Going to school

Here's what the girls looked like on their way to school on Monday. I was a bit scared to send Lilly with a white shirt, but she came home as clean and crisp as I sent her.

Sophia was acting like Sherlock Holmes with her spy glass and "spy" dress as she calls it. She actually poses for me now when I ask her too. It's Lilly that is camera shy.

Neptune Festival 2010

On Sunday, before Will left for his 6-day business trip, we went down to the beach to spend the day at the Neptune Festival & Boardwalk Art Show. Here we are arriving at the festival. The girls were sharing a sleeve of Ritz crackers and drinking their waters. They were very pleasant and remained the way throughout the afternoon even though Lilly was so tired she fell asleep in the car the minute we pulled away from our spot.

There's a lot going on over the course of the Neptune Festival weekend. I believe they have a few races on Saturday (8K, etc...), a wine tasting evening party on Friday, a sand sculpture competition, food vendors, and awesome artists selling awesome works of art. We didn't have a chance to browse the art this year due to time constraints.

We basically viewed the front and the back of each and every single sand sculpture because of the way the walking path was set up on the beach. Each of sculptures was so intricate and detailed. It's amazing what the artists can do. I can barely get the sand out of the bottom of the castle bucket when Sophia asks me to build her a sand castle.







Both of the girls wore their "fancy" overalls and looked absolutely adorable. On the walk back to the car we discovered some cut-outs and stuck our faces through. Here are some of the pictures from our "family day".

Lilly @ Sophia's soccer game

Lilly watches quietly from the sidelines and usually entertains herself by eating throughout the entire game. Yesterday she ate a baggie of grapes and then moved onto Trip's chips and fruit punch.

Trip, who's older than Lilly by 1 month, is Cameron's brother. By the way, Cameron is the only one of Sophia's friends on the soccer team. Cameron plays and really gets in there to kick the ball.

Photo sets

I uploaded a bunch of photos. Here's the long list if you'd like to see them.

Trying to get a good picture.

Sophia's first soccer game. By the way, our game on Saturday was a complete repeat of last week. She cried and wouldn't play. She said she was afraid of the ball. The girls on her team were really concerned about her and tried to convince her to play. How sweet.

Lilly's fishing puzzle.

Sophia on her bike.

First day of school.

Lilly's Kindermusik class

She loves her Kindermusik class. As part of the take home materials we got two CDs. I've been playing one in the car nonstop and she's starting to sing along with the music.

The class is really fun. We sing, we dance, we pretend, and we try new things. Lilly's still a little shy in class, but only when we're sitting in a circle and she's got to decide what movement we do next.

The best thing about the class is that it's our alone time each week. We drop Sophia off at school on Fridays and then head to class. I can tell she likes her "Mommy time".

There are a few more pictures of her.

Little Bo Peep

Sophia came downstairs the other day dressed like "Little Bo Peep". Little Bo Peep and her sheep are stitched into the smocking on her dress and, if the hat fits...then why not wear it. She actually wore this get-up out of the house. Lilly tried to get in on the action and jumped into the picture.

Sophia has been completely into dressing up lately. She rotates between Snow White, Dorothy, a royal princess, a wicked witch, and a black cat. It gets exhausting keeping up with what her current name is and when I call her Sophia instead of her present character she really gets mad at me! When she's Snow White, I'm Doc. When she's Dorothy, I'm the Scarecrow. When she's a royal princess, I'm sometimes the prince and sometimes the queen. When she's a wicked witch, I'm a good witch. When she's a black cat, I'm a lady who doesn't know there's a cat in her house. Oh, her imagination is so colorful.

Lilly is back into her baby dolls again. Today she was taking care of one of them and giving her some food, well I should say she was dropping the food on the baby's head/face to give it to her. (Did that make any sense?)

Lilly is getting so big. She ate an entire apple right off the core. She's eating popcorn now too and she's wearing pull ups. She often tells me that she has to use the potty. I don't often think to ask her if she has to go. I sometimes ask her, but not enough probably. Regardless, she's progressing very nicely in the potty training arena.

There are a few more pictures.

The best of friends...almost

On their way to school

Sophia's class is reviewing the letters of the alphabet. Monday was H and I day and on her calendar was: Wear a hat. So, she wore the hat that Grancy got her. It went perfectly with her outfit.

I asked Lilly's teachers about art in the classroom and they assured me that Lilly is being stimulated with arts and crafts. They said they usually send everything home at the end of the month. They also told me that the theme of the month is apples. Hmmmm. I wish that would have been on her calendar. The craft I saw hanging looked like apple stamping.

Our first soccer game of the season

Sophia promised she would play. She was even allowed to eat a piece of candy with the promise that she would play.

She didn't play. In fact, she didn't stop sobbing the entire time. It was a fake sob and that made it 1,000 times worse. She did at least sit on the sidelines where the rest of the team waited to be substituted into the game. When any of her teammates approached her she immediately put her face in her hands and started sobbing harder. I was thinking that maybe it was her embarrassment that was making her cry harder...or maybe that's just me projecting.?

Actually, I'm immune to it at this point, but Will gets absolutely mortified when one of the girls (usually Sophia) has a meltdown in public. It really gets under his skin. Today was one of the last straws with Sophia acting like a baby like this. She was doing this at practice on Thursday too. For no reason. Well, no reason that Will and I can come up with and when we ask her it's always a different reason. I guess maybe she doesn't like soccer, but she's always really excited at home and over the summer she asked to play.

Maybe Spanish will be her thing. She begins Spanish class in 3 weeks. She'll be eating lunch at school and then she'll have Spanish I until 1:15. Lilly and I will have an hour to kill between the time we have to pick her up. I predict lots of trips to Target in our future.

Our cat and our dog

No, we didn't get a cat, but Sophia dressed up like one today. I got out our Halloween decoration bins and found all of our old costumes. There was a particular one that caught Sophia's eye. It was a cat costume that she wore 2 years ago. When she put it on it looked like a belly shirt with short capris pants. She crawled and followed me all over the house and when I would stop she would rub up against my leg. It was cracking me up. She and Sadie had a fun time playing "cat and dog".

Speaking of Halloween, I got costumes for the girls today. Sophia is going to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Lilly is going to be Raggedy Ann. Done! One month early. I even have the shoes for Sophia's costume...and, just like Dorothy, she will not remove from her feet (as evidenced in the photo). She absolutely loves her new sparkly red shoes.

My latest rant

Shame on me. Shame on me for not investigating Lilly's preschool. I heard so many good things about this school. They are accredited to offer Kindergarten. Our pediatrician even commented that Kids of Grace is a good school. At this point, I'm trying to figure out what kind of "school" it actually is! It doesn't seem like school to me at all.

The philosophy's of the school seem to be a bit different than mine. I am way more interested in having Lilly learn things (like colors and shapes) rather than play all day. It seems like this school is way more focused on open, free play and...chapel. Lots of moms have different opinions on preschools and mine is not necessarily the best philosophy, but I think for my girls it's the way I want their social school engagements to go.

This is what I know they do on a daily basis:

• Open free play. When I drop her off all the kids are playing with toys scattered around the room. I don't think the room has nearly enough books to hold Lilly's attention for very long. As a coincidence, Lilly's teachers sent home a Scholastic Books fundraiser catalog and order form. It was NOT accompanied by a note of any kind. I thought that was pretty poor. I don't even know when the deadline is. On the order form it reads something like "If you place your order online then your classroom will earn a book". I will definitely be placing my order online.



• Go outside and play on the playground. I must confess it's an awesome playground. When Will and I used to attend service at that church we donated to the playground fund so it's nice that Lilly can take advantage of our contribution.



• Free play...yes, more free play. Sometimes they will get out play doh so I'm told.



• Circle time. I think the teachers read a story to the kids. I'm not really quite sure what goes on in circle time other than that.



• Potty/wash hands.



• Snack.



• More open play. When I pick her up at the end of the day she is again playing with toys scattered across the room.



• On Wednesday mornings they have chapel. I think they are a little too young to be marched down to the chapel and forced to sit quiet and still for 30 minutes. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for learning to say a prayer before snack, but I just think the chapel part is a little too much. Instead of chapel, I would like to see her do a craft of some sort, any sort. She's gone to school for 3 days now and has yet to bring home any artwork or craft. She did bring home a small fistful of homemade blue play doh on Monday, but come on!



• Blue (do they study it on a daily basis? I'm not sure.) They are supposed to be studying the color blue this month. Lilly does not know her colors. (Sophia and I are working with her, but everything is either YELL WOAH or GEEN.) Each month they will focus on different color. What a great way to have them learn colors. I feel like they could take it one step further and at least provide color pages and blue crayons if not a craft of some sort (are you seeing a pattern here). She has been to school for 2 weeks and hasn't brought home a single thing. When Sophia was in her 2-yr old preschool program she brought home a craft and a color page every day. They practiced things like pasting and eventually cutting. As a side note, I have dressed Lilly in blue every day to help her to learn the color. The teachers haven't said anything about it. Oh well. Perhaps I'm expecting too much.

Get this Pavlovian trick! I'm not a big fan. Why not just teach them with words...? When the teachers want the kids to clean up they ring a bell. They said that by the end of the year when the kids hear the bell they automatically clean up.

When I went to orientation I asked if they have parties and celebrate things like Valentine's Day and Halloween. The teacher, Ms. Brenda, looked at me like I was a little nuts. She said they do things for those holidays. I hope they make a big deal out of it because Sophia's school does and I would hate for Lilly to feel excluded from all the fun.

I have yet to receive a class roster. I'm not sure if I'll ever get one.

Every day when I pick her up I ask how she was. They always say Good! That's it. No more no less. I have no idea if she's actually using the potty there or not. (I keep forgetting to ask, but you think they would tell me or at least give me a hint.) She always has on a new pull-up when I pick her up.

As far as I can tell, they do not have a computer to play with or to even use once a week. Bummer! Sophia had computer time in her 2-yr class. She also had music once a week. I'm assuming Lilly is getting some sort of music because they will perform in a Christmas show.

I can't wait for next year until she's in Beach Manor and I hope this year isn't a waste. I know she's going to learn socialization (and cleaning up) and will make some new friends which I'm thrilled about. I've been scoping out the moms and I see two that have little girls (Gracie and Quinn, I think) in her class and I think I would mesh with them. The moms look to be about my age, maybe a little younger. They are already friends so it might be kind of hard to crack that shell, but maybe Lilly and their girls will do it for us. I would like for Lilly to have a set of friends just like Sophia does.

OK. It's 8am and both girls are still sleeping so I need to take advantage of this quiet time.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Fishing

The other day I took the girls to Kohl's and we spent some time in the toy department. We came home with yet another Ariel figurine (for Sophia) and a puzzle (for Lilly). Lilly's puzzle came with a fishing pole and each puzzle piece has a magnet on top which can connect to the end of the fishing pole.

She was so proud of herself when she first figured out how to "catch a fish".

She's starting to get really good at crafts and art work. Her fine motor skills are really improving in the way that she moves objects across the paper now. She's scribbling circles and tonight she even painted a tiny stained glass princess art thing for the window. I told her to paint Jasmine's shoes and, by George, she did! She also painted her hair. I noticed tonight that she was painting with her left hand. I wonder if she'll be a lefty? Uncle Rob is left-handed.

A stroll around Mulberry loop

We took a stroll around the loop tonight before bedtime. It seemed to be the perfect ending to a long, packed day. The girls went straight to bed tonight without any struggle or last minute requests.

Sophia rode her "big girl" bike the whole way. It's the first time she's been on this bike. It's a tricycle with training wheels, but it also has back pedal breaks. The breaks were tripping Sophia up every now and then because she wouldn't mean to back pedal, but the bike would stop on her.

Lilly rode on Will's shoulders for a while and eventually walked on her own. She's so cute when she's "running" down the sidewalk grinning ear to ear.

First week of school

Sophia and Lilly both marched right into their classrooms and started playing. Neither of them even looked back at me. Sophia began playing with some sort of puzzle. Lilly quickly found a book and plopped down on the floor and began looking through it. I used my 2.5 hours wisely and hit 4 stores to take care of some returns and to pick up a few things.

Today was a different story when I dropped Sophia off at school. I had to physically dump her into her teacher's arms as she cried crocodile tears. After school she told me why she was crying. I felt bad that her little plan was ruined, but she didn't tell me that she expected to go into Mrs. Harden's classroom to say hello to her. We did that on the first day and now I think it's going to be part of her AM routine at school.

Lilly doesn't have school on Fridays so she and I headed off for a fun morning together. We took a Kindermusik class and had fun with a few other kids.

Last days of summer...

Here's a link to all the pictures. It's hard to believe that summer is over for us. It's only over because school starts tomorrow! We'll be out the door at 8:25. Sophia's day starts at 8:45 and Lilly's day begins at 9. I will have a whole two hours and 45 minutes in between picking the girls up again (11:45 for Sophia and noon for Lilly). What will I do?? I plan on cleaning tons of things that haven't been touched all summer - like my bedroom closet, Sophia's room, Lilly's closet, the carpet throughout the house, etc... All the fun projects that "back to school" means for a mom of preschoolers.

The last few days of summer were pretty uneventful and we wanted them that way. We basically putzed around the house on Saturday. I washed some window and Will made his monthly trek into the attic. Believe me, he hates it in there. The entrance is a tiny little hole in the ceiling in Sophia's room that you have to climb up a ladder to enter...and it's really hot up there. He's had to go up there a few times this summer and has done his fair share of complaining about it. He didn't say anything this time. Must have been a little bit cooler in the attic. (laugh) It was only in the mid 80s this weekend so it was considerably cooler than the rest of the summer.

On Sunday we went to the beach for lunch and then Will took Sophia to soccer practice. Lilly and I stayed home to make dinner. Sophia cheeks were really red when she came home so I knew she was tired and probably a bit overheated, but I sent her with a drink.?.? Then Will jumped in and scolded me for sending her with a "little kid" cup instead of a regular water jug/sipper with ice that holds much more! Wowso...I just got slammed with my first soccer mom lesson. He thinks that Sophia may have noticed that she was the only kid on the team with a "little kid" cup with a straw. Just wait until next time. She'll fit right in with the rest.

On Monday afternoon after Will cut the lawn we went over to a neighbor's house for smoked chicken. This guy loves to cook...grill, bbq, smoke, sushi. You name it. He can make it. We took coleslaw and hummus with crackers. I mostly took the hummus because I knew Lilly would eat it. Sophia ate only a brownie. Come to think of it, that's all Lilly had too. I guess they really weren't hungry because I half fed them before we left. They tend to not eat at all when we're out with friends and I like them to at least have full bellies so we don't have any meltdowns.

Today was the first day of dance class for the girls. Sophia and Haley are taking a ballet/tap combo class and Lilly and Carlie are taking a "mommy and me" class. The big girls did awesome on their first day. I think they are two of the more mature/older kids in the class. Lilly started crying half way through her class. She jumped into my arms and then refused to get down. We still participated in the class. I have a feeling she'll warm up at the next class. Before her meltdown she was doing all the moves and wasn't shy one bit. She was a bit of a ham I thought.

Anyway...school begins tomorrow! I get a bit of my sanity back. Will gets a little extra peace and quite during business hours and the girls get to have fun making new friends and learning how to share. It's a win win for all of us.

More pictures

Here's a link to more Jonas pictures.

Here's a link to more Hurricane Earl pictures.

Baby Jonas

Baby Jonas is adorable. He's a stunning little boy. I loved holding him. It made me remember how little my girls used to be...although it's harder to remember Sophia than it is Lilly (or Aubrey, I should say).

I flew down to meet Jonas and to give some moral support to Claire and Craig after Jonas returned home from his stint in the hospital. I was there for 3 days. I did a bit of this and a bit of that to help them out. Seriously, they barely took me up on my nap suggestions. Also, Claire's work is calling her and has come by twice to drop off a laptop and some cds & paperwork. Crazy. Jonas just celebrated his 7 day old birthday while I was there. Come on, people.

The girls were glad that I was home, but I wasn't! It looked like a whore-i-cane ripped through every single room.

Sidenote: Whore-i-cane is how Sophia says hurricane. She knew that our town was freaking out about Hurricane Earl. I guess it was pretty bad at the beach, but at our house it drizzled all day. I think we got some heavier rain overnight though. The girls went outside with their umbrellas today


I spent the entire day yesterday cleaning the house! I hired a babysitter to watch the girls during the days (from 10-6) and then Will took over the nightly routine.

Anyway, back to Jonas.. He's still sleeping all the time and he's just a little bundle of warm, cushy baby. So sweet. (Can you tell it made me kind of want another baby, but now that I'm home I kind of like the fact that Lilly is almost potty trained?) I warned them that at two weeks he's going to be awake a lot more. (smile) and need constant attention. I also warned them that life kind of stinks when babies start crawling.

I was able to help out with his first bath and that was quite interesting. He decided to poo and pee several times. Um, yucky.

Jonas is a good eater and sleeper right now. He doesn't wail out at all. He might give a small whimper once a day, but not much more. He's definitely what you call an easy baby, but I wonder if that means that they will have a hard toddler? Gosh, I hope not.