First two days of "school"

Well, we finally started Mother's Day Out three mornings a week at our church (and Phil's office) and the girls LOVE it! Phil and I are in awe of how well they have done. We knew Lily was ready. The last 6 months she has turned into a social butterfly when it comes to other 4 year old girls and she has been bored around the house. Kate has not showed any signs of wanting to be anywhere away from Mommy. With both girls, we have struggled with extreme shyness, generalized anxiety and fears of being away from me. They got the best teachers possible who have worked so hard to make them feel loved and to have fun. The change we have seen in Kate is amazing since she started MDO. Phil and I keep looking at each other in amazement these last two weeks as she takes on, with grace, social situations that before would have really shut her down. Half way through the second morning, the school secretary called Phil and said, "You've got to come see this!" Both girls were talking and laughing in their class. They hardly ever talk in public. What a blessing!
Here they are leaving the house the first morning accompanied by their new school outfits, cool lunch boxes packed with hot and sour soup and Spiderman fruit roll-ups, pink backpacks and Mickey Mouse ("Super Mickey" as Kate calls him) ready to secretly hide in the backpack. Katie was SO excited about her school shirt. She has worn it everytime she has gone to school. It is a Mickey shirt with her name on it. It seems more important to her than Lily that she have her own idenity. When I put the shirt on her, she nearly busted at the seams. She said with the biggest smile, "Now everyone will know my name!"














Below are some pictures that one of their teachers took during the first day...














































The teachers let me come 15 minutes before the end of the morning and read to the class one of Kate and Lily's favorite books. This is the one they chose. They were laughing and so proud of themselves while I was reading it!




















Here they are leaving the house the morning of the second school day. I'm so glad they have each other!

Lily starts ballet...finally.

I'm so behind on my blogging! So much has happened with the girls that I just have to go back and update the last month. I'll start with the most recent, though.
Lily has been begging to take ballet for a LONG time. She has been saying she wants to be a ballerina for about a year. She wears ballet outfits all the time and makes up dances. Early in the summer we signed up for Briarwood ballet. She was beside herself. They gave us a lengthy manual at that time. She made me read it front to back to her that night. She always wants to wear her hair in a bun or ponytail since that is what ballerinas do. The first day of ballet, she was asking at 6am to put on her ballet outfit. It was a LONG time until 2:30pm. She got there and was a little nervous from the newness, but warmed up very quickly and absolutely LOVED it! I can't wait to see her blossom there.
Kate has no interest in taking ballet. She and I sat outside and peeked in...honestly we were quite obnoxious...shamelessly peering in the window at her and trying to take inconspicuous photos. Kate's sport is going to be running. She and I are going to do some fun runs this fall together. This weekend we got to see her cousin, Megan's, cross country meet. Go, Megan!

Here is a picture of Lily before she relaxed and started having fun...



















Here is her sweet class. Her friend, Laura Joy is in her class (to the right of the teacher in the blue) and Lily is sitting with her back to me right in front of the teacher in the blue.

Another random update on Lily.... She just told me of her first dream. We were sitting around yesterday afternoon and she announced, "Mommy, I had a dream last night! Abby and I were at the candy store eating lots of gum." She hasn't asked to play with her good friend, Abby Barnhart, yet since she moved to UTAH! I'm waiting until she askes to see her to tell her about the move. She is going to be so sad.