A New School Year

With the coming school year, we will be having some daycare changes.

You may remember our hope to get Abby in to the local preschool last January.  We signed her up late, and weren't sure she would get it.  Well, she did.  We were ecstatic.  We absolutely loved that preschool.  However, they don't have a dropoff time until 7:00AM.  I am required to be at school by 7, and Peggy's new schedule has her going in to work at 1AM.  So, we were faced with the tough position of looking for a new school.

We looked at several places and found one that I think we'll really like.  We certainly don't like it as much as the local preschool, but we didn't really have any other choice.  It is located within a mile of my work and Noah can go there too.  It won't be as convenient as their daycare last year (which was right up the road from our house), but it is much more of a preschool that Abby's old place was.

Abby is really smart and needs something to challenge her.  She is so ready for preschool.  Her new classroom is much more of a classroom than a daycare room.  There are not really many, if any, toys in the room.  Most of the room is a couple of big tables that the children sit around.  When we went to see the place, we almost wondered if it was too hardcore.  However, they do have an hour or two in the morning in the gym.  They also get time in the afternoon there or outside on the playground.  But, it seems like the time in between there is reserved for learning.  When we were there, the kids were trying to find certain words in their books.

So, we took the kids there the other day to meet their teachers and see the place.  Abby is beyond excited.  She loves the gym and can't wait to play in it.  They also have a large cafeteria....much more of a school-like setting.  And here's the kicker.  Once per week, they get to go to the small library they have and Abby gets to pick out a book.  They use that book throughout the week for different activities.  Abby couldn't believe they have their own library.  This is the biggest thing she's excited for and she seriously can't wait.

This also means that I will be left to get the kids ready in the morning.  It's really (hopefully) not a big deal, after all, I've done it before.  Abby has been very independent lately.  She gets herself all ready and changed, and has even started doing her hair.  The bigger challenge each morning will be Noah.

Big Boy Bed!

We decided it was time to get rid of the crib.  So yesterday, before nap, we converted Noah's bed to a toddler bed.  As we did with Abby, we feared the worst.  Abby did great in the conversion and never had any problems.  Noah is a completely different kid though.  He's much more active and, well, crazy than Abby was at his age.  We were worried that he would get up out of bed and play or bang on the door....anything but go to sleep.

As it turns out, he did great during his nap.  We did hear him either get up or fall out of bed about three times during the two hour nap.  He didn't make any noise though, so we just let him go.

Later that night we put him down for bed.  He seemed to do fine, although we heard some creaks and noise in the floor again as though he was walking around or fell out of bed.  We figured he either fell out, got down, or was playing REALLY quietly in his room. 

So, we decided to check on him before we went to bed (a few hours after he went to bed).  This is what we found:

 

Apparently he got off (or fell off) his bed and just decided it wasn't worth the effort to get back in bed.  Heh.

I then picked him up and put him back in bed.  He was dead to the world.  Overall, I would call the conversion to a big boy bed a big success so far.

Seeing the new Sea Lion Exhibit

A few weeks ago, the STL Zoo opened a new sea lion exhibit.  It's been on commercials for weeks now, but it's just been too darn hot to go.  On opening day, there was a two hour line just to get to spend a few minutes in the exhibit.  People waited that long in our incredible heat wave to see them.  We figured it had to be good.

The videos in the commercials were awesome, with the sea lions swimming all over above the walk-through tunnel.

So, Peggy, the kids, Sally, Kai and I went to see them.   Abby was really excited.  Luckily there was absolutely no line.  We just walked right up to the tunnel.  And were immediately disappointed.  There was only one sea lion in the water.  And he was way on the other side of the enclosure.  You could hardly see him from the tunnel. 

 
So we left the tunnel and walked over to where he was swimming.  He was just swimming around in circles.  Hardly the show we were expecting.  We found two other sea lions laying in a cave type area doing nothing.  Nearly every time I saw the seals in the old enclosure, they were swimming around like crazy.

Here's to hoping they're more active for us next time!

We did see plenty of other animals while we were there too.

The hippos are one of Abby's favorites.

Abby's Independence

In many ways, Abby has been asserting her independence lately.  In many ways it's awesome, in some ways not so much.  We've been pushing her in most areas to do more things on her own.  She has been using the bathroom by herself for quite a while now.  And for that, we're very thankful.  She also likes to brush her own teeth, although that's just a supplement to when we do it.

And the biggest one I'm thankful for?  Picking out her clothes and getting herself dressed.  With Peggy's hours, I will be getting the kids ready for school by myself Monday-Wednesday this school year.  Noah can be a handful in the morning, so it'll be very helpful for Abby to be able to do some of these things on her own.

She likes to do her own hair.  Although the results leave something to be desired.  She combs her hair and puts in ponytails.  Needless to say, they usually don't last too long.  But at least she's trying!

Here you can see her latest attempt, complete with bow!

Now if only I could get her to wipe her own butt.....

Abby's "Art Projects"

Abby has been VERY in to doing "art projects" lately.  She spends on average 3 hours a day sitting at the bar doing her "projects" as she likes to call them.  She has been doing this for well over a month.  She's really starting to get good at spelling, writing letters, drawing things, etc.  It's what she loves to do.

Whenever we're going to see one of her (or our) friends, she always insists on making a project for them.  She gives Peggy and I at least three or four of her projects each day.  She always tells "you can take it to work and hang it up!"  We've taken a lot of them "to work."  Ok, so most end up in the recycling, but seriously, if we took them all to work we'd walk in with boxes of stuff.

This has also helped her with her letters and spelling.  We've been working a lot with her on her letters and writing words with the letters in order.  Just in the last month, she has come soooo far.  She can now spell words like: Abby, Daddy, Mommy, Noah, Kai, Sally, Bobo all on her own with absolutely no help anymore!  There's also a lot of other words she can spell with our help.

Here are some pictures of her latest creations.

She likes to make frames for her art.  She was using tape, but she was going through tape like crazy, so we cut her off.  The smart little girl she is, she used stickers instead!

On the right is a house.  On the left is one of her stick puppets (with paper in place of the stick).  She made a lot of these.

This is her drawing of her and Noah.  She did this all by herself, and even added a heart in the middle.  Adorable!

She learned how to draw butterflies today.

Some of the words she knows how to write.

Lots and lots of butterflies.  In the background you can see her pile of paper.  The projects were taking over the entire bar area.  We now make her clean up her stuff and put it in the pile when she is done.

Quotables - Ball and Cup

We were cleaning out some old stuff today and I came across my old "ball and cup" game.  You know, the one where you swing the ball and try to get it into the cup?

Abby asked how it worked.  So, I tried unsuccessfully about 7 or 8 times to get it. 

Abby eventually said "I can just put it in there if you want me to."

Summer Fun

We've been in a triple digit heat wave for more than four days now and it's supposed to continue through the end of the week.

To beat the heat we've been playing in the sprinkler almost daily. It's cooler than getting in a hot car to drive to the rec center.

We gave Noah a summer haircut. He's pretty stylin' I think.

Abby likes to stick her butt in the sprinkler and proclaim "Mommy it's like I'm peeing."

Noah wiped out in the wet grass and cut his eyelid.

She was pretending to be Jill from the "Jack & Jill" nursery rhythm.

Attempting to drink out of the sprinkler.

Saggy britches

Happy kids!