Halloween 2013

An indian and a unicorn, handmade by two grandmas, sweet little girls, lookin' pretty authentic, lots of candy, 'nuff said.

Actually I will credit our grandmas a little more than that...

Mimi whipped out this incredible indian girl dress. Daddy bought the girls their antler carved feather necklackes :) And Audrey was so proud of all of it and really fit the part perfectly.

Nana made this unicorn costume for me 25 years ago and then did a little patch work on it for Bren. She was so excited to finally wear it after she decided months ago that she wanted to wear it tonight. And I think she fit the part extremely well, too, and Nana actually said it was cuter the second time around ;)

We love us some dress-up...and candy...and grandmas...and sweet girls :)

Pick of the Patch

I think we definitely have the pick of the patch in these two...

 Seems like just yesterday they were just round little baby pumpkins themselves...I'm thinking we need a comparison post.

 One of my most favorite lessons...the Pumpkin Gospel.

 God cleans out the oohy-goohies from our heart so we can smile with a fresh start, shining His light from within.

 In case you couldn't tell...the design of choice this year was Doc McStuffins. They were pretty proud of our work.

Casa Manana #1

 We attended our first play at Casa Manana last weekend...Dora's Pirate Adventure!

It was very entertaining, and we got to meet the cast...

the Pirate Piggy Captain

Swiper the Fox, saying sneaky

Isa and Benny

Boots

the one and only Dora the Explorer

Very excited for 4 more plays this year :)

Bam...

Homesick has punched me hard this morning...right in the face. We are at almost a week of missing Josh. Then Audrey and I got lots of snuggle time last night and this morning, making it even harder for her (and especially me) getting to school.

Then my little pajama girl who is always here for hugs, always my sidekick, stayed at Nana and Awpa's last night.

I may have to resort to hugging the dog, if I can catch her.

When I get them all home tonight, I'm locking down the place, and we may just have to play hookey from school/work for a day or two or three ;)

Missin' Daddy

Really missing our Daddy...

 He's been in the mountains hunting. See Audrey's picture of him with his guns?

I slept in his shirt last night. It felt so good. Then I dreamed he went away to prison for a year. That was not so good. Glad that it's only a few days and that he might come home with meat and not a criminal record.

It's a Date

The picture perfect date...

A relaxing cool night, flowers, 

yummy food and sweets that stain your lips,

and the most precious people in your company. Yes, please.

Fun Run

Audrey participated in her first long distance race a couple weeks ago. They call this the "Fun Run"at her school. It is probably 300-400 meters long, quite a distance for little legs. Here she is stretching at the starting line.

Audrey has already proven to be very athletic... (and we have already proven to be competitive parents) However, she took this race to be true to its name, a "fun" little run. She finished very near the end, possibly because she and Laney held hands for half the race, and also possibly because she had to stop and wait for Laney after she fell down.

 She wasn't too disappointed that she didn't win a medal and now understands that you have to run your hardest to try to get the top awards.

 But for this race and this sweet time of life, we are proud that fun and friendship have won the top prize.

First Six Weeks Report

Audrey finished her first 6 weeks in Kindergarten, and we are so proud of the reports we have gotten.

Each week we sign her conduct folder, and each week she received a 98, the highest possible score, with the teacher commenting "Audrey had a great week!" every time. We are so proud of her behavior in school.

 She has been reading many sight words now including all of the color names all by herself. Her handwriting is looking so grown up, too. On her homework days, she comes in and reads her homework to all of her little friends here at the house and then lets them read them back to her as well :) We are so proud of her work ethic.

 I went for a parent/teacher conference and received the most wonderful compliments on our girl. Mrs. Denning called her the "ideal student" (sorry for the bragging, but this is my blog;) I cried a little. The picture below shows the results of a recent test conducted in Kindergarten comparing to national norms.  The vertical black line above the dark rectangle (36-42) means "Above Average". Audrey is the dot above it all, meaning "Well Above Average". This part was for Letter Naming Fluency. Mrs. Denning said she really thinks she could have done even better, but she kept stopping to get her approval and wasted some time doing that :) It was similar on the other two parts, Number Recognition and Counting. We are so proud of her academic achievements.

 She is still loving school and gets to go on a couple of field trips in the next two weeks to a play at Tarleton University and a pumpkin patch. This last picture was when she was heading out the door for a fun Friday of seeing the firetruck and riding a bus for her very first time to a pep rally! We all still miss her like crazy during the day, but we are just so proud.

Fun First Months

Here's a rundown of our first couple of months at our preschool. We have started off to a very great year!

Our first theme was Bears, and we enjoyed a teddy bear picnic (see all the little bears growling ;)...

...learned about hibernation :)...

 ...and played fun games with our bears including parachute...

 ...and musical bear chairs!

 Also, for letter B, we played with Bubbles...

 ...and binoculars! We also used these binoculars to look for all of the things God made!

 I cannot brag on these kids enough. School has finally clicked with them. Most of them are 3 now and have been with me for over a year, and we have finally arrived at some harmony in the classroom! Phew!

 We also did a fun apple unit where we tasted apples, painted with apples, and measured with apples!

 They can actually make a line!

 Here's a class of sweeties on Red Day...

 Let the Fall fun begin with a leaf hunt...

 ...and fall wreath creation.

 We love when Ms. Nana makes her appearance!

 Celebrating "God saw everything He had made, and it was very good!"

 Brenna's "I'm Special" paper doll depicting herself ;)

Love everything about this little school and these little people all so wonderfully made...