M-D-O and a J-O-B

Love the pose she chose

Today was Ella Grace's first day back at "school." She goes to Mother's Day Out at our church. It is the most precious little program. She just loves it there. She could hardly wait to get back to see her teachers and friends she has missed (and not forgotten) all summer.

New lunch box and backpack

First backpack had to be returned for not being pink enough

Sweet, precious girl

In her class room. Soooo excited!

I missed her and she was just down the hall. =(

Today was also my first day. I'm teaching the two-year-olds. I think Derek thought I might have lost my mind (ha!), but it was something that just kept coming around and I felt like maybe God was wanting me to give it a try, so here I am. I was already impressed with the program, but I had absolutely no idea what planning went into it. I worked the week before school started, getting my room ready, creating lesson plans (yes, for two-year-olds), and reviewing Bible and academic curriculum. To say it was a busy day was an understatement. The kiddos did great though, especially since most of them have never been away from Momma. Only a few of them cried, and that was at nap time. Their favorite part of the day was Praise and Worship. They LOVE it! I knew that was always Ella Grace's favorite part, too. To see these babies worshiping, singing, doing hand motions to songs, listening to Bible stories is about the most precious thing I have ever seen. Looking forward to more adventure tomorrow. Oh, and I do have a c0-teacher. Praise the Lord! =)

We use this during circle time to go over our memory verse, color, shape, number, letter, and weather for the day.

Such a nice room. Ella Grace was in this room last year. She's checking out the equipment. =)

Weekend

I ran the Run with the Son 5K on Saturday. It was sponsored by a nearby church. It was a lot of fun and I even ran into some old high school and OBU friends!

This is me and my friend, Laura. She is a serious runner. She runs 11 miles on Saturdays. Whaaaat? I am training for my very first half marathon. The farthest we have gone so far is 6 miles and I promise it took me a whole day to recover! My training group is doing 7 this Saturday. If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be training for a half marathon, I would have laughed SO hard. I really can't believe I'm doing it. I am not a natural runner (ask my junior high track coach...ha). I just want to at least do one half marathon , and I figure I'm not getting any younger, so here's my chance. We'll see how it goes. =)

The rest of the weekend we swam. I think I might go into serious mourning when we have to close our pool. I'm a summer girl and NOT ready for it to end. I wanted to include a video of Ella Grace. She took four lessons and turned into a little fish. She swims all over the place now. It is so cute and amazing because she looks too small to be doing all of that. I'm so proud of her. She's still working on coming up and getting a breath and doing GREAT! I apologize in advance for my hick sounding voice. Every time I hear it on this video, I want to crawl under a rock. Good grief!

First Day of School

I can't believe I haven't blogged all summer. Well, really I can believe it. There was NO time! We were so busy between camp, therapy sessions, and every day fun. I've missed it tho. I started thinking I needed to get back so I can start documenting our memories. I'm not a scrapbooker. In fact, I'm thinking about selling all the stuff I bought from Creative Memories that is just sitting in the closet. Sigh! Anyway, here is my attempt to get back at it.

I want to create sort of back-to-school tradition. We had my niece and nephew over the weekend before school started for one last swim, and then Wednesday, I took Evan and Ella Grace out for a special back-to-school lunch at Purple Cow. Always a treat to go there. I think I just found my tradition. =)

Me and my BIG school boy

So handsome, so sweet, so precious

Sweet sister, thinks her brother is IT. She told me, "You might miss him," when we dropped him off at school. Somehow, I think she was talking about herself, not me.

Evan had a GREAT first day back at school. I was a bit worried about it because the night before was open house. He cried! I think reality sunk in that summer was over. =( I prayed really hard and clung to Lamentations 3:23 - "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. " I also prayed, prayed, and prayed some more. The next morning, he woke up early. He was SO happy and SO ready for school. He did GREAT and had a very fun day.

I wish there was a way to convey how incredibly PROUD I am of this child!

Evan and one of his teachers, Ms. Myrie. He was so glad to see her (and so was I). I love his new little backpack and lunch box. He wore it around the house the night before. =) About 30 seconds after I took this picture, I bawled my eyes out! It was a weird mixture of being so proud of him and how hard he has worked and sad at how fast time has gone by.

I hope all of your little ones have had a fun and easy transition back to school. Here's to a great year!!!