Gracie's blessing

We blessed this little angel in September.  She was beautiful and perfectly behaved.  I wish we had gotten better pictures.  I think we were too stressed trying to be on time and then feeding people afterwards.  :)

So grateful for Matt and that he was able to give her such a special blessing and grateful for family and friends that celebrated with us.

 

School!

1st Grade

Mrs. Stoll

I can't believe that I have a 1st grader!  It seems like last week I was walking her to her first day of preschool.

 

Eliza LOVES school.  She always has.  The first couple of weeks adjusting to spending all day at school took some getting used to (for both of us) but she is in a good routine now and absolutely loves her class. 

We had Parent Teacher Conference for her last week and her teacher had nothing but great things to say about her.  For reading she is in Reading Mastery 3.  She reads with the 2nd graders and some 3rd graders.  She does well with math and history also.  She was the student of the week and wore her little platic medal proudly every day.

She is a great example to Jackson of enjoying school and loving to learn.

Preschool

Ms. Amanda

Ms. Nancy

This boy has come SO far!  I can't believe it when I think back to his first day of preschool last year.  The tears and the worry and the struggle every single day.  He has always had a hard time with change but because he is going to the same schools he did last year, this time has been a breeze.  He is excited every day for school and according to his teachers, he's well behaved in class.  :)  He knows all his letters and his numbers 1-10.  He's working hard at tracing his name.  We're having a tough time deciding if he's right or left handed.  I am left handed so I didn't surprise me when he was always using his left to color.  But lately he's been using both so I don't know what to tell his teachers.  His speech gets better all the time.  I know it is still hard for others to understand him but I understand 100% of what he says.  The crappy news is that he may need ear tubes AGAIN.  We will find out this week for sure.  

Two days a week he goes to our neighborhood preschool.  He got his first sight word book this week so maybe...just maybe...he'll start to learn to read this year.  The other two days he rides the bus to preschool and works with a special educator and speech therapist.  It has been amazing what they have been able to help him do and learn.  I am so grateful for patient and loving teachers.  He comes home from both schools excited to tell me about his day.

We are still debating about holding him out of Kindergarten an extra year.  His birthday is in July so he would be one of the very youngest kids and where he has some challenges already, we're not sure yet on what is best for him.  Hopefully we can get some good advice from the school and his teachers.

So proud of these kids!

Our Summer

Our summer flew by!  I can't believe it's fall and I'm just getting around to catching up..

Jackson played t-ball for the first time and he did awesome.  With the baby I didn't get to go to any of his games but I am so proud of him.  A year ago there's no way he would have gone out there by himself and tried.  He even hit off his coach pitching a few times.  Obviously being up to bat is more fun than fielding.  Matt said when he was out in the field he liked to pick grass and put it in his hat.  Sounds about right.

Eliza took a fun dance class.  She loved it!  It was a combo class teaching ballet, tap, and jazz.  Her teacher stopped me after class one week and told me how impressed she was with her.  She listens and follows instructions really well.  She wanted her to try out for one of the little competition teams but I didn't think we have time in our schedule for something like that.  But it made me happy to know how proud her teacher was of her.

I was so grateful for Jackson and Eliza over the summer and how well they play together.  I felt like I spent the majority of the day taking care of Gracie and I don't get to do much with them.  They are so great to play and entertain each other.  Every day we had Batman and Robin running around the house.  It's so fun to see their creativity and to see that they love each other so much.  

This is what they looked like literally every day.  Goobers.