First Day Of School - 2nd Grade

I just got back from taking Kendle to school a little bit ago. The school zone was a complete zoo, you have to have major defensive driving skills to navigate around all of the crosswalks, bike riders, mom's pushing strollers, dad's holding camera's, and those pushy drivers who think they can just zip in and out and steal spots from people. I took Morgan's stroller along in the off chance Kendle would want us to walk with her and hang out for a bit. No such luck. She was very insistent that I could just drop her off and in her typical independent fashion took off down the sidewalk without a glimpse back and a bounce in her step. Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor by not having to lug the stroller and Morgan around the crazy throng of people. In any case, we sat and watched her walk for a while and make it safely across the war zone to the playground.


She kept telling me last night that she did not feel prepared for school and I couldn't figure out why. We had her lunch mostly packed, backpack ready, school outfit picked out, she showered before bed, alarm clock set - what was left to do? Riley gave her a father's blessing before bed and I think that helped. She just gets very anxious and worried about stuff like this (gets that from me) and she has a hard time being calm about it. We set her alarm for 6:45 which I thought was still a tad early, and wouldn't you know it she was up by 6:30 anyways. She was all ready and waiting to go by 7:45. That is Kendle for you.


I'm so excited for her to have another great year at school. I think 2nd grade will be fun for her. There are a lot of children in her class that she doesn't know, so she will be making lots of new friends. She does really good with the school routine and staying busy. She's doing piano lessons and soccer as well, so all of that combined should keep her occupied. My mother always thought piano was a good outlet for me to vent some of my frustrations as I played and practiced (sometimes much louder than others), and sports are good for that too. I think they give children a place to run off extra energy, get tired, have fun, and get some of those frustrations from life out as well.


I managed to take a few quick pictures before we headed off to school. It's tradition to do it. Morgan wanted to be in a few of them as he ate his banana. Kendle was appalled, but I told her it was ok I'd take some of just her by herself too.










































Here's to a happy school year!

Getting Ready for School

Today was the little "ice cream social" aka visit your new classroom and put your school supplies away day at Kendle's school. This year Kendle's class is out in a pod near the playground and her new teacher seems very peppy, friendly, and nice. I think Kendle will really enjoy her. We found her desk and her cubby and looked around the room a bit. Morgan was very taken with a big fake bear rug the teacher had draped over the chair in the reading corner. He was ready to sit down and stay a while.

I just put the Morgster down for a nap and Riley took Kendle out for the afternoon on a little daddy daughter date. While they are gone I am going to take advantage of the time to clean out and organize her room a bit. I feel like it needs to be done before school starts on Monday. If I'm extra industrious I hope to have time to clean out all of her hair accessories in the bathroom cupboard. She has tons of little barrettes and things that don't fit in her hair anymore, so it's time to chuck them. I bought some new clear plastic storage containers to put all the rubber bands, headbands, clips, ribbons, etc. in and hopefully that will help somewhat tame the chaos of searching for something to put in her hair.

I feel like I'm kind of behind this year on getting all of the school stuff done. Kendle has quite a few pairs of pants that I wanted to hem because they are too long, but maybe I can get that done next week. Come to think of it, I should put some reinforcement material behind the knees of all of her pants now too. I don't know what she does at school, but her jeans never last very long. I know I'm not alone with that problem.

This weekend we'll be working to get ready for the new school/fall season. I've got some baking to do, lunch supplies to get ready, and school clothes to iron. Riley will be working on our fence that needed some mending and getting the car washed and cleaned out. Also, hopefully putting up our new wall lights from Ikea that will go by our bed. I'm excited about our bedroom makeover I've been working on the last few weeks. I'll have to post some pictures when I'm all done.

I can feel the change in the air and I'm looking forward to fall, the cooler weather, and perhaps having a bit more time to start getting ready for these baby boys to get here. I feel like the nesting and cleaning frenzy is already kicking in and I'm driving my family crazy with how cranky I've been lately about the house not being spotless. I know that it is just those fabulous hormones rearing their ugly head. Riley knows by now though that if things aren't just so, I go crazy and don't feel prepared. As the saying in our house goes, "If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." I usually feel bad after I get mad about something, but there is just something about a stray sock or shoe laying in the middle of the floor and everyone just walks around it like it's not there that drives me absolutely insane! I know I should be used to it by know and let it slide, but I just can't. Some things just will always bug me.

Well, off to go work. Then I'm taking the rest of the night off! Ha.

One last Hurrah

So I caved in and decided to let Kendle have a friend party after all this year. As my friend Natallie said, once these twins come I won't feel like doing things like this anymore so I better give that little girl the best party I can right now.

Kendle wanted a cowgirl themed party, but since it was kind of last minute planning and I wanted to keep it kind of easy, it was more of a "pretty pink girly cowgirl" party based on what I could find when I was shopping, instead of a barnyard throwdown hoedown like I'm sure she was thinking more of. It was really fun though and all of the girls had a great time. They are a good little group and and I really enjoyed them. I'm so glad Kendle has such good little friends. My good friend Kristen helped me get balloons beforehand and took Morgan for me during the party which was such a huge help, so everything went really, really smoothly.

When the girls first arrived, I had them come sit down at our dining table. I had a pink hat and bandana for each of them. I tied on their bandanas and then they all decorated their cowgirl hats with ribbon, feathers, flowers, and other little things. They LOVED it, and it was really cute to see them each taking their time to make their hat as cool as can be. I guess you could say these hats ended up looking more like "old lady tea party hats" rather than cowgirl hats, but it was still super fun. Here's a picture of all the finished hats:

Here is a picture of the girls:

After decorating the hats I had them color and do some little activities and then we played a game where they had to toss a ball into a cowboy hat. I was really impressed with how polite the girls were towards one another. As they were all sitting around the table coloring I asked them if they realized that they were all the only girls in their family. I told them it's neat that they're friends and they can all stick together to get away from the boys. Ha, ha.

The girls were all wanting Kendle to open her presents, so we decided to do that before cake and icecream:

After opening presents we had cake and icecream. I made her a little pony cake, and I'll just say that I'm kind of a big deal around our house because of it. Kendle was so excited, she almost didn't want me to cut into it. I thought it turned out fairly well:

I didn't get any pictures of Kendle blowing out her candles because my camera conveniently decided it needed more batteries at this point and of course I couldn't find any.

After cake and icecream the girls watched the new Hannah Montana movie until their parents came to get them. *Side story: Kendle does not like Hannah Montana and when we went to rent the movie, she even let the guy checking us out know that she was no fan of hers. I knew the other little girls would like it however, so I told her to just take one for the team this time. So she probably mentioned to me throughout the day about fifty times that she does not like Hannah Montana. When I had the girls sit down to watch it she mentioned it a few more times. Later on as we were going to pick up Morgan she said to me, "Mom can we watch that movie again later tonight? It's actually pretty good." This is the story of my life with her.

Overall it was a great time and I'm glad I decided to do it.

**Here is the link to the Betty Crocker website where I got the idea and template for the cake. It was really pretty simple. This website is filled with tons of super cute cake ideas and they walk you through step by step how to do it, so even people like me can try it.

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes.aspx/pony-cake

Birthday Girl

Kendle turned 7 on Sunday. My parents came up and went to church with us and then came over for dinner and cupcakes afterwards. We let her open her presents and she has been pretty occupied playing with them since then. I'm letting her have a little friend party tomorrow afternoon and will post some pictures of that later.



I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that she is growing up so fast and changing every day. I can see the changes in the clothes that don't fit anymore and the shoes that are too small, but she's also growing in many other ways as well. She is always learning and making her mind strong. She asks questions to find out about the world and the way things work. She's started to take on a few more responsibilities and do more things for herself. She's also becoming more independent and stubborn. We have many disagreements and sometimes our personalities clash, but I want her to know that's ok. We'll figure out a way to make things better and be good friends.



I think back to the year she was born and what a hard year that was for me. She was a baby that hardly ever slept and I was so exhausted (exhausted would be a huge understatement, I was a walking zombie) and spent much of the time alone while Riley was working varying shifts at his job. Sometimes it just felt like too much for one person to handle and I didn't think I could possibly survive taking care of this demanding, energetic, little person. I think the one thing that saved me was how happy she was almost all of the time. She would laugh and smile and play with me all day. She wasn't a baby that wanted to just lay around - she wanted to do things! We became best buddies and did everything together. She would watch me in the garden or doing yard work, I'd push her in the stroller and we would take walks every day around the neighborhood, she'd bring me piles of books to read with her, we'd take drives to go visit grandma and grandpa and go to Tucker and Tamra's games, and we'd fall asleep on the couch together waiting for Riley to get home. In hind sight I see that I was especially lucky for us to have that special time together - just the two of us.



Now she's getting ready to start second grade and I wonder sometimes where that little buddy went that wanted to do everything with me, but I'm so happy for what a good girl she is and all of the qualities she possesses. She makes Riley and I proud to be her parents and we couldn't imagine our life without her.