First Day of School

Hylie's first day of school was full of nervous energy, hesitation, and a little bit of tears...for Mom.  Hylie, on the other hand, couldn't have been more excited, confident, and ready.  She was beaming all morning as she prepared for her first adventurous day of school.

 Waiting for the bus with Zach and Olivia

These two best buds will have to go through an entire school year on different schedules, but next year they'll get to ride the bus together!

 It was this moment here that I shed some tears.  She bounced onto that school bus and never looked back!

Parents were invited to come to the school on the first day to watch their little ones get off the bus and walk into school.

After a long two and a half hour morning (for Mom) Hylie came home even more energized than before.  She loves her teacher, Ms. Bangee, and couldn't wait to return for day two!  When I asked her if she missed me, she quickly responded "Nope!" before I even finished asking the question.  Ha ha!  But I do find her holding my hand more when we're out and about...so that means deep down she kind of misses me, right?

Hylie also let me know it was lucky Ms. Bangee gave all the kids name tags because another girl in her class had the same shoes as Hylie.  Ha ha!  But it was even better when I later found out the shoes this other classmate was wearing were ones that Hylie owned as well, but they weren't the shoes Hylie was wearing that day!  

I'm so grateful Hylie is thrilled about school and hope that she will meet each new opportunity and milestone with this same excitement and confidence.  Here's to an amazing year!

Hylie's New Bike

A few weeks before Hylie's birthday, Geoff took her to the store to pick out a bike.  She was pretty excited and wanted to make sure she got all the bells and whistles with it--you know, a bike bell, a sparkly helmet, a flower basket, and no girl-bike is complete without handle bar streamers!

Don't let this picture fool you...Eliana was stationary unless someone was pushing or pulling her, ha ha!

She's getting the hang of things, but some practice is definitely in order!

Super-Hero Birthday Party

For about a month now, Hylie and I have been having fun planning her very own 'Super-Hero Birthday Party'.  Quite frankly, I don't know where the theme idea came from...most of her show and book choices involve fairies and princesses, but that's what she requested and I thought the idea had a bunch of possibilities, so I went with it.

Truly, I had a ton of fun planning and preparing everything, especially since Hylie had her hand in so much of it.  And the big day was a huge success--but it was exhausting trying to keep up with 10 little kids and pack in all the activities!

When the kids arrived, they each got to pick a cape, logo, and mask to decorate.

Then they each came outside to take a picture flying through the sky.

 Hylie helped construct the buildings for the backdrop

Eliana jumped on the sheet in hopes to get some actual air for her shot

There is no down-time when super-heroes are about! 

After a pizza lunch, Hylie demonstrated how to use all the super-hero tools so the kids could go outside and defeat all the villains.  My favorite quote of the party happened after all the kids got outside and were sitting at their assigned stations, there was a lull for about 1.7 seconds so a little boy piped up and asked, "Can we start saving the world now?"  ha ha!

They used Popsicle stick catapults (that Hylie helped make) to poison this monster with pom-poms.

These robots had shaving cream goo all over them, but these super-heroes stopped them from contaminating the city with their ooze.

Hylie drew some robots that were taking over a castle.

The kiddos had marshmallow shooters to knock down the robots...but apparently when it's above 80 degrees, marshmallows get too soft and squishy to actually shoot...so this activity was a bit of a flop.

 But we ended things big with a pinata

 This pinata was so tough, that after it got a pretty good beating from all these crime-fighters, it took two Dads to free all the candy!

I laughed that the cake ended up looking like "Cousin It" with a crown...

but it tasted pretty yummy, so I'm okay with that!  But anything tastes good after saving the world, right?

Hylie's 5th Birthday

On August 17th Hylie couldn't wait to get out of bed and celebrate her birthday!  I was glad she woke up happy, because the night before I made the mistake of pointing out it was her last night of being four--all of a sudden alligator tears were dripping down her face as she cried, "But I like being four!"

We started the day out by opening gifts and then the rest of the day was spent enjoying all her new things!  (And she also pointed out that 5 doesn't feel that different from 4.)

She LOVES this Lite-Brite set from Grandma and Grandpa!

For her birthday, Hylie asked if she could have "a fishbowl with a fish in it".  I giggled that she clarified (more than once) that she wanted the bowl to have a fish in it--maybe she's realized that I'm pretty anti-pets.  I will admit, I looked into the "Hexbug Aquabot"... but, I caved and got a little tank and quickly explained that it was only fishless for now because she was going to pick out her own little fishy after dinner.

Lillian was fascinated by the helium balloon! 

For dinner, Mom was given the day off because we headed to Culver's for some yummy food including their delicious custard.

She pretended the spoon was her candle while we sang "Happy Birthday"

After dinner, Hylie was very excited to pick out her new pet fish.  She found a beautiful Beta fish and named 'her' Emma.

Yep, she's still in the 95th percentile!

We are so excited to see what 5 will bring.  Lots of big things right around the corner with kindergarten and a ballet class!  We love you, Hylie!  We love all the fun, excitement, and craziness you bring to life!

Kindergarten Orientation

Hylie couldn't be more excited or more ready for kindergarten!  She got to go to the school, check out her classroom, meet her teacher, and participate in kindergarten screening.  All went extremely well, the first day of school is coming up fast!

 Trying out her school supplies in her assigned chair in her classroom

With her teacher, Ms. Bangee