First Day of Kindergarten

It was a big week in our household.... Ashlyn started Kindergarten!  She was so so excited, but a little nervous (in her own words). It has been one fabulous week for her!  We are so glad she loves it!

She is in a gifted and talented school called Dunbar.  The school systems are very interesting her.  This building is kindergarten - 2nd grade.  Then there is a whole separate building a couple blocks away that is 3rd-5th grade.  6th-8th grade is the middle school, which all the elementary schools attend and then there is only one high school.  That is a lot of kids!

Here is the crew dropping off Ashlyn.  Her school starts at 7:45 in the morning and it takes about 15 minutes to drive there.  We have to leave the house by 7:15-7:20 to be there on time.  The mornings are very busy.

Ashlyn had her first assignment... we read this cute poem before bedtime and then we sprinkled the confetti under her pillow.

She was so excited to sleep. 

Claire wanted to join the fun. This is how she smiles lately...I love how she closes her eyes.

Ashlyn had this assignment given to her to do to bring the first day of school.  It is all about her family heritage.  She did an excellent job!

Her first assignment at school.  They read the kissing hand on the first day of school and this is her work.  I was surprised that she drew herself crying on the first day of school because she was so excited to be there.  She walked right in her classroom and sat down.  Me on the other hand said my goodbyes and lingered as long as possible in the hallway.  It was a bittersweet experience.  I was so proud of my baby girl, but I was going to miss her!  I was holding back tears, but when I got to the car I cried all the way home.  Brinley asked me if there was something in my eye that was making me cry.  So sweet. 

Ashlyn's desk

Saying the pledge and I was surprised to learn that they have a Texan pledge.  Ashlyn and I need to learn it together. 

So the weekend before school started, I was getting ready for this next transition. I got the toy room all organized and decorated. 

Another project completed before school started. I love structure and routine! YAY for chores!  First week was a success!  I have been researching for chore charts with pictures and I found exactly what I was looking for! They have their daily chores and then each day they have a room in the house that we "deep" clean. Hopefully I will keep up with it:)

Des is getting so big.  She has been sitting up for awhile on her own and she absolutely loves her toys (if no one takes them away from her).

She is at the stage where everything and anything goes into the mouth.

For the last week of summer, it has been rainy and these kiddos will go swim rain or shine.  They could swim all day, until we hear thunder.  That gets them out of the pool so fast!  This is them hanging out waiting patiently for me to get ready to swim. 

When it is raining and you can't swim outside, what do you do?  You take a bath of course!  Love these three munchkins (chunkmins)!  I hope that they stay best friends!

I looked out the window and what did I see?  Three little monkeys running back from the mailbox.  I want to cherish these little moments of childhood, laughter, friendship, and pure joy. I also love the 10 seconds of quietness to myself :)

The last 2 week of summer break these kiddos would fight like crazy.  I got the idea from a close friend to start a fuzzy jar (thanks Alicia) and it worked like magic!  They are so motivated to do services for each other, share toys, and be nice. So once they filled up the jar, they chose that they wanted to go to Wendy's to get a frosty.  

It started to cry while we were eating ice cream and Brinley got her rain boots to jump in the puddles!

While Derek was in California for his ortho course, the girls got to have a sleepover in by bed two days in a row!  They were so excited!  It is fun how much they love it, but lets be honest, I don't get to sleep well.  I love these moments because they won't fit in my bed forever with me.  Childhood is so fun because these sleepovers when dad is gone is a BIG DEAL!  They look forward to it and so do I. 

Let them be little!

Dance Class

I attempted to teach these kiddos dance, but it didn't go as well as I planned.  It ended up being a dance party, then a dance class.  I bought a book to get lesson plans and ideas on how and what to teach them...ha ha.  I guess we will just stick to the weekly dance parties!  

We did a trial class for Ashlyn to try dance class.  It turned out great!  I even talked to the teacher about putting Brinley in the class (especially with how well our "dance class" earlier that day turned out..ha ha).  They absolutely LOVE it!!!! They ask everyday if it is dance day!!!

They will be doing ballet, tap, and clogging!

Later in the week we had to go shopping for dance outfits!  This is in the dressing room and they were so hyper and excited! Ha ha got to love Brinley's face ha ha

It is a bit weird doing stuff without Ashlyn, but life goes on with our adventures.  We went to a neighboring city to a playgroup and it was so much fun!  The city is called Nacogdoches .  This playgroup started 9 years ago by their Relief Society, but it has grown so much that most of people are non-members.  So cool!  

It was so great for the kids, but also for me!  There were about 20 moms there and it was the first playgroup in awhile so every mom got into a big circle to introduce themselves.  About half of these moms had 5 plus kids!  It made me feel "normal" and not so out of place.  Since moving to Lufkin I have felt so out of place having 4 kids (I know that sounds silly).  Most people here only have 1 or 2 kids and it is rare to find someone with 3 and really rare to find someone with more.  So this experience for me was a HUGE blessing to realize that I'm not alone.  There are people around me that have a lot of kids too.  It was surprising that most of these moms with 5 plus kids weren't members either.  One of the moms that I got to know had 7 kids (10 and younger).  She gave me lots of advice and encouragement.  

These are a few pictures of the girls at the event.

Claire was making friends with everyone and anyone around her.  It was so fun to see this shy girl get out of her comfort zone.

I couldn't find Brinley until I looked over at the bars.  She was in her own little world, Summer Olympics 2030. So cute!

We started Mommy School!  I don't know who was more excited me or them.  haha.  I have to continue my teaching hobby with these two!

I recently listened to a mom podcast called power of moms (which I love and i'm a fairly faithful listener) and she mentioned that when her kids were little they would go outside and walk around a tree and come back to the front door to do joy school.  Well I decided to apply that to mommy school and the girls love it!  Instead of a tree they walk out the garage, around the front of the house to the front door.  They have to call me Miss Jenny during the 1 1/2 - 2 hours of Mommy School.  They love it!

The culture here is so respectful to their elders and everyone says "yes ma'am" and "no sir".  I am still getting used to it, but I truly love it!  Derek and I are debating if we should use it in our household to teach our children so they can get into the habit to share wit.  What are your thoughts?

This week for mommy school we did an intro to the alphabet, sang ABCs (which felt a bazillion times, who can resist two cute faces saying "again, again!", then we practiced spelling Brinley's name.

I had to get creative with Brinley because she is definitely a more energized girl and needs that physical aspect with learning.  To spell her name, she would throw the star to each letter in her name. She absolutely LOVED it!!!

This is serious star throwing!

We talked about their Special Letters and did a craft. 

Searching for the alphabet.

(I am mainly documenting this because I want to remember what I did with my kiddos).

We did the song/dance Head, shoulders, knees, and toes and did an activity where the girls colored the girl and cut the strips.  While we sang the song, they put the girl together.

We made this cute Guess Who book. We traced their hand and colored each page.

It turns out, they are closely the same (expect the coloring ability).

She has blue eyes, "yellow" hair,

favorite color is pink, favorite food is mac and cheese,

Who am I?

In this blog I want to share with you my feelings and my experiences because this blog is to document our family, but I want you all to know that we are really people too.  Life is not always blissful.  Derek and I recently spoke in church and I talked about trials.  I never really thought of moving as a trial, but it has been hard for us in many ways, but we have seen the hand of God in many ways as well.  Transition is difficult, change is sometimes hard.  

There have been many times when I think to myself and say to Derek "where are we, are we really going to raise our children here."  (those are usually the moments when i come home from the store and meet lots of people with decay on their teeth or missing their teeth while wearing overalls...ha ha I didn't know they still made them).  I feel at times that we are in Hickville!  There are very few members and the members seems to have really hard lives.  It has made me reflect on the blessing of being born in Utah with the culture of the church all round me and having wonderful parents.  Derek and I have really seen the blessing of being raised in wonderful/amazing families.  Our testimonies have grown in the importance of daily family prayer, scripture study, and family home evening.  It is essential in raising our children!  

I am a very social person and finding friends is a work in progress.  Finding someone that I click with has not been as easy.  Derek and I would make cookies to a family in the ward each Sunday to get to know people (more for me than for him...he is such a homebody), I have been inviting moms over to swim about 2-3 times a week, I have been reaching out to members and non-members.  The people that I tend to click more with are moms that are in the next stage in life (where all there kids are in school).  It is a bit frustrating at times, because I feel like I am reaching out, but I haven't found the perfect friend. I am starting to wonder if I have too high expectations.  Has anyone ever felt like me? Village Green (Omaha) was Mommy heaven because I could go outside to our backyard and their would be a handful of moms in my stage in life and kids to play with my kids.  It really was so great. Now that we live in a house, it is a bit isolating and it takes energy and effort to plan playdates.  It is not as convenient. 

I am beginning to wonder, what is friendship like as an adult?  ha ha I laugh about it but I am being serious.  I guess I always pictured myself having girls nights once or twice a month, have one or two close friends that I could share everything with and they would not pass any judgement.  Is that realistic? 

Last night I was reflecting on my closest friends... my mom and sisters, and a few friends that I have made at critical times in my life (college, mission, and dental school).  Does distance matter?  Ok now I am just babbling...

If you have any advice for me I would love to hear it!

Thanks for taking the time to read the blog!  We enjoy hearing when you read it.  Well I have to go get Ashlyn from school.  Hope you have a wonderful day!