The First Day of Preschool!

Olivia has been excited for preschool all summer long, until we turned our calendar page to August and announced to Olivia that this was the month she would start preschool. Now that it was so close, she decided preschool could wait another year. She just became a bit unsure and nervous of what to expect. So, to help rekindle that excitement I decided to take her backpack shopping. As we enter the aisle I exclaimed, "Wow, look at all these cool backpacks. Do you see one that you like?" Thinking this would be a home run to fire up the excitement, I was quite surprised when she turned to me and said, "I don't need one. I am not going to preschool, I am staying with you." Oh, dear... keep trying...then I found it: the princess backpack! She wanted to smile and like it, but she was still hesitant, so I said, let's just try it on. Hallelujah! She loved it! Now, preschool was looking a little bit better. Then after the preschool open house, she was truly excited again. The night before her first day of preschool, she was so excited that it took her longer than normal to fall asleep. Fast forward a few hours..."Mommy, Mommy, is it time for preschool?" "What?" was all I could muster for a response as I rubbed my eyes and saw 3:24 peering back at me from the clock. Oh dear, I got her back to her bed and told her that she had to wait for the sun to come up. So, at 6:00 she came bouncing down to our room again. This time, I knew there was no getting her back to sleep. I made her a special breakfast pancakes that spelled her name. She thought that was pretty cool (as well as thinking that was going to be her breakfast for every preschool day.) Then we loaded up the wagon and walked to preschool. She was so excited! I think she aged a few years in our two block walk to school, how can my baby already be in school? She gave everyone hugs and kisses and then bee bopped right on in to her classroom. It was great to see her so comfortable and watch the nerves melt away. We turned to walk out the school as my eye caught that little purple backpack, thank you princesses, thank you.

Look at that smile!

She loves her locker!

Me love Cookies!

Neighbors can be such blessings and this is definitely the case with one of our neighbor girls, Jasmine. She is in the 6th grade and takes the time to come over and play with our kids periodically and make them feel special. When I see that bright smile ring our doorbell, I know that I too am getting blessed with a good hour to clean up, cook dinner, or do anything without the kids under my feet. So, we wanted to celebrate this special friend before her school year started, which experience tells us, we will be seeing less of her...sniff, sniff. Olivia decided to celebrate her with a batch of chocolate chip cookie, her favorite. I let her, and consequently our little "monkey see, monkey do" boy, make the cookies pretty independently. I read the recipe, gave instruction, and broke the eggs, other than that, they pretty much did it themselves. Olivia was so proud! We were so caught up in the moment, I was taking their pictures, they were stirring, and then we had our finally product and I took one finally picture, click! I then had to face the proof that a 3 and 1 year old had just made cookies, a sticky flour mess covered our kitchen. Hmm... I wonder if Cookie Monster's kitchen looks like this.

The lick, caught in the action!

They waited and waited for those cookies to come out.

Soren's patience came to an end, he wanted one right NOW!

Below is a video of some of the stirring:

Waiting for Cookies to cool is so hard!

Singing in the Rain

Splash! Giggle, giggle, giggle...these were the sounds this afternoon as Olivia and Soren enjoyed today's rain shower.

SPLASH!

TA-DA!

Ouimette Family Time!

Summer family get togethers are the best! That is why I was so happy when Erik's family decided that they would make the journey to our house this summer. We had ten amazing days of relaxing, talking, laughing, watching Olympics, playing, dancing, drinking coffee, more Olympics, trips to my family, hikes, Field of Dreams, and even more Olympics! Wow, what a great time! As our family grows and continues to spread out we appreciate this time together so much more.