First Day of Preschool...

Grey's first day was today!  He was an ol' pro this year...So different from last year...Last year I was soothing a scared/crying little boy...this year Grey was helping to calm the other kids - ha!  It was a nice change!  I'm so proud of him....

 Sailor needed a bag too...

So, school is in full swing around here for ALL of us...Busy, Busy!

School's out for Summer!

I love the fact that I still get a summer break.  It always makes me feel like a kid;)  The 'countdown' which begins in May is always exciting for me;)  How many days until summer?  Well for us it's here.  Last Friday, Grey and I had our last day of school. 

It's amazing how much my preschooler has grown.  At the beginning of the school year, there were many tears shed because of all the unknowns for Grey.  I know he felt overwhelmed.  But, this past Friday he was crying because he didn't want it to end.  He's had a really good first year of school, opened up a ton, and learned many new things.  And the best part for me was that I got to watch it happen. (Another benefit of my job.)  Every break I had I snuck down to his room just to peek in on him or say hi and he'd give me this big grin.  Everyday they went outside at a certain time and it was always during my Phonics time so I would purposely stand by my window facing the playground where I could see my son 'just play.'  Everyday when I walked my kids to lunch Grey would be walking down with his class and wait for me to greet him and take him home.  I'm so grateful for these things.  It really meant a lot to me and it helped me get through my first year back after my maternity leave with Sailor.  Grey doesn't know it, but he's the reason my year was so much easier.  It's like we did it together and everything turned out OK!  So, thank you Greyson!  You'll never know what it meant to me to have you there with me.

And so now, our summer begins, and my life with these two is in FULL swing... (Sidenote:  Currently Sailor insists on wearing my watch everyday...oh this girl of mine just cracks me up;)

Monkey see...Monkey do...

This was our last day of school...We had a 'Pirate' play day...

and a little 'loungin' on his sister...

Let the SUMMER fun begin!

Happy Tuesday!

Moving Forward

It feels good to write about this because yes it is really bothering me.

I did not want to send Greyson to school today.  Actually I said to him last night, "do you want to go to school tomorrow or stay home with grammy Ann and Sailor?"  I knew in my head he needed to go but it just came out.  He replied with, "yeah mommy, I'll just stay home."  At first I said ok that sounds good, but then I quickly reminded him that Monday was pajama day and he was gonna get hot cocoa and popcorn...and watch a Christmas movie.  All of that changed his mind right away.  He said, "nevermind mommy - I wanna go to school!"  Nate was so supportive with all of it and he reminded me this morning..."Leesh if you want him to stay home today that is fine with me."  We both knew though that he needed to go and so did I.

This morning I felt weird getting ready...All I could think of was that it was like every other day...and that the teachers and students of Sandy Hook Elementary started their day last Friday just like 'any other day' as well.  I was very sad this morning but I tried to hide it because I didn't want Greyson to feel my stress.  He looked so cute in his Christmas pajamas.  They were not allowed to wear slippers so he insisted on his cowboy boots.  He makes me laugh.  Every time I looked at him or hugged him or kissed him I thought of the parents going through 'the loss of a child' right now...it's unbearable and there are NO WORDS...I've said a gazillion prayers for the families and people involved and somehow in some tiny little way I hope that helps.

I walked Grey to his line this morning for preschool and I'm not gonna lie I purposely kept him in my room until the bell rang today.  I usually bring him down 5 minutes early, but NOT TODAY.  I just couldn't.  I rubbed his hand the whole way down the hallway and when we made it to his line I waited until I saw his teachers.  I kissed him goodbye and I had tears running down my cheeks.  He didn't see them and I quickly wiped them away, but it was hard for me.  I found myself looking at everyone in the building today and any 'stranger' I saw come in the school - I just wanted to know who they were and why they were there.

I was so happy to see Grey when he got out.  He ran to me and gave me a hug and was super excited when he saw a 'star wars' lunchbox sitting on a bench-ha!  I brought him home today where he spent the afternoon with his sister, Auntie Mims, and Uncle Just.  I went back to school feeling so much better just because I knew my kids were at home safe and in the arms of family.

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Grey loves opening his advent calendar...he reminds me every morning...(yeah probably not the best time to have a chocolate but whatev...)

It's the little things, right?!

Christmas Crafting at its Best...

As if my chicken story wasn't bad enough for Monday morning, I also forgot about Grey's homework.  Woops!  I opened his folder and realized his teddy bear was due.  Each month we get a family activity to do.  For November we decorated a scarecrow and this month was a teddy bear.  Good thing Nate was so chipper and ready to help and let me tell you I did get a mini lecture on how it's not good to turn in Grey's homework late.  This, I know, but I probably did need to be reminded;)  The point of it is to gather things from home and decorate it as a family.  So, all credit goes to Nate on this one.  They made a cool christmas bear with nike shoes;)  And I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the finished project...it was done and ready to go before we left for school...

 All it took was a little wrapping paper, a marker, and some gold ribbon...oh and some red tinsel which gave our teddy bear a really cool spike...

 This was the reason I wanted to have a crockpot meal on Monday....because we had to go and get our Gingerbread house making groove 'on'...

 The Preschool program at our school put this on for the kids...they provided the graham crackers, frosting, and milk carton...we had to bring our own candy...

I'm not sure if we spent more time decorating our house or eating the candy...

 Sailie was digging into the M&Ms

 Finished Gingerbread house looked something like this...




And the next morning we found Woody in the bowl with our creations...that silly little elf...

happy at home

It was the Bookfair this week at our school for American Education week.  The kids get excited about this.  Grey got a new star wars book, a phonics set for short letter sounds, and some other goodies.  He loves to read.

Goin' in for a kiss - look how serious Grey is - ha!

I started Sailor on some Pinkalicious books because I think those are so cute.  She now has Silverlicious and another book titled Shoe-la-la...a nice start to her own little library.

We took full advantage of the nice weather yesterday...

After running some Saturday morning errands we came home and did some work while the kids played outside.

This was a little Saturday treat....some rootbeer...

We Nate painted our garage door yesterday....

This is not the best picture to compare...but it's a lot darker and I love how it turned out - just enough...

We also bought new lights for our house that had to be special ordered but they just came in yesterday...hopefully we will have these up today.  These are the ones I picked...it's just a picture off the web....

We are also in the process of doing some pillars on our front porch.  I have posts there - but now I want to make them into decorative pillars.  We picked some really cool natural stone for them...so I can't wait until our contractor starts on these...it was a little difficult because we couldn't find our exact brick that's on our house so we tried to match it with some stone.  I think this is what we are going with.

Little by little we will get our new house to where we want it...but first we're trying to get the outside done before we start on the inside.  Next, will be landscaping...


And here we are this morning...this is how we roll on Sunday morning...Pjs, cowboy boots and ALL;)  We dropped the kids off at Dee Dee's just for a bit while Nate and I went for a morning run!

We got rid of our pumpkins so Grey threw them over Dee Dee's hill this am - he thinks the deer will eat them...

 And now I'm patiently waiting for my outdoor lights to be installed;)  and then i'm off to the grocery store because I just checked my milk and it's 9 days old- woops!

Happy Sunday!