Reading and Writing for William

William has become quite the student. He's extremely interested in learning to write and that started at the beginning of 3 day 3's last year with writing his name. This year with Pre-K, reading is the added interest. 

He's spelling out some simple words like Lego and Elmo, asking how to spell our first names, writing "letters" (uppercase and lowercase all jumbled together then tells me what his note "says") and now the reading, which is exciting! I picked up a collection of first readers books for him and read the first one in the set a few weeks ago. He immediately wanted to read it by himself. It only has a few basic words that make up the "book" and I can tell he's mesmerizing the words, which I guess is where it all begins! 

We have started reading chapter books too. Charlotte's Web and My Father's Dragon are the first two. He stays interested and we only read a chapter or two a night. I'm happy William seems to love reading as much as I do! I am most excited for him to read Harry Potter! 

Keep up the good work, William! Hopefully the video above of him reading that first night shows up properly... 

School Pictures

School pictures are back! We got some good ones and of course - some pretty goofy ones too. Clare got in on the sibling picture. I asked for one quick picture of the three of them, but the photographer kept going with it... haha Clare being manhandled in most. Poor thing.

This is William's last year taking school pictures. They do black and white photos in the spring, but this is the "official" photo of the year! He's come a long way since year 1. See below!

William Pre-K 2016-2017

Baby William! Young 2's 2013-2014

Grace 3 day 3's 2016-2017

Closed eye embrace - sibling love!

William and Grace

Holding hands with Clare

Nice pictures to wrap up William's last year. I will miss him being at this school so much. He loves it and it's been a wonderful place for him to grow. His first teachers are still around and it's fun to talk to them about how much he's grown too. It isn't just me watching. Hope this year goes by slowly, but already we're in October gearing up for the holidays. Relishing each and every moment watching these two at school loving life and enjoying being little. I wouldn't trade it for anything!

First Day of School

Let us in!!

William and Grace started the 2016-2017 school year on Monday! William begins Pre-K and that feels like a big milestone. He's at school FOUR times a week and it seems like way too much time away from home! Grace is in 3 day 3's and that seems like too much too! Usually I'm excited for them (and I still am), but this was a tough year! Both of them are gone a majority of the weekday mornings now... (I begin to blubber and Matt comforts me by saying "and soon they'll be in college and gone FOREVER!"). But of course, they were pumped and couldn't wait to get into their classrooms.

First Day picture of William

First Day picture of Grace

Daddy came along too

Hot and sweaty waiting for the doors to open

Big man on campus!

Grace with Mrs. Carter

William with Mrs. Holland

William gets to walk upstairs to his classroom all by himself as a big Pre-K man, which he heard at Meet the Teacher. He didn't forget. As soon as we walked into the building he said he wanted to lead the way to his classroom by himself. We were a few steps behind and hugged him goodbye at the classroom. He was the first one in and so he got a nice picture with Mrs. Holland. Since then I've been walking him into the building each day this week and yesterday I needed to go in to the front office, which is upstairs. William told me, "Stay down here and don't come up until I'm in my classroom." So I had to wait at the bottom of the stairs, he checked that I wasn't following and off he went. I waited one minute then went up to the front office -- and of course popped my head into his classroom to make sure he got there :) 

Grace didn't even say goodbye to us. She had to pick out her name and begin the "check-in" process with Mrs. Carter. We yelled "Bye Grace!" - got nothing - and went off. 

Two happy kiddos - happy bee and a happy monkey actually. I think this will be a really great year. They have great kids in their classes and their teachers are great. Relishing the last year with William and Grace being together at this school... I hope it goes by slowly. 

Good luck this year you two! We can't wait to see how you grow!

Meet the Teacher

It is that time of year again! Back to school. This year is hard because William is entering pre-kindergarten and going to school four times a week. I'm going to miss him! William and Grace are both excited to go back and this past week had the chance to meet their new teachers. 

William's meet the teacher was on Monday. This year he has Mrs. Holland. 

On our way to meet Mrs. Holland

William's classroom is very nice. One of the biggest classrooms in the school and really nicely organized. This year all pre-K classes will have Spanish once a week and they'll work a lot on the alphabet, numbers and beginning to write and read. His other assistants are Ms. Cecilia, Ms. Spangler and Ms. Voll. The kids in his class are very sweet and we already had a class play date. We all met on the playground on Thursday and the kids hit it off immediately. William knew several of them from past classes and other play dates.

Excited to be a Busy Bee!

Grace is in 3 day 3's with Mrs. Carter this year. She's a monkey! We met Mrs. Carter before Meet the Teacher Day because she came to our class play date on Tuesday! So sweet of her to come and meet everyone early on. Grace is in a class of 10 GIRLS and 4 boys! I'll be interested to see how that goes with so many girly personalities. She knows four of the kids in her class already and got along great with the other new kids, so we are all excited about the new class. We went to the classroom on Wednesday to see the other assistants and the room. Ms. Patricia and Ms. Cambron are the other assistants.

There's her name! Grace the Monkey!

Getting down to business... what toys do we have here?

Happy to get back in the school swing

Grace's decorated family frame

What a BUSY week! School hasn't even officially started and I feel like we are already in full swing. We decided to go to Disney on Friday night as a last summer hurrah and celebrate the beginning of the school year. Miss Clare stayed home because we made it a late night. We saw Belle for Grace, went on Splash Mountain - William's first BIG drop on a ride (Grace was a smidge too short and couldn't join), rode the Carousel and watched the Electrical Parade. William passed out in his car seat before we even left the parking lot that night! A very fun night!

Grace on the carousel

First time on Splash Mountain! Big boy ride!

First ride on Splash Mountain! Haha!

Went again with Matt! Front row :)

In the spirit! Go William!

School starts on Monday... I'm going to miss them so much. We are proud of you guys though! And so excited to watch you both grow and learn this year.