26 weeks

Please, do not get any bigger!

Officially a Tradition

I love that my girls have started asking to do things like apple picking. That means it is officially a family tradition, right? Right. This September at Solebury Orchards was actually HOT. Like, too hot to be picking apples. BUT, cider donuts make everything better, so we powered through.

New Activities

With school starting, so did some new activities for each of the girls.

Miss Kaia started dance with Miss Sarah - oh, how we love Miss Sarah! It was a rough first few classes, with Kaia utterly refusing to participate, listen, talk, or even crack a smile. Then one morning we went and, on Kaia's terms, she decided she was ready to be her cute, happy self and give Gizmo some time off. Halle-freakin-lujah!

And Miss Zoey started field hockey (in addition to dance). She is so good at trying new things. About her first day she said it was cold and long, so we're hoping for some different, maybe more positive, adjectives next week.

Love these little peanuts.

Preschool... round TWO

Now it is Kaia's turn to start preschool! After seeing her big sister going to school for several years, I would say this little peanut is more than ready for her turn. I have to admit, there were no tears from Mommy this morning sending this one off for a couple hours two days a week - she will love it and I will love it. She even posed for lots of pictures for me!

Now, this is the Kaia I know. As soon as we got into the building, she decided she did NOT want to go to preschool anymore. She stood like this in the hallway for about 5 minutes, refusing to go in but also refusing to come back to the car with me. I decided to show her where Mommy would be waiting (DUMC is brilliant to have the option for parents to stay and wait for the first few days of 3 year old preschool) and assured her she could come get me anytime. Finally, I convinced her to walk back to the classroom with me.

I lied. I did cry when I took these pictures.

Just three short years ago I took identical pictures of Zoey in this exact same spot, and walked her to the exact same classroom. It made me miss Zoey. It made me miss Mrs. Drew. It made me aware, once again, of how quickly time flies. 

Mrs. Veverka and Mrs. Nier were perfectly warm and welcoming, and soon I was able to sneak out.

And, all smiles at the end of the day (just an hour later). Still, that's great for Miss Kaia.

Apparently, even just an hour at preschool is exhausting. This was Kaia for the afternoon - and she does not take naps!

We are excited and grateful to be at The Preschool at Doylestown United Methodist again this year. We love the staff and the families and just could not ask for a better place to send our girls for this exciting experience. I am happy that Kaia is happy and settling into her own little routine. Here's to another great year at DUMC.

FIRST Grade

And I thought sending Zoey off to Kindergarten was hard! First grade is all. day. long. She will get on the bus at 8:40 each morning and not get home until 4:05 each afternoon. I am going to miss her so much! But, this morning, I pretended to be super duper excited... and then cried after the bus pulled away. Why is change so hard?

Last week she was acting really nervous about school and finally admitted to us, with tears in her eyes, that she did not even know how to get to her classroom! A valid concern, I would say, for any 6 year old. The next day I called the school for permission, and we headed over to walk from where the bus would be dropping her off, into the school, and into her classroom. The classroom happened to be unlocked, so we snuck inside, found her seat, and even found a few kids' names she knew from last year. Her demeanor changed completely, and finally she seemed genuinely excited for school to start.

The morning of, she looked beautiful. We picked out her outfit together (a month ago, of course), and she patiently posed for dozens of pictures. (It was so humid outside that the camera lenses kept fogging up, so we finally had to move indoors, and take a dozen more.) What a cutie patutie.

Somebody's little sister really wanted to get on the bus with her.

After school, Zoey was exhausted but all smiles.

I would say I am not the only one who is going to miss Zoey while she's gone all day at school this year. Love these sisters.

Olson Back to School Bash

Even though I really am not super excited to be sending Zoey back to school, and Kaia off to preschool for the first time, I have to pretend that it is the most exciting thing, ever. It is a little gift to my girls. This was our second annual Olson Back to School Bash, and it was a fun one!

"It is a jungle out there! Let's have a wildly awesome year!"

Zoey is SUPER into anything with zebra print (zebras are her favorite animal because they start with the letter z, of course) so her new lunch box is zebra print! I kind of used that to come up with a little theme, and the girls got a kick out of it. Now we are ready for school to start!