Paige's First Day of Preschool

Paige has been SO excited to start preschool. She's basically been waiting all summer long. She's so excited to get to play with her friends, and do something that's just for her. I'm excited too. I love the opportunity to be creative and do fun things with my kids. I volunteered to take the first turn teaching so the first day was at our house. We had a little sign to welcome all the new preschoolers.

Paige was making the most ridiculous faces, it was hard to get a good picture because she was just too excited to hold still.

She is just the prettiest little give I've ever seen. I'm not biased at all.

There are three girls in our preschool class and only one boy (poor little guy) for a total of 4. It's the perfect size for this age group. They have all just turned 3 or are about to turn three so they are young. These girls are all very girly and silly. It's going to be a fun year.

 Here's the whole group sitting for circle time. They were pretty good for their first day.

 Waving hello!

 Working on a craft project.

 And everyone's favorite - snack time!

Good thing we have this trampoline in our backyard now, because when I taught preschool with Lucas there just wasn't anything to do in our backyard so we had playtime inside. It's nice to be able to send them outside for a change of scenery to get their wiggles out and let me prepare for the next project. They were all holding hands and it was adorable!

 We're so ready and excited for this school year!

Teaching Preschool

I've been the preschool teacher the last two weeks.  This is probably my favorite time teaching so far.  The group we have right now is really good, and the kids liked the stuff we've been learning a lot.  This month we've been learning about ponds and the types of animals, insects, and plants that live in and around ponds.  On my last day of teaching I decided to take the kids on a nature walk to the stream by our house so they could explore something similar to a pond.

Zac was the first one to show up, so he, Lucas and Paige read books while we waited for everyone else.  My friend took Paige for me so I wouldn't have to chase after her on our nature walk.  That was probably another reason why I liked teaching preschool so much this rotation - I had friends take Paige almost every day.  Paige has a lot of energy these days and is an expert at getting into trouble so she's a bit of a handful.  Teaching preschool is almost easier than having to take care of Paige!

Here's Lucas and Alyse inspecting the water for tadpoles.  We were really hoping to find some to catch.

We had little plastic containers and spoons to gather up samples of plants and mud from the pond to make our own mini ponds.  I scooped up algae and muck for the kids.  Some of them were more excited about it than others.  Here's my cute little preschoolers.  We were missing one of our usual kids.  I like having such a small class to teach and they are a pretty well behaved group.

And here is Lucas's mini pond.  He had a fun time tromping through the grass, exploring for stuff to add to his collection.

And as always, we ended class with snack time.  I made the kids popcorn and they ate it like frogs by sticking their tongues to the popcorn.  We had a fun two weeks!

Preschool Field Trip to the Fire Station

We went on a preschool field trip to the fire station yesterday.  The kids had a lot of fun.  When we first got there we rang the door bell, but no one answered, then a minute or so later we saw the fire truck pulling up.  While we were waiting for the firemen to climb out of the truck and come over, they got a call and had to leave again.  We got to see them turn on their sirens and pull out, which was fun for the kids, but then after about another minute they were pretty bored.  We kept them busy by taking pictures and playing in the bushes.

Luckily the fire truck came back pretty quickly and then they let us in for the tour.  The kids had fun looking at all the cool tools the truck had on it, and climbing in to sit inside.  The firemen doing the tour were pretty good at keeping the kids entertained, and rolling with some of the random comments and questions the kids had.  They also had one guy put on all his gear and mask to show the kids what a fireman would look like if he was coming into your house to save you from a fire.  I always think that part is so awesome, and such a good idea.  Here's almost the whole group in front of the fire truck.

 We also learned what the difference between a fire truck and a fire engine is.  A fire truck has the big hydraulic ladder attached to the top, and a fire engine is equipped with a water tank and pump.  It was a fun field trip.

We've been really busy this month and I realized I haven't really updated the blog at all.  The things we've been busy with aren't really very blog worthy, or I forgot to take pictures.  There is something we've been doing a lot lately, though, and that is having homemade smoothies.  Both of my kids are amazing eaters for about the first year and a half of their lives, and then they just decide one day that they don't like food anymore.  Paige used to eat like 8 chicken nuggets in one sitting and still eat a whole banana and a bunch of carrots, and now it's like pulling teeth to get her to finish just 2 chicken nuggets.  Both kids pretty much refuse breakfast altogether and Lucas literally starts crying almost every time I ask him what he wants to eat in the morning.  But we discovered that both of them love smoothies and will eat them anytime, so now I just make smoothies every morning for breakfast.  I can sneak stuff like oatmeal, spinach, carrots, and all sorts of healthy stuff in there, and they just gobble it up.  Aside from having to clean the blender once or twice every day, it makes my life a whole lot easier.

I love their bed hair.  To be honest that is Paige's normal hair; she looks so mangy sometimes.  She's adorable with pony tails if she ever lets me do them, though.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch for a preschool field trip last week.  Ryan had work off that day so he got to come with us.  Aside from the fact that I'm in some of the pictures, meaning he was taking the picture, there isn't any other proof that he was there.  Sorry sweetie.  We had a fun time, though.  My sister Sarah and baby Olivia were visiting and came with us and the cousins had a fun time together.

Feeding the goats and sheep.

 Taking silly pictures.

Picking out our pumpkins.

And of course, climbing on the hay bales.

Preschool group.

Paige and Lucas this year.

Paige and Lucas last year.  Paige looked a lot smaller back then.

Paige and Olivia!

Fun was had by all!

Preschool

Preschool is starting up again, and we are all so excited!  Lucas is excited...

Paige is excited...

And Paige usually takes a nap during preschool time, which she is doing right now, so I'm going to go take a bath. I won't post a pic, though.  You'll just have to believe that I'm excited too.  :)

Preschool

I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on, but first I wanted to post pictures of my last time teaching preschool for the year. This time teaching went much more smoothly than my first time, and I was much less stressed out about it.  Look at how good these kids look...

They actually were all pretty good for the most part, and Lucas did much better this time around with having the kids playing with all his toys.  We learned about the desert, and desert animals and plants, and the last day we learned about the desert at night and the different animals that come out at night.  I decided it would be fun to make a pretend campfire and let them "roast" marshmallows and hot dogs around the fire while I read stories.  The kids LOVED it!

 Here's a close up of my pretend camp fire.  It's a little ghetto, but the kids liked it.

They were a little too excited about the marshmallows and didn't pay as much attention to my reading as I would have liked, but that's okay, we did get through a few books.

We have three weeks of preschool left and then I'll have to start coming up with stuff to do to entertain Lucas again.  It has been nice having a break every once in a while.

First Day of Preschool

We're doing a Joy school rotation with some of the other moms in our church for preschool.  I don't have to teach till the end of the year so I get some time before I have to teach, and I also get some time with just the baby while Lucas gets to play with friends.Win-Win!  Lucas was really excited to be going to school this morning.  He wouldn't pose without puppy and kitty, though.

It's not quite as scary sending him to school since it's only for two hours, two days a week, and it's always in someone's home.  Still, though, I can't believe he's getting to be so big.