William does Preschool.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

We have a P R E S C H O O L E R in the house!!

I never had the desire to do a co-op preschool. Until this year. After looking around at my options, I knew this would be the best fit for our family.

So twice a week, William and seven of the cutest little friends ever, get together for a preschool taught by the moms. Every day we have a letter, a number, a concept, and country we focus on. It was fun seeing everyone's talents come into making a truly terrific program. One mom even made little passports for the kids, they were darling. 

Look how excited Wills was for his first day!

Matthew also wanted in on the action.

Since I pushed for the group to get started, I hosted the first day. It was fun. Exhausting and a little anxiety inducing. But fun, and brought me a lot joy creating a good learning environment and getting to know those kids.

We had arrows in rainbow leading to the preschool room.

 
Here's so blurry pictures of how my house looked before everyone got there:

Gather activity: playdough mats and puzzles.

 There are five girls and three boys. The girls will just go and play dolls together for the entire play time. The boys are really into more structured play which is fun.

 A couple weeks before preschool started, William was in invited to join another preschool co-op that met on Wednesday. It is a great experience. There are boys and girls in the class that he knows from soccer, so that makes it fun.

Dropping him off with his little hat on backwards was the cutest.

Then here are all the kids on Thursday:

 I just love them so much!
When the last child left, I sat on the couch, exhausted. Was it worth it? I didn't know. Did it go well? I didn't know. Was I proud of how the lessons went? Again, I didn't know.  Then I thought, "Mary- you did this! If you didn't create this, William wouldn't have preschool this year. You did something new, and because of that, William gets preschool." My questions shifted to did William think it went well? Yes. Was William learning from the lessons? Yes. Was it worth it for William? Yes.
Then I felt pretty good about the whole deal and incredibly grateful that it worked out despite all my shortcomings in organizing and executing.

Last Monday, Deborah organized a field trip to the apple orchard. It was so festive and we had an absolute blast!
This is going to be a great year.

WILLIAM TURNS FIVE

I don't remember much about this birthday (it is almost two years later I am writing this...) I do remember it was such a fun birthday, and William was so excited the whole day. I had always wanted to make a volcano cake and Wills thought I was magic to have actual smoke coming from the volcano!

I think the pictures tell the story best.

William you are such a sweet addition to our family. I love that you love dinosaurs, transformers, cars, and motorcycles. You are so cute to watch play and I love how focused you are when you play. Thank you for your sweet hugs and being able to sense when I am sad, and knowing just the right thing to help me feel comforted.

Happy FIFTH birthday, little buddy!

A Busy September Schedule

Last week was exteremely difficult (as I have hinted previous blog posts.) At the time I just thought
it was the "new normal" and I would need to catch up. However, this week I am fully realizing the over size load I was carrying.
For the next six weeks, here is my week day schedule:

Monday
5:30 am- Running with Janel (We're training for a race in November)
7:15 am- Walk Kids to school (or have them take the bus....leave at the same time.)
9:00 am- 12:00 pm- Orenco Joy School
6-7:00 pm- Johnny Flag Football Practice.
7:30 pm- Family Home Evening

Tuesday
7:15 am- Walk Kids to School
5:30-6:30 pm- Kick it Soccer at the Stake Center for Caity, Johnny, & William. I coach Caity's team.
7:00 -8:15pm- Hillsboro Soccer for Caity

Wednesday
5:30 am- Running with Janel
7:15 am- Walk Kids to School
9-11:00 am- Noble Woods Co op Preschool
2-5:00 pm- Babysitting Co-op Shift
3:00 pm- Caity Piano Lesson
6-7:00 pm- Caity Activity Days at Church
6-7:00 pm- Johnny Flag Football Practice
7- 8:30 pm- Youth Group at Church

Thursday
7:15 am- Walk Kids to School.
9:00 am- 12:00 pm- Orenco Co-op Preschool
5:30-6:30 pm- Kick-It Soccer
7:00- 8:15 pm- Caity's League Soccer Practice.

Friday
SERIOUSLY NOTHING AND IT IS GLORIOUS.
Except Date Night...but that is glorious as well, so Friday is still coming in strong for me as an absolute favorite thing.

The first week of school it was like this fun party all this stuff to do. The second week was basically death. Ha ha. On top of everything on that list, we had four dentist appointments. *I*was the one hosting preschool (not to mention it was week one and kids were seriously crazy.) We had soccer team pictures and football team pictures. I was babysitting for a couple of friends for pockets during the week. Real coaching started at the Kick-it Soccer League. A Relief Society Activity. A PTO meeting. I was in charge of Mutual. Not to mention William's Birthday was approaching (I was pretty birthdayed out at this point!) I was teaching Young Women's at church. John worked until past eight every night to boot. I mean...of course I was exhausted!

I'm grateful it worked out that way though, because now this week feels like a breeze. I am naturally a homebody with my kids, so I am pretty proud of myself that I am getting everyone where they need to be so they can grow in the ways they need to grow. Busyness doesn't always equal productive, but I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and there is something peaceful and fulfilling in that.
I'm loving this September month...the cool, crisp nights, watching my kids practice sports with all the background noise of marching bands practicing, my kids chasing each other, cleats hitting the hard ground, and whistles blowing. Leaves float from the large trees and I aim my paths through crunchy walkways gathering acorns for Matthew. It makes me nostalgic for a moment I am currently living, what is that feeling even called? Maybe it's just called happy. It makes me happy.

Thank you September. You may get the better of me some days, but some day I'm going to be better for it. I feel that.

Caity's SURPRISE Birthday

Caity had never had an official birthday party where she invited friends. I kind felt like it was a right of passage and I had to do something about it before she got too old for the whole themed birthday concept. (People tell me that happens, not something I know personally, but I recognize it is a possibility.)

 I thought, why not make it a surprise while we were at it?? 

Best idea ever. 

I planned it the week before school started so she could have a chance to connect with her friends one last time before school set in and things got crazy.

I thought an ice-cream sundae bar would be a blast, and just kind of went from there.

And Ice-Cream Party it was!

 I will really happy with how it all turned out. I love a good theme, you know.

Here is what was in the goody bags:

(For the record the fan looks like a cupcake, but is actually an ice-cream cone.) I was really proud of those prize bags! It was all stuff I knew Caity (and therefore girls her age) would love. My favorite was the ice-cream lip gloss. So cute.

SURPRISE!! I really have to hand to the girls, NO ONE spilled the beans. There were 12 girls at the party, it was crazy and so much fun.  I got these confetti poppers at the dollar store, and boy, did they deliver. It took days to get it all cleaned up.

The girls were doing confetti angels, confetti fights, and made designs in the ground. It took a couple minutes for Caity to process this was a birthday party for her. Ha ha. She just thought it was a church activity at our house! When it all clicked she had the biggest smile on her face. She ran up to me when all the other girls were busy, and said "Mom. Thank you! Seriously, I mean, thanks." My heart basically burst in that moment because all the stress preparing produced the result I was hoping for: Caity felt loved.

Party Games:

1. One member on the team held an orange cone, the other two team members had water balloons, the girls had to see how many "scoops" they could catch in the "ice-cream cones."
2. We did a cherry walk. (Much like an egg walk) to see how many cherries a team could get on their sundae.
3. The girls split up into pairs. One girl laid on the ground with a cone in their mouth trying to catch marshmallows the other team member dropped from a chair
4. Pin the cherry on the ice-cream sundae (self explanatory.) 

Note to self: twelve eight to ten year old girls eating bowls of ice cream and candy may lead to some pretty crazy memories. There was a lot of energy. I maybe made everyone eat a banana to balance out some of the sugar!

It was so fun to have a celebration for our Caity-girl. We had so much fun playing and eating ice-cream sundaes. It probably took Caity a week to process it actually happened, ha ha. Birthdays are seriously the best.