He's Only One

SJ turns one this evening at 10:06 pm.

He's on the move. He'll be walking any day now.

Everything goes in his mouth. He's got ONE tooth and it's only half way in.

Those lips. Those eyes. That sweet gummy smile.

He's a blondie. He'll be a heart breaker.

He's in love with his sisters. Each time we get in the car to pick them up from school, he's looking all around for them.

If they aren't in the car, he just goes to sleep to pass the time until they show up again.

He's got a few curls in the back of his tow head. A few rolls and sweet dimples.

He's only one.

I Love This Place

Cruisin' through our sweet little college town, I often find a view such as this:

Love her flowers in the basket for decoration!

Now that school is back in session, our town has come to life again! Many families here summer in the NC mountains or spend their time at the local beaches in condos. All the snow birds are gone through the dog days of summer, which will unfortunately continue most likely through October here.

There is, however a hint of fall with the onset of school. I love the hum around town, and I love seeing the new freshmen arrive for their first step to independence. I love the sidewalk cafes full of moms chatting over coffee, coeds getting to know their new roommates and business people making deals over croissants. Our town has hit the reset button and has come alive again!

What gets you going for Fall???

Her Turn

This morning it was her turn:

AE was ready to go to her first day of Kindergarten.

I finally found the perfect first day dress.

Backpack packed and ready to go.

The Daddy blocked off his morning a made the walk in with us.

At the front doors:

In front of her classroom:

At her table:

With her teacher, Mr. Foster:

Mr. Foster came to our house to meet our girl a couple of weeks ago. Last week, we went to his classroom to see where AE would spend her days for the next school year.

We also got to meet Nicholas, the classroom bunny:

I took this picture, so I could know where she was in her day if I stop to pray for her. Right now as I type this, she's at lunch! Notice, NO NAP TIME.

Daily jobs for each student:

AE will be getting a lesson in diversity this year. First, with a male teacher and secondly, her class is like the United Nations!

What made it pretty easy to walk away smiling this morning is AE is really ready to learn AND she has a friend from her preschool cheerleading class in her new Kindergarten class. They even sit at the same table!

Last night we took the whole family out to eat at Downtown Disney:

Can you tell where we ate?

SJ was scared the whole time, poor thing!

But look at what was trumpeting right behind him!

Our plan was to ride this balloon after dinner:

But it wasn't running last night.

HJ showing you her red tongue from her souvenir smoothie monkey cup:

And next year, we'll do the same thing as we send HJ off to Kindergarten, too!

This Year, Last Year

First Day of Pre-K this year:

First Day of Pre-K last year:

Little Miss Independent went on a date with Mama last night. We discussed important things like how she really wishes she could fly, what to do on the first day of school and why guacamole tastes so good.

I found out the thing Miss HJ was looking forward to the most this year as a Pre-K 4'er, is getting to walk UP the stairs to go to her classroom. Only the big kids' classrooms are upstairs. HJ also declared that she did not NEED me to walk in with her. She REALLY wanted to be dropped off in carpool.

So I did.

Then I parked and came in to see how she did.

I found this once we arrived UPSTAIRS:

She came in, hung up her "bee bag," picked up her table work and sat down to get started.

Once we came in, HJ confessed to AE (who starts Kindergarten NEXT Monday) that there was something wrong with her letters. You can see the bottle caps with each individual letter, but there were are few of the wrong ones there.

Once she got the right letters, all was well.

Then we tried to get a picture of all of us!

And one with JUST HJ AND ME:

Sort of:

Can you see sweet screaming SJ being carried away by AE? Ha!

Now to do it all over again next week with AE!

The Encounter

Last weeks of summer, so what does a mama do? Squeeze in all the things she said we'd do at the beginning.

On a whim, I took the brood to the butterfly encounter at one of our local nurseries. We bought a season pass in the spring, and it has proved to be well worth the money. I also got to pick up a few plants for around our yard while we were there.

I let the girls get dressed by themselves. AE looks adorable and Christopher Robin-ish in her rain boots, but why did HJ choose AE's old soccer jersey? I love that she paired the jersey with some beachy, terry shorts, ruffled eyelet socks and her "fast shoes."

I dressed the baby.

Love how they just hung those Adirondack chairs up in the pine tree!

My loot:

The butterfly encounter is a multi-room exhibit, landscaped with all manner of nectar producing plants.

It is all enclosed in a greenhouse-like structure, so you can imagine the warmth on a lovely day in August. In central Florida. In August. To be fair, we did have a nice overcast morning that I THOUGHT would make it a little more bearable.

There are lovely water features and garden art.

When you enter, you get a chart detailing the different varieties of butterflies and many instructions on how to behave inside. No chasing the button quail, no touching or catching the butterflies, except inside the designated area where you can feed them Gatorade.

Can you see the wings in motion up above? That little beauty would NOT sit still!

Inside the approved "feeding" station

Toward the end of the exhibit, there is a nice little surprise collection of finches.

Some are quite colorful.

This little blue guy was my favorite.

The girls of course love the rainbow colored ones.

If you squint, you can see the sweet little hummingbird that I was lucky to catch for half a second as she rested on this empty branch. One of the nursery employees was rehabilitating the sweet bird and brought her to work with him that day.

These are the sweet button quail that run around on the ground all throughout the encounter. They are hard to get a picture without laying down on the ground, but these old girls were roosting and preening right by the exit, so I was able to finally get a shot.

The colors and flowers throughout are gorgeous:

And so is our little button-nosed baby boy: