Hospital Fair 2011

Yesterday, after the 5K, we drove to Moberly to MRMC. The hospital fair at Moberly Regional Medical Center has become a yearly tradition for us. Gracie and Ella enjoy going every year and doing the various activities. One of their favorite stops is in the ER. You get to pick a stuffed animal, take it into the ER where a nurse and doctor will help your animal with it's "owie." You can tell the doctor if your animal hurt its arm, leg, head, etc. Then he bandages it and tells you how to care for your animal until it heals. Then you get to take your animal home. It's such a cute idea!

Here are our cuties waiting in line for the bouncy slide.

Whee! The slide was pretty popular with our crew!

Ella went through the MoDot demonstration. You get to ride a tricycle through their maze and watch the caution signs as you go. If a worker is holding up a stop sign you have to stop until he/she turns their sign. This is another good lesson for them to learn even though they aren't exactly driving age yet. It just shows them why a driver needs to be aware and attentive while they are driving. We went home with balloons, stuffed animals and 2 bags full of handouts from the various booths.

Fork and Cork 5K

We had a big moment today in our household! Gracie had been wanting to run a 5K for quite a while now, so today was her day. We trained together for about a month, but she only ran a mile each time we trained. Keep in mind a 5K is 3.2 miles, so she didn't train well, but I still let her try. I had to urge her to continue after the halfway point, but she made it. Since there were only 2 girls in her age group, she got 2nd and received a medal. She couldn't have been happier!

A "before" shot. She obviously has no clue how hard this is going to be!

And an "after" shot. Quite a contrast to the "before" pictures! Gracie was so hot and worn out. I had to be pretty forceful to get her to finish the race. She wanted to quit so badly.

Ella was pretty worn out too, so she needed a water bottle.

This was Gracie being presented with her medal.

And now she thinks it was worth every painful minute to get this medal!

My Class

I wanted to post a picture of my first group of 4th graders. I have 8 in my class, so it's a great size. I'll post their first names under the picture so that when I'm 65 and can't remember who they are it might trigger my memory! :-) We had a really good first day together, and I'm hopeful we will have many more good days.
Back row L-R (Alyssa B., Alexis J., Shae L., Sara B., Kacie B.,)
Front row L-R (Terrell C., Isabelle L., Evan T.)

First Day of School 2011

We all woke up super early today to get used to our new routine. Brent is out the door by 6:30 these days. It's hard for him to adjust to getting up that early, but he's doing great. I'm getting up at 5 a.m., running, getting ready, then getting the girls ready so we can be out the door by 7:15. It's a challenge indeed! Today was easy because we were all anxious to get going. I took probably 35 pictures, but I'll only post a few. Obviously, Ella needs to go to school so that she can learn appropriate and inappropriate faces! :-)

I have a picture of Gracie standing in front of Tri-County on her first day, so I wanted one of Ella, too!

Ella's teacher is Miss June. We already knew her from church, so Ella wasn't scared for me to leave her at all. Here's hoping for a good year!

Twas the Night Before School Started

Tomorrow Gracie will begin school at Macon Elementary School. She is very nervous about the change. There have been many tears as we have gotten closer to this transition actually occurring. I think summer school helped her a little bit, but she's still anxious and would rather go back to Atlanta than walk through the doors of a new school tomorrow. I'm praying so hard that God will give her a friend quickly so that she will feel more comfortable. Sometimes friendships don't develop that easily, so I'll try to be realistic. Anyway, I found this tonight after she went to bed. It made me feel a little better since she said she feels a little "cool." Hopefully she will feel like the cool new kid tomorrow and not the scared new kid.

Sidewalk Art

Probably a lot of people would think it's strange for me to take pictures of the kid's sidewalk chalk pictures. They love drawing on the sidewalk, and actually come up with some pretty cool pictures. Ella is beginning to enjoy drawing actual pictures too, versus just scribbling and drawing lines. In this picture you can see Ella's little person on the right. Her artistic skills are evolving.
This is another one of Ella's people she drew. I kind of think it resembles a monkey, though.

Ella wrote her name on the driveway and I thought it looked pretty good for a 3 year old!

Playdate Fun

Today we asked two of Gracie and Ella's friends to come over for a play date. We had a great time. We started out playing with toys, but they quickly switched to having a tea party. After the tea party we had a water balloon fight. That was probably the highlight of the day! It didn't last very long since it took me forever just to fill one bucketful of balloons, but they sure enjoyed it. Madison and Savannah are super friends for Gracie and Ella since they are sisters also, and are close in age to our girls. At the end of our play date I made cotton candy in our new cotton candy machine that Mamaw gave us. Yes, I sent them home fully sugared up!

Getting Big

I couldn't believe my eyes today when Ella wanted to play on the computer. I usually have to sit with her and click on things since the mouse is hard to operate. Well, today she asked me to turn a game on, then dismissed me. She told me, "I can do it myself." The worst part is...she was right. She needed no help in operating the mouse at all!

Look at our big 3 year old!

Summer Reading Party

Gracie and Ella participated in our library's summer reading program. Tonight was the party for those that read enough books. The kids were supposed to dress as explorers. Gracie was uninspired, so she went as a camo girl who carried binoculars. Ella wanted to be her favorite explorer, Dora the Explorer.

Dora with her backpack.

They had a good time and won lots of prizes. We have enough coupons for freebies at local restaurants to last us a long time! I'm so glad the girls like the library and reading! I have tons of great memories of hanging out at the library when I was young, so it means a lot to me that they enjoy it as well.

Lemonade Stand

The girls wanted to have a lemonade stand today, so this afternoon we set up their business. It was a great day to sell lemonade since it was beastly hot, but unfortunately the entrepreneurs got too hot after about 45 minutes, so we closed up shop. Lots of kind neighbors stopped and bought several glasses, and Grandpa even made an appearance since he was in town and bought a glass.

Gracie's Brutal Honesty at Work

So, I'm 2 months behind on blogging, and I'll get caught up eventually, but for now I'm going to forge ahead and add the June and July stuff as I have time. It was a fun summer, but it just didn't afford much time for things like sitting down at the computer for extended periods of time. There have been many changes brewing which means some sleepless nights. This is one of them. I'm having trouble not dreaming about teaching every night. I don't feel that nervous, but I'm spending so much time in my classroom that it's becoming a little "all consuming." As a first-time teacher there is just so much to get ready and review.

Well, that's all on that subject. Now to Gracie's brutal honesty. Last night Brent was doing what guys do best...flipping channels. He settled on "Transformers" and started watching it. Gracie walked in the room and asked Brent what he was watching. He told her it was "Transformers." With a certain degree of scolding in her voice she responded, "Shouldn't you stop liking boy things and start liking more man things?"