Ten on Tuesday

1. I spent last weekend in Nashville. With some girlfriends. For a CKC scrapbooking convention. We stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  Took some layout classes. Did lots of shopping. Ate at the Cheesecake Factory. I'm not gonna lie, it was HEAVEN!!!

2. In fact, I enjoyed the convention so much that it apparently reignited my desire to scrapbook for us again. Here lately all I ever work on are my classes, but suddenly I've got an itch to get to scrapping. And well, that just hasn't happened in forever!

3. It's official... we are now the parents of a first grader. Eeek!!!

4. Even though none of her former classmates are in her first grade class (not a single one! how does that happen?), Isabella has had a wonderful couple of days so far. She says her teacher, Mrs. Franklin, is very nice and she's already made lots of friends. She's very happy, which of course translates into me being very happy!

5. My neighbor and I are now carpooling. She takes them in the morning. I pick them up in the afternoon.  I love it!

6. OK, so I am now hooked on Words with Friends. HOOKED! Have you played it? You must. If you decide to check it out, be sure to play with me. Just search for user name "liztbutler". All I'm gonna say is that with my addictive personality, it's a really good thing I don't enjoy gambling.

7. As I mentioned earlier, my neighbor took the girls to school this morning, so Sam and I got to hang out today. All day. Today was the first time in a LONG time that I didn't have anywhere to be. (Notice I didn't say I didn't have anything to do. I just chose not to do anything.) So I made sure it was a very mellow day. We sat on the couch and watched episode after episode of Justice League. I read some of my book. We had lunch. We took a nap. We went to pick up the girls. Apparently my body was begging for some downtime, because it felt really good to just chill.

8. What I neglected to realize, until about 5:30pm, was that I had an eye appointment scheduled for today at 11:00am. Oops, it appears I did have somewhere I needed to be after all! Guess I'll be calling tomorrow to reschedule.

9. I'm not certain of what Sam's MDO start date is, but he is definitely ready! He can't wait to meet his new teachers and reunite with his little friends.

10. My brother is healing and feeling better and standing strong in his faith. Often times it's hard to see the good in life's speed bumps, but they are definitely there. And I am ever so grateful for him and his faith journey thus far!

New

Here's our girl:

in her new purple glasses

with her new short hairstyle

performing her new student duties

Hello! Is there anybody out there?!

Merriam-Webster defines neglect as follows: 
ne·glect

Pronunciation: \ni-ˈglekt\

Function: transitive verb

1 : to give little attention or respect to

2 : to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness

I define it as follows:

1 : to give little attention or to leave undone or unattended to especially due to a ridiculous amount of busyness.

I am here. I am fine. I am sorry. I am tired. But more importantly, I am back!

SO much has been happening around here in the last month or so, I don't even know where to start. So, I've decided to just post away. Every day. In no particular order. For as long as it takes to get up to date. How about that?

OK, so first and foremost, my little girl started Kindergarten yesterday.

Sorry about the foggy picture.

The humidity was CRAZY yesterday and it took a while for the camera to adjust.

She was SO excited! Can you tell?

She's only been talking about this day for weeks!

And yes, I was a disaster of a mess! And in all honesty, I've been a disaster of a mess for a while now. On Sunday I ran into my friend Valerie at church and we both started crying ~ yep, just by looking at each other. (BTW, her twins started Kindergarten today.) I guess since we've both been home with our kids, it's a bit hard for us to let go.

Anyway, Daddy, Sam and I took her to school.
You'd think she's done this before by the manner in which she carried herself.  

She was assertive and confident and courageous.
Everything I was not.

  

Not once did I see a glimmer of fear or uncertainty or doubt in her eyes.

She's my hero!

We walked inside, found her classroom and met her teacher, Ms. Long.

 

We've heard SO many good things about her.

And then apparently it was time for me to leave. The nerve!

So I did. And kept busy for the entire time she was in school.

Until finally, it was time to get her. YAY!

And this little man was WAY happy to go and pick up his sister.

He spent most of the day asking to "get Ba!".

So I got her and I hugged her and I kissed her over and over and over.

Well, until she begged me to please stop. 

And then we went out for a celebratory treat, in honor of her first day.

 And we talked and talked and talked:

She really likes Ms. Long. She's really nice.

She made a friend. Her name is Taylor.

She didn't get to eat all of her lunch, because they don't get a lot of time.

She counted all the way to 100 and she beat the clock. (Huh?)

None of the other kids were able to count that high.

She wrote her name a few times.

She matched shapes and colors and letters and numbers.

Because of the rain and the "sunder" (lol), they played in the gym.

She fell and hurt her leg, but she got over it and played some more.

She was there for a long time, and she missed me, but that's OK.

She really wants to go back.

Then her Daddy called her and she told him all about her great day.

And then we came home and my heart went back to it's normal state.

Until next Monday, that is.

Ha Ha, just kidding,... or am I?

Anyway, as I was going through her backpack, I came across this note:

 

So, apparently they kids are being tested to determine where they are and what they know. Suddenly the "counting to 100 and beating the clock" comment made a whole lot more sense.

Way to go, Peanut! You so totally ROCK!

And so begins a new era in the Butler home!

A Rockin' Party

Today was Isabella's preschool Christmas party and I was assigned to be one of the party moms. Like I mentioned before, I was responsible for the kids' goody bags which I was thrilled about. One of the other moms (Mom A) volunteered to do the craft and story time, being that she was a preschool teacher in the past and all, and the other mom (Mom B) was assigned snacks. Mind you, their parties last only one hour.

The first thing we did was the craft and let's just say that Mom A was a bit oh, how shall I put it?,... ambitious. The idea was to decorate a big red bucket like Rudolph with antlers, ears, googly eyes and a big red nose. And it would have been really cute if white glue actually worked on plastic and big pieces of foamies.

I'm not a preschool teacher for many, many reasons, and giving thirteen three year olds a cup with glue and a Q-Tip to glue all of those pieces together is NOT my idea of a good time. Holy Cow! Glue was dripping everywhere! EVERYWHERE! Not to mention the kids were getting quite frustrated because nothing was sticking or staying in place.

Once it was evident that this might have been a case of biting off more than the kids can chew, we decided it would be best for us (the adults) to glue ALL of the pieces together with a hot glue gun instead. While we were hard at work with the craft project, Mom A relocated the kids to circle time and read them a few books.

OK, so once we finally turned thirteen buckets into thirteen Rudolphs one of the room teachers asked if we had snacks. Mom B, who by the way doesn't speak any English, handed her three dozen cookies. The teacher asked if she had brought anything to drink ~ Nope! So off the teacher went to find some juice to serve along with the cookies.

Needless to say by now I'm totally mortified with how badly things seem to be going. I know the teachers must think we are the most incompetent group of mothers they've ever had host a party. When suddenly a little boy squeals: "This is the best party EVER!" WHAT?!?! Yeah, I had to double check to make sure he was in the same room I was in. And then it suddenly occurred to me, they're three years old! I'm pretty sure that unless you feed them liver and raw oysters, every party is a rockin' party.

By the way, although it is strongly discouraged that younger siblings attend the parties, I had gotten an OK to bring Sam because well, what was I supposed to do with him? Luckily he was an angel. He sat quietly in his stroller and enjoyed watching the mayhem that was craft time and totally loved listening to story time. I'm sure the Cheerios and other snacks I constantly fed him didn't hurt either.

Mama Don't Play

When Isabella started school back in September I was informed that she would be the Star of the Week in her class during the week of October 20th. Well, the time has finally arrived.
One of the things that the Star of the Week does is bring a poster with pictures and information about themselves to share with their class. I honestly have not seen any of the other children's posters, but that's because I keep forgetting about it during the drop-off and pick-up times. So I'm not really sure what the others have brought in. But, as you can see Mama had lots of fun putting this little baby together.
Her poster board includes a recent picture of her, a couple pictures of when she was a baby, pictures of her family and pets, a picture of her last birthday celebration, The Backyardigans (of course!) as her favorite TV show, and pictures of the activities she enjoys doing the most, which are playing/running outside, cooking with Mommy and Daddy, drawing or painting and dancing. I also threw in a few flowers, stars, a heart, and a butterfly as fillers.

Anyway she totally loves how her board turned out and enjoyed telling me all about it this past weekend. I just hope she's as comfortable explaining it to her classmates and teachers in class today. It was kind of funny when I handed it to her teacher this morning. Something tells me I might have gone a bit overboard. Oh well,...
The other perk of being the Star of the Week is that you get to bring in one of your favorite books and it's the book that's read during story time. Well, her book of choice was "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler and I am so happy she picked this specific book because personally I think it is as cute as can be. It was one of the books we received through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Program and we have enjoyed reading it time and time again.

BTW, the Imagination Library Program is fantastic and if you live in an area where it's offered and have children under the age of 5 you should totally take advantage of it and enroll your kids in it. In a nutshell, your kids receive a free book every month. Since both of our kids are enrolled we get two free books in the mail each month, which Isabella loves and eagerly looks forward to. We found out about the program when Isabella was two years old and enrolled her immediately. Sam has been enrolled since birth. They send books until the kids turn five years old. So as you can imagine we've received quite a few of them so far. And hey, did I mention it's free? To see if it's offered in your are click here.

I can't wait to hear how the Star of the Week's first day went. I'll make sure and let you know.