First Day of Kindergarten!

Yesterday was Katherine's first day of Kindergarten. What a big step! While she's been going to preschool for 2 years now, the biggest change for me is that she'll be going to school every day. Gone are the afternoons that I had with her while her little brother and sister were napping. She'll be at school every afternoon! My how I wasted some of that time. I'll have to be very intentional and "dates" with her more often and really take advantage of her days off.

Anyway, she's going to Covenant Christian School (I failed to get a picture by the school sign). She had a great time and loves her teacher, Mrs. Roberts. There's only 5 kids in her class, as of now, so she'll hopefully really have fun with those kids. She played with Graham (the only boy in the class) today. John took the day off to celebrate and we spent a fun morning at home before he took her to school and picked her up - I'll have plenty of chances, so gave him the opportunity on her first day. Elizabeth, when she got up from her quiet time, said "I miss Katherine" - so sweet. Summer is over and we'll all have to get used to Katherine being at school every day. My days as a chouffer have arrived!

It's Hot and School is Starting!

As we endure another 100 degree day (18 of the 23 days in August have been 95+ and 5 of those have been 100+) by staying inside and trying to be creative with keeping everyone entertained, we get ready to go to the Back to School Picnic for Covenant Christian School. Katherine will be starting Kindergarten there on Tuesday (the 28th) and we are all so excited. She can't wait and we are excited for her. I'm sure we'll have pictures of the big day to post next week. We've gotten all of her school supplies (that was fun!) and I've got to finish filling out all of the school forms today. The clock is ticking until I turn into a carpool mom and am driving her to school every day! Hopefully everyone's schedules will fall right into place - naps will probably be cut a bit short in the afternoons, but we'll see. Enjoy the last days of summer and keep cool!

Friends

We had the best time on Saturday night at some friends' house. they have 3 girls - 5 years, 3-1/2 years, and almost 2 years. There was also another family there (also friends of ours) with a girl Elizabeth's age and a 1-year old. Anyway, just to say that all the kids are about he same age (8 kids, 5 and under). We had a great time. First, the meal was delicious, even if the kids didn't eat much (it's hard to have much of an appetite when you are at someone else's house and there's fun toys to play with different from your's). Then we went outside and they had a slip-n-slide with a slide at the beginning - oh how fun. Elizabeth and Christopher chose to stay dressed, but Katherine, along with the other kids, donned their swimming suits and had a fabulous time. You can see the pictures. We returned home around 9:30 to a thunderstorm and the kids were quickly asleep. We often say "we should do this more often" after a fun evening like that, only to find weeks and months go by before we can get back together again. I hope that doesn't happen this time, but I feel that it will, with kids starting school. Oh, well. We'll just remember the fun time we had with a smile.

6 months old

Christopher is now 6-months old and I finally got some pictures of him to post. He went to the doctor on Monday and is a whopping 22lbs and 28 inches long - the average size of an 8-9 month old. That would be why he is already outgrowing his 6-9 month clothes! He's happy and healthy and loves watching his sisters play and sing and talk - I'm not sure if he'll talk early because he wants to join right in or talk late because he can't get a word in edgewise! He's starting to sit by himself, although he is such a wiggleworm that he falls over pretty quickly. We'll work on that. He's still not a big roller, since he doesn't really like being on his tummy, so I suspect he won't be crawling for quite a while. That's quite ok - I'm not in a hurry for that, although his is awful heavy to carry around. OH, and the other thing is that he's pretty much outgrown his infant carseat, so I'll be taking it out and replacing it with the convertible car seat (rear facing) that we got when Elizabeth outgrew her infant car seat. I feel like he's growing up already!

Swimming

Katherine has been enjoying swimming lessons the past couple of weeks - with the hope that she will become a little bit more independent in the water. It's been fun to go and watch her growing independence. She's been working on front and back floating, putting her face in the water (which she has been much more willing to try for her teacher than for us!), kicking and "swimming" on a kickboard, jumping in the pool (which she's been doing for a while now as long as somone's there to catch her), and putting her head all the way under. She's doing a great job and is really improving. There's always been a fear of her face getting wet (even in the bathtub), so these lessons are especially helping with that. She always comes home with all of her hair wet, so she's doing great!

Larry and Bob

Yesterday we went on a fun family outing to the new Christian Bookstore that opened in town. An added bonus was the presence of Larry and Bob from VeggieTales! The girls were both excited, but only Katherine actually wanted to get anywhere near them. Elizabeth was excited at the thought of seeing them, but wanted to do so from a long distance. We stood halfway across the store and she was still clinging to me with an occasional excited sounding "There's Larry and Bob" followed by "I'm scared". They were pretty big and even Katherine has a little hesitant, but she did get in line and head up to them to give them a hug and get her picture taken. (Katherine wants me to type that they were quiet - didn't talk)

Let me tell you, they have quite a following. The store was packed with preschool aged kids and younger and their parents. It's a really nice bookstore with a great kids section - I'm sure we'll be back.