we liked or things we do and pasted them on construction paper. Our masterpieces are hanging on the fridge and it was really fun to make something out of the magazines before they went in the trash. :) Jillian's has a girl playing the piano (she starts lessons next week), some HSM characters, a girl swimming, a lot of animals, and babies (which she loves). Miranda's has a lot of moms with babies, some sisters, a family surfing together (ha ha), Wall-E (she wants to see the movie), a bottle (no idea, she hasn't had one for over 2 years!), and a kitty (which she's deathly afraid of). Mine is mainly moms in various states of sleepiness (ha ha) doing work on the computer, shopping in the store, hanging out with kids, a money tree (wouldn't that be nice!), cute baby feet and babies sleeping next to each other, a washer and dryer (I spend a lot of time with them), and muffins (which I love to eat!). Here are our creations.
***Also, I've given up on keeping their names off here. Their names are on their collages anyway. :)***

Healthy Diets and Good Manners

As a mom, I strive to feed my children healthy diets and teach them good manners.

Well, I'm not as good as a lot of my friends who do all organic and have their kids eating tofu and sushi and loving it. I'm not even close to that. But I try to get the basic food groups in at most meals. The other day I bought some groceries, including celery, to make B's favorite dinner (no, he does NOT like celery but it's in this casserole that he loves and you can't even taste it). When I got home, I realized I already HAD celery but it was in a different part of the fridge than I normally put it (yes, our new fridge is big enough that I can lose things!), so I ended up with a whole lot of celery. So not wanting to waste precious produce or make said casserole again so soon, I came up with the great idea of getting my kids to eat celery for their "salad" at dinner. But because I never enjoyed when my mother had this great idea, I decided to smother peanut butter on them. That is a totally normal thing to do for a snack and I've seen other kids eat and enjoy that, so I thought "What the heck! They might love it!" Alas, no. Miss M, surprisingly, picked it right up and stuck the end in her mouth. She sucked off some peanut butter and tried her very best to bite through the stick but her little teeth just weren't really doing it. B tried to help her and she finally got a bite broken off and she made the funniest face ever. We applauded her efforts and said, "Do you like it?" She just looked at me sadly as she crunched along and shook her head ever so slightly. Lil' J cautiously picked hers up and after deliberating for about a minute, tried to take a bite. Again, not easy, but she knows more about how to take a bite of something crunchy (she would eat apples slices all day!) and she got a mouthful. Her face was even funnier and she moaned and groaned and said she did not like it at all and she hated it (we don't use that word, so she digressed) and swallowed the bite and said she never wanted another bite. This was a short little celery stick. I told her she had to finish that one celery stick and I would never again force her to eat celery (except in that casserole we all love!). She moaned and groaned and finally finished it. I'd have to say B's reaction was the very best. He VERY MUCH DISLIKES celery and has told me this before. But he knew I was trying to do something healthy for the kids (who knows, they might have really liked it!) and he was trying to be a good example, so he ate two. As he ate them, his forehead creased as if he was in pain and I could not keep from laughing. I ate 5 of these things (waste not, want not!), even thought I wouldn't mind not ever eating celery again either. But anything smothered in peanut butter is palatable enough for me! :) Poor celery, we just don't have the kind of taste buds it takes to appreciate you! It's not your fault! :) Anyway, B and I just giggled the rest of the meal away. Miss M obediently ate the rest of her celery stick without complaint even though her face was showing plenty dislike. I decided not to try that again and maybe I'll just make that casserole again soon!

Manners is a little easier for me to teach and enforce and I will happily say my kids are pretty polite girls. I've had enough kids at my house to play that don't seem to have any manners to see that my kids have a pretty good grasp on manners. Not that they always use them, of course. Today Princess N woke up in her normal, extremely happy mood and immediately her sisters ran into her room to play with her. I changed her diaper and got her dressed and then ran to the kitchen to grab her some apple juice. I walked back into her room and they were in full play mode with the food and dishes. I handed Princess N her sippy cup and she clearly said, "Thank you," and kept playing. I was astounded. She has said this before but usually after a, "Say thank you," from me or her sisters. Even though she was distracted with playing, she automatically said, "Thank you!" I must be doing something right!

My life is so fun. :)