Leyna's really, really, REAL first day of school!

Hahaha. Okay, so yes, today was Leyna's third day going to school but it was the first day that she went for the whole time (2 1/2 hours) and I actually left the premises! It was hard. She was nervous again and had a death grip on my hand but went to Ms. Tammy pretty easily. Cora and I ducked out and I was doing pretty well until I started to buckle Cora in the car and she said "Mommy, can we get Nayna?" She didn't want to leave her there. My eyes welled up with tears but I held it together. Cora and I hit the grocery store for a few things, then went home and shared a snack and cleaned the kitchen. Well, I cleaned the kitchen and Cora enjoyed having toys all to herself without anyone trying to negotiate them away from her ;)
When we got back to school the class was playing on the playground and Leyna was clearly having a ball. It made my heart happy. Cora and I hid behind a truck with a few other parents until the class lined up and went inside for their backpacks. Leyna was super excited when we picked her up and it was so obvious that she had a blast. She had some art in her backpack, they had celebrated a boy's birthday and had football shaped Oreos, they talked about the weather, and her job today was to turn the lights on for snack  (they turn them off as a sign to clean up). Go Leyna!

Cora: "Leyna, you had fun at class?" 

Shortly after this picture Leyna asked me, "Was Cora okay? Did she miss me? I can't believe you went all the way  home and I didn't even know!"

The rest of the day was pretty laid back and then this evening we played in dirt. Seriously, we ordered an entire dump truck of compost to spread over our yard. We are on a mission to make our yard so nice that the girls can run in bare feet and roll in the grass without stepping in a hole or on a rock. The girls were big helpers tonight and had a ball getting filthy. Needless to say they took a long bath tonight and fell asleep pretty darn fast!

Nice, long day

Today was such a nice, long day. It's great when Sunday's are like that! We got a lot done, had a lot of fun, enjoyed the weather, and especially enjoyed one another's company.
I had the gift of sleeping in this morning! 7:30 baby!!! Seriously, that is really good. I haven't slept that late in as long as I can remember! We had breakfast...

 Worked on cleaning out our summer garden to make room for some fall veggies...

 Green tomatoes anyone?

 Daddy and Leyna put together the aerator and then aerated the yard...

And Cora decided her new favorite thing is to read on the potty. Even when she's done I am not allowed to get her down until she has read her book about 3 times. LOL. She also had a new saying: "No way who's day!" (instead of "No way, Jose!")

And finally Daddy decided to break out his huge bin of childhood Legos. We had a surprisingly good time sorting and playing with these for a very long time.

It was a great day!

Fun with Max

We had such a fun time today. We met up with our friends Marco, Dara, and Max and, even though the weather didn't cooperate and we had to flip-flop our playground/restaurant plans, it all turned out lovely. We started out with a delicous lunch and gave Max his birthday gift which seemed to be a pretty big hit. Then we walked around downtown and saw some sights, made a pit stop at Starbucks, and headed to the park for some play. Max is so stinking cute I can hardly stand it. The kids were adorable together. Can't wait to meet his new little sister soon!

Starbucks has cake pops! SO GOOD!!!

Leyna's First Day of School

Today was the big day. Leyna had her very first day of preschool. Nerves were high this morning and it was so cute because I even caught her saying an extra prayer at breakfast...

We took a couple of pictures on the porch but it was a little chilly!

We headed off to class and Leyna checked with me 500 times that I would still be in the building (yes, they were having a reception for parents today) and would I please come check on her if she called me? (sadly, no). I'm not sure how nervous she really was but I can tell you my stomach was tied in knots and I felt a little sick. I'm sure I would have cried if I actually had to drive away today. I made sure I had the "don't ever go anywhere with strangers" talk with her and that didn't settle either of our nerves. But she did say "I KNOW MOM. You told me that last time!" Yes, I'm overprotective. She's going to have to get over it.
Anyway, when we got to the room she hung up her backpack, I signed her in, and then she looked at me forlornly and reached her hand out for me not to go. I gave her a quick kiss, told her I'd be back very soon, watched her settle in with one of the helpers, and booked it outta there as fast as I could. Luckily she wasn't one of the three kids crying and trying to escape because my heart would have exploded.
Cora and I hung out and ate candy and donuts and time flew right by. Before we knew it we were in line to pick her up and this is what I saw when the teacher called her name:

And this is what happened as soon as we got out the door:

And she looked at me like I was an angel and said "Momma!" like 25 times and we were all together again :) She said she had fun, they sang songs, read a story, played, and had snack though she couldn't remember what it was. We are SO proud of our little school girl!
Next on the agenda was a doctor's appointment for Cora to check up on this cough she's had for 4 1/2 weeks. Ugh. We have started antibiotics to try to clear it up but the really exciting news from the appointment is that Cora is now 22  lbs, 6 oz. The doctor was so impressed with the weight she's gained in the past month that we get to cancel her weigh-in appointment that was still a few weeks away. Go Cora! Now we will just have to hope she doesn't have a lifelong bacon addiction since that's what she's been eating for the past 4 weeks ;)

Diary of a special day

So tomorrow is Leyna's first real official day of school. Last week she and I visited her classroom together but tomorrow she will go in there without me :( I'm pretty sure she's both nervous and excited so I tried to set her up with a low-key day and a special evening.
This morning we made a special house for our animal friends...

This afternoon we had a visit from Nana and Pee Paw...

And this evening I set a special table for our little First Day of School Princess...

The girls got dressed in their new dresses and were bouncing off the walls with excitement...

I served up Slow Cooker Lasagna, salad, and milk in special glasses...

After dinner Leyna got a special gift (5 learning-to-read books)...

Daddy read them while I prepared an extra special dessert...

S'mores!!!

And after dinner they had enough of a sugar rush to run around the deck in the suddenly freezing cold weather. BRR!

Can't wait to see how our little BIG girl does tomorrow :)