Playdate with Norah

Lilly invited Norah home from school with her on Tuesday. The girls had a great time dressing up and using my camera. There were some very interesting poses among the pictures, but I'll only share the "safe" ones.

When Sophia got home from school she entertained them for a few hours before we had to take Norah home. Norah said she had such a good time that she wants to come over every Tuesday. That's always nice to hear.

Mystery Reader

Every Friday Lilly's class has a "Mystery Reader" come in during the last 15 minutes of class and read a few stories to the kids. 

I was the mystery reader yesterday. Lilly couldn't have been happier when I walked into the classroom. She got to sit in the chair next to me.  Can you see her grin?

I had to give three clues about myself that Mrs. LaSalle read to the class throughout the day.  Lilly guessed correctly after the last clue which was "I have two daughters".  The other clues were "My favorite color is blue" and "My favorite food is chocolate covered bananas".

Girl Scout Park Clean Up

Last Sunday my Girl Scout troops had a joint park clean up. Three families (including mine) has a girl in each troop so it ends up being pretty convenient.

Here's a few pictures and a video of the girls at the park...

Here's some of  my girls from the older troop. Paige, Mary Price, Sophia, Elizabeth, Kaleigh

 This is Lilly and Eleanor from my younger troop.

 

And here they are doing a slide train.

Are you scared?

Sophia has strep throat for the first time this season. She felt it coming on yesterday at school and informed me when she got home that she thought she needed a trip to Patient First.  After our trip to visit the doctor we ordered a pizza and waited to pick it up.  While we were waiting we went to a store that has tons of Halloween things for sale. Here's Sophia being scary...

Obama Stinks!

The girls have gotten into the habit of Will bringing something home for them after each of his business trips. It's usually a toy, but this time is was a Barack Obama Chia Pet that he was gifted from his boss.
 
The seeds were actually growing after a few days of "planting" them and it appeared that it would be a successful adventure.

It was super funny to see the seed sprouting from inside his nose. It looked like a booger. The girls really got a kick out of that. 

A few days after it sprouted it started to smell really bad. It was so bad that I had to throw it away.  I know of at least one person in our family who will be thrilled that I threw it away.  You know who are you! (smile).   

Juliette and Penelope's 1st birthday party

Last Saturday we hightailed it up to Street, Maryland for Juliette, the older, and Penelope's first birthday party. It started at 1:00 and we rolled in around 1:40.  Not too terribly late considering it was a five and 1/2 hour drive.  Penelope is on the left and Juliette is on the right.

The twins are absolutely adorable and look absolutely nothing alike.  I didn't get a good picture of the two of them together from the front.  I have tons of them from the side like this one. Here they are not really enjoying their huge cupcakes. It was funny to watch Penelope take globs of icing and flick them on the floor. 

Will was throwing around the football with the guys while Sophia, Lilly, Nana and I chatted and ate food.  Actually, the girls did a lot of coloring and playing with the ball too.

At one point I actually got to hold Penelope.  It's too bad she wasn't looking at the camera because she's so darn cute.

 I think it was a little overwhelming for them (in a good way).

My girls had a great time....and an even better time when the cake was cut for guests.  Just check out Sophia's face here as the moment arrives - the cutting of the cake!

 
After a while Sophia and I found ourselves relaxing outside. I was trying to book us a different hotel for the night rather than the one we had already booked because Meg basically said ours was going to be in "da hood". Sophia was reading one of the books that Nana gave to her.  When Will saw this picture he called us nerds.

Another picture of Penelope. 

I uploaded the wrong picture in an earlier post. OOPS!

I'm lovin' it.

I love the fact that Lilly's teacher, Mrs. LaSalle, takes so many pictures of what's going on in Lilly's Kindergarten classroom. These are a few of the really cute ones I saw just this week.

Today Lilly went home with her friend Norah. Norah's mom is a good friend of mine. Charlotte, her 7-yr old daughter is friends with Sophia.

Lilly and Norah had a short play date and then both took Rebekah's group piano class. Lilly said she really enjoyed it and wanted to practice a bit tonight after dinner, but before she could Sophia wanted to show us all of her skills and cut to the front of the line. Oh well.  Lilly brought home a book so we'll have to take a peek at it over the weekend.  She told me she has a bit of homework.  

Taking a walk

Sophia and I were taking Sadie for a walk tonight like we've been doing.  On these walks she likes to hear herself talk the entire time! I can't even think about it being relaxing because she's always talking. Tonight her topic was "fashion".  I would ask her what's the latest fashion trend in shoes or what nail polish colors are in this season.  It was so flattering to watch her glance at me and then answer back as if I was the fashion expert. At one point she even asked me my favorite color and then pronounced that aquamarine would be the most popular color this season.  Too cute.

She calls our walks special...and they are....because we have some alone time. We are the "S Girls" because both of our names start with "S".  Sadie is also in our club.  Will and Lilly are the "ILLS" because they both have I-L-L in their names.  Together we are the "SILLS".  Gotta love the way a child's brain thinks.  

Another tooth

Lilly lost her second bottom tooth at school today.  She came running up to me with this sticker on her shirt. Her teacher has a giant tooth hanging on the wall and Lilly was so excited because now she would be on the tooth wall - even though it's the third one she's missing.  I'm guessing that she was too shy to say anything at the beginning of the year.  She's made a friend named Sydney. They are too shy to say anything to each other in the mornings, but they are always together at the end of the day. 

Sophia is doing well in school. She's got a lot of homework every night.  She's got a language paper, a math sheet (front and back) and she has to log her reading and read at least 15 minutes per night.  It also counts when someone reads her a book. You can guess which one she likes best.

New Phone

On Friday got a new phone because I lost my phone.  Little did I realize that Friday was the day that the iPhone 5 came out.  There were lines out the door. 

I took these pictures using the camera feature on my new phone.  I'm pretty happy with them. This picture of Sadie happens to be my new wallpaper. 

My new phono, the Moto X, is white so hopefully I will be able to keep track of it a little better - especially when it's in my purse. Although, yesterday I had some papers in my purse and the phone blended right in.  It's a good thing that I just ordered a new purse with lots of pockets. Hopefully there will be one for papers and one for the phone.

More pictures of Lilly at school

These two pictures of Lilly were posted on the school's website.  

It's so cool that they take so many pictures of the kids.

Lia's birthday party

Lilly went to a pink cowgirl birthday party on Saturday evening. There literally was a temporary fancy farm complete with a baby pig and a llama in Lia's backyard. Lia is Lilly's friend from Beach Manor. They were in class together the last two years.

It was a drop off party and Lilly was nervous for me to leave but her best Beach Manor buddy, Lizzie, showed up and I told them to keep each other company.  It was so nice of Lia's mom to send these pictures.

Sophia is now officially a cheerleader for the Broncos.

Sophia joined a league where the cheerleaders cheer for the boys' football and basketball games (fall and spring seasons).  Last night was her first practice and her first game was this afternoon.

When we left practice last night she told me she absolutely loved it. I should have known because right now she loves singing and acting along to her favorite movie.  She loved singing the songs at vacation bible school and doing all the hand movements too.  Hmmm....maybe this will be her thing.  We'll see.  The good thing is that the seasons are short and you take a break in between.  I don't think she'll suffer burnout with this schedule.

She joined the season late and the other girls on the squad had 5 practices up on her. If you would have seen her last night trying to learn the moves and the words you would have thought it was going to take her forever to catch up, but today she totally proved me wrong. She knew every cheer! Will and I were so proud of her. She had a huge grin on her face throughout the game because she was having so much fun even though under normal circumstances she would have been complaining that it was too hot outside and that she was dying from the heat. 

We will have practice twice a week and have a game every Saturday. I can't wait until she has to cheer on a crisp, fall day.

Click on this link to see her cheering at half time.

Lilly's First Day of School

By the time we get back from dropping Sophia off at the bus stop in the morning we have about 35 minutes before Lilly and I need to leave to get to her school on time. She starts at 9:30. Monday through Thursday I pick her up at 2:20 in the afternoon. On Fridays I pick her up at 12:30. 

 She got a new backpack which lights up whenever it moves or something touches it. She thinks it's so cool. 

As we were waiting the 35 minutes she wanted to know when the bus was coming to pick her up. I felt kind of bad for a minute, but then I realized she will be in a much better school, at least for Kindergarten. 

Finally we arrived at school. She practically skipped the entire was into the building. When we got to her door she was completely shy and had to be pulled out of my arms.  So of course I was in tears when I left - feeling guilty.  Her first day started out a little rough but it by the look of the smiles on her face in the pictures below...she must have had a great day!  I'm sooooo proud of her. 

Sophia and Lilly - in the AM.  They both look tired, don't they?

 

 Another picture of Lilly ready to walk out the door.

Her teacher, Mrs. LaSalle, took this photo.  Totally cute.

 

Here she is sitting at the computer in her classroom.

Sophia's First Day of 2nd Grade

Sophia started second grade today. She was up early and dressed before 7am.  School starts 10 minutes later this year so we weren't rushing to get out the door or at least it seemed like that this morning. The bus comes at 8:08 now.  This morning it was about 20 minutes late, but we expected that for the first day. Luckily we have the same bus driver as last year. Ms. Cindy is really cool and on several occasions dropped Sophia off at the front door. 

Sophia couldn't wait to get out the door and to the bus stop. A neighbor, Kaitlyn, is in Sophia's class and there are also four kids from her class last year in Mrs. Burke's class this year.  From everything I've heard Mrs. Burke is really, really nice. When we walked into the open house Mrs. Burke approached Lilly thinking that was her 2nd grade student. I pointed out that Sophia was in her class. I don't remember is she gasped or not, but she might have 2 inches on Sophia. They are practically the same height!

Lilly didn't come downstairs this morning until 7:25 and we had plenty of time to convince her to get dressed and put shoes on to walk to the bus stop.  Right before we walked out the door I asked them to turn around so I could take a picture. Lilly started waving at the camera and said GOODBYE SUMMER. Sophia joined in and I could feel tears welling up in my eyes because we had such an amazing summer and now it's over. They are going to grow up so much this year. I can just tell.

Lilly doesn't start school until tomorrow. She is equally excited. This morning we went to meet her teacher, Mrs. LaSalle. Lilly was totally shy and didn't really talk at all at the meet and greet, but as soon as we left she was her normal self again. 

Here they are together.  My second-grader and my Kindergartner. 

 

Lilly has been dreaming, talking about, and begging for long hair.  She doesn't quite understand why her hair looks so long when it's wet and then when it dries it's short again. It's so precious to watch her comb her hair after every bath.  

This morning I was finally able to pull her hair back into a ponytail. I had to use a ton of bobby pins just to get it to stay in place, but darned if she didn't keep it in all day. She thought it was so beautiful.

 This is my new favorite picture of the girls.

 

At the bus stop Sophia and Riley were chit chatting away about how excited they 

were about the first day of school.  

 Line up everyone.  Here comes the bus.

 Bye Sophia!  Have a great day at school!!

Found this photo on my phone

Lilly went to a princess tea birthday party earlier this summer.  Here she is with some of her school friends from last year. She was really shy for the whole party until they served cake and other goodies. 

She's got another cowgirl birthday party to go to this coming Saturday. It's for Lia...the 4th girl from the left.