Kindergarten Eve

It's finally upon us! Tomorrow is Tyler's big day. I still get the churning feeling in my stomach when I think about Tyler stepping on "the stupid smelly bus" (from Junie B. Jones), but it will also be good to get this day behind us. I feel as though it has loomed over our heads since his assessment, making both Tyler & I a bit edgy.

In preparation for Tyler's first day, he and I made a school bus cake while Danielle was enjoying another morning at preschool. The cake turned out better than I expected, although we forgot the big door (and we don't expect his driver to drive down the middle of the road). We had fun making it together. Our neighbor friends are also preparing for their son's first day of school tomorrow, so we shared our cake and celebrated with them tonight. (He and Tyler are in different classes, but they will ride the bus together before and after school. At least they will both know someone on their first day.) Tyler picked tonight's dinner, too - chili dogs with mac & cheese.

(In case you haven't noticed by now, our son is "smile-upon-command-challenged")

Before bed tonight Tyler and I read The Night Before Kindergarten, My School's a Zoo, and The Kissing Hand. My aunt gave me The Kissing Hand when Tyler was only one. It was a nice story and I enjoyed it, but it meant a lot more to me tonight. I must admit that I got a little choked up at the end, but I don't think Tyler noticed. (In case you don't know the story, it's about a mommy raccoon who is sending her son off to kindergarten for the first time. He doesn't want to go, so she kisses his hand and tells him if he presses it to his cheek, it will remind him of her love for him. Right before he trots off to school, he does the same for his mom and leaves her with a warm kiss on the hand.)

Tyler is freshly showered and has his new clothes all laid out. His backpack is packed and hanging by the door. My camera battery is charging, and I have a half-full box of tissues in the other room. I guess we're as ready as we'll ever be for the arrival of the "stupid smelly bus" and the first day of kindergarten.

And so begins the next stage of our lives...

Tyler - Now & Then

At kindergarten orientation Tyler's teacher gave each of the kids their first homework assignment: On one side of the paper Tyler had to decorate a cut-out of a person to look like himself and then cut pictures from a magazine or draw pictures that represent things he enjoys doing, foods he likes, etc. Basically he's supposed to put things on the paper that will assist him in introducing himself to his classmates. (Already his first public-speaking assignment!) On the back of the paper, he is supposed to glue a photo of himself as a baby ("then") and a recent photo ("now").

He stayed up a little later than Danielle one night to work on his homework, and we finished the first side in one sitting. He was very excited to work on it and very proud of his finished product. For some reason he is embarassed about having to provide a baby photo, though! I thought that was so funny. Trying to keep in mind how sensitive he was about that, I looked through some pictures from his first year and picked out some he could chose from. He didn't want any diaper shots, no drooling, no goofy looks, etc. Finally, he settled on this photo of himself with a peach. It is one of my favorites and reminds me of happy times.

He picked this picture as his "now" photo. We took it last week when we were in the mountains. It reminds me of happy times, too. Hopefully he will remember all the happy times we had while he's showing these to his class next week.

Danielle's First Day of Preschool

Danielle started preschool today. Although she is in the 4 year old class, she is in the same room and has the same teacher Tyler had last year. I think that familiarity made this easier for her. Also, she has a friend from church who is in her class. That definitely made the transition easier. Surprisingly, dropping her off was a little harder for me than I anticipated. I am really excited for her because I know how much she is going to thrive in this environment, and I have been more emotional about Tyler's upcoming "first day", so I was a little surprised that I felt a little lost when I walked out the door without her. (This is a hard week to be Mom!)

She was excited to see me when I arrived to pick her up. Princess backpack strapped on, purple paint on her new dress, hair flying around her face, she happily raced down the sidewalk and jumped up into my arms. Once I got her settled in the car and was driving home, she said "That was so much fun without all you guys! It was really fun." (She did admit later that she missed me.) She told me about reading The Kissing Hand (which I meant to pull out for Tyler's first day), eating popcorn chips and yucky milk for snack, taking turns with blocks, singing loud because the teacher has a bad voice, being pushed really fast on the spinny thing on the playground, being pushed down by a boy wearing a green shirt with black stripes, and learning the Bible verse "God saw IT WAS GOOD". This all came tumbling out of her on the drive home, yet by the time Ron got home, she couldn't remember a thing other than the boy with the green shirt and black stripes. :)

We celebrated her successful first day with her favorite lunch, tomato soup & grilled cheese, followed by special cupcakes Danielle and I made earlier. She was eager to get working on her homework, and she's not sure she can wait until Thursday to go back. I look forward to watching her grow and enjoying preschool with her over the remaining 69 days. (But who's counting?)

Gone Fishin'

We took the kids fishing this morning. Ron decided Tyler was ready to use a real fishing pole this year, rather than the wimpy little kids pole he used the past couple years. Ron showed Tyler how to cast with his open-face reel and then let Tyler try his hand at it. He caught on very quickly! He was very proud of himself. Here's a video of him casting:



He caught 5 fish all by himself! He cast the line, set the hook, and reeled them in! Granted, they were tiny little things, but he did it all by himself. He had a lot of fun.

I helped Danielle, so she got to reel a couple in, too. For some reason she really wanted to touch the fish. Here's our girly girl throwing her fish back in:


She got bored after awhile and enjoyed throwing the bait (hotdogs) in to the little fish by the bank.

We had a nice day. Danielle has been especially excited today because tomorrow is her first day of preschool.

**I will be deleting the videos in a few days. I've had some potential weirdos checking out a couple of my videos on YuTube, so I'm not going to keep them public for long.**

Our First Day of Kindergarten

In anticipation of Tyler's first day of kindergarten, I thought it might be entertaining to show him what we looked like on our first day. He really enjoyed Ron's picture and wanted to know why he was wearing a girl's sweater. (In case it's not obvious, Ron is the one facing the camera.) I would like to thank my mother for dressing me normal and not like I'm "heading to the disco after school" (Ron's words, not mine). I found it interesting to note that the date written on the back of my picture was Sept. 6, 1977. Who would have thought 30 years and 1 day later my son would be starting his first day of kindergarten. Here we are, in all our glory:

Our Smoky Mountains Vacation

We had a great trip! The kids were very surprised and excited when we told them we were going on vacation. Ron was able to take the dogs to the kennel and completely load the van without them noticing Friday morning. We went out for breakfast and then told them what we were up to. Tyler's reaction could not have been more perfect! The kids were surprisingly well-behaved on the entire trip, including all the time spent driving.

Our goal for this trip was to spend time walking on paths through the woods, explore the creeks, maybe see some wildlife, and just enjoy being together. We did all that. Here are some pictures from our trip. I know there are a lot, but that's the nice thing about looking at them on here. I'll never know if you get bored and stop looking!



On Saturday we stopped at some of the overlooks, played in the creek, and visited Clingman's Dome. We did NOT climb to the top, but we did walk a short way on another path.

Saturday night we made S'mores. It was quite a messy experience: notice the marshmallow on Tyler's sleeve & the chocolate on Danielle's face. I think I had some on the seat of my pants before we were through!

On Sunday we walked on some trails, saw the gap, and drove to Cherokee NC.

We did the touristy thing and visited the live bears while in Cherokee. Ron and I always feel bad for the bears, who are degraded into performing for their food and are quite plump; however, we always pay the money to see & feed them. The kids enjoyed it.

Tyler & Ron explored this working mill in the rain. I can't remember the name of it, but it's powered by a turbine, which Tyler can fully explain.

We ate dinner at Huck Finn's Catfish House. We ate there the last time we visited, too, but Danielle didn't enjoy it as much.

Souvenirs - Tyler picked a cork gun. He LOVED it and only got in trouble with it once.

We fit a lot into our day on Monday. We stopped to explore the same part of a stream that we visited on our first trip to the mountains with the kids. Below is a picture of Danielle the last time we were here and this time. We also had a picnic (below), visited the Tuckaleechee Caverns, and drove around Cades Cove. I don't have any pictures of the caverns, but that was a really good tour! The caverns are very large and beautiful, and it wasn't crowded at all. Interestingly, the caverns were first discovered by two little boys about Tyler's age (6). I can't believe they were brave enough to venture down into a place so completely dark! Anyway, I think that tour ranked at the top of our favorites this vacation.

We had lunch at the campground outside Cades Cove. Hopefully you can tell by the pictures that it was such a beautiful area! We enjoyed our auto tour of Cades Cove, too. We saw wild turkey, a big black snake, and lots of deer. Tyler enjoyed looking at the buildings, too.

Tyler really wanted to ride the go-carts, so we spent Tuesday morning at The Track. Danielle really wanted to ride the Wild Woody ride, too...until going down the first hill. We found something more her speed instead.

Tuesday afternoon we played in another creek. We also saw a salamander. Apparently there are 30 species of salamander living in the Smoky Mountains, which has earned it the nickname "Salamander Capitol of the World".

On our last day we stopped at the IHOP for breakfast before leaving. We've never eaten at an IHOP and were pleasantly surprised! This guy was outside the restaurant.