First Day of School - on the Front Porch

Leave it to Mommy and her crappy camera skills to capture the first day of Kindergarten and PreK4 on her shitty iPhone camera. Because you can do your first day of Kindergarten pictures again. Grrrr...#Mamaneedsacamera #gratuitoususeofuselesshashtags

Hey like my outfit? Like Anna's? Does it look familiar? Well you've seen it before - LAST THANKSGIVING. That's right, folks. Instead of wearing the custom hand made back to school outfit with her name on it Anna Jane opted for her pink corduroy turkey jumper that is now too short. I don't even know where to start with what's wrong with that. The fashion police would issue multiple tickets. One for corduroy in August, one for a grossly premature celebration of Thanksgiving, one for inappropriate holiday attire, and ten to Mommy for letting her walk out of the house like that on her first day of school. Refer to last year's first day of school post. Way to keep the streak going, child. Score 2 for Anna Jane. Dreck for Mommy.

At least I cooperate with what I should wear and taking pictures.

I may not cooperate but daggone. I'm too cute to care.

I think these faces say it all.

Hard to do a whole family shot on an iPhone...

So there's part one of our first day. Mama's working on more for ya.  Y'all come back!

Love, 

Lilly, Anna Jane and Jack

First Day of School Breakfast of Champions!

The first day of school is SUCH A BIG deal we are going to break this down into a couple few posts. Lets start with breakfast shall we?

Bacon. Rocks.

See that? It's still dark outside! Nuts! My nuts! (If you've been around Anna Jane lately you'll know this is one of her favorite catch phrases).

How can I smile when I should still be sleeping?

6 am doesn't bother this little fart. He's adapted well. So has Daddy. All the ladies in the house would rather be sleeping! Even with bacon for breakfast. What about you?  Do you get out if bed for bacon?

Love,

Lilly, Anna Jane and Jack

Meet the Teacher! Pass the Kleenex!

School starts tomorrow! This afternoon we went to meet my teacher.

Mama thinks it's nuts we don't find out who our teacher is until the day before school but oh well.  Drum roll!  I'm in Mrs. Bolt's class!  I know three other kids who will be going to Stone and not ONE of them is in my class.  That's a darn.

Mrs. Bolt had this cute little welcome kit waiting for me at my table with CANDY.  I like Mrs. Bolt.  The candy came with the cutest poem ever.  It was the 36th thing that made Mommy get teary eyed today.

Mrs. Bolt even had me complete an assignment while I was there!  I had to draw a picture of myself and write my name!  See how my nametag says Lillian?  I said to Mama, "Do I have to write this name, or can I just write Lilly?"  Mommy tried to explain that Lillian is really the same name, just more formal to which I responded, "Mommy, I'm just a kid, I don't know what you're saying."

For all of you keeping score, I'm the ONLY kid who wrote my name using an uppercase letter and the remaining lowercase.  Thank you, ARBC!  I'm heading straight to gifted.

Can you believe this little monkey is starting Pre-K4 tomorrow?  She's going to be a Dinosaur like I was.  It's going to be the first time in our whole lives we are apart for the better part of the day 5 days a week.  Who do you think this will be harder for?  I'm not a bettin' person but if I was, I'd bet on me.

We spent almost a whole hour just walking around the school, checkin' out the new digs, the new playground, comparing outfits, judging other Mommies...ahem, excuse me.

My classroom has this super cute cozy loft for reading.  Anna Jane and Jack made themselves right at home.

And I found a quiet space right underneath with this funky device.  See it?  I actually said to Mama, "What is this thing?"  Mommy said she wasn't sure, maybe it came from cavemen.

Oh, my sweet Lilly Bean.  Kindergarten tomorrow.  This is the 58th time I've gotten teary today.  I love you so much.  All those times I've wanted to throat punch people who tell me it goes so fast...and it does.  You're no baby anymore, sweet pea.  You're a little girl.  Minus one baby tooth.  Plus 1,000+ wonderful qualities.  I know you're going to love Kindergarten.  You're going to love school.  You're going to love being a kid and learning and growing and doing all the awesome things little kids get to do these days that Mommy and Daddy never did because the technology didn't exist.  I'm going to do my best to keep it together tomorrow but I can't make you any promises.  Maybe thinking about the look on your face when you met Mrs. Bolt and hid behind my leg will help me be strong for you.  Or thinking about how you told Anna that while she will definitely miss you she will LOVE being a Dinosaur.  I have always loved living in the moment - this may be the first time in my life I've really, really had a hard time letting go.  It's hard to let go of your baby, Lilly.  But this is just the first time of many I'm going to have to let you spread your little wings and take off.  I love you, Lilly Bean.  Kindergartener.  Awesome kid.  My forever little baby girl.

Love,

Mommy

Pin This! Ha!

Have you seen all those overachieving type A Mom's on Pinterest and Facebook who fancy script out a "First Day of Kindergarten" on an elaborate chalkboard or whiteboard or such with their pretty cursive writing in four different colors while their kid holds it in front of a perfectly blooming flower bush with hair all in place and some $50 outfit complete with coordinating shoes and 6 inch hairbow?

Yeah?

Well, this post's for them!  This is paper.  And a marker.

Love,

Lilly, Anna Jane and Jack

Hershey Park!

We love Hershey Park almost as much as we love Disney World.  What we love MOST about Hershey Park is being there with our cousins.  Our cousins are awesome, and fun - and they love to ride the spinny rides and since the Daddies are too sissy baby for spinny rides Mama gets to be "fun" Aunt Krissy and go on as many spinny rides as she can until she feels like she's going to puke.  But she doesn't puke and she WON'T puke to prove a point.  She's more fun than Daddy.  Ha!

One distinct disadvantage though, for Anna Jane being the youngest of the group of four is that she was a "Mini", not a "Kiss" like us big kids.  So she couldn't go on some of the rides we could go on...

 

This did not go over well.  So Uncle Sean came to the rescue and took Anna to find a fun game to play to win a Hershey bear she is still sleeping with every night.

Thanks, Uncle Sean.  I knew there was a good reason to make the rich Uncle my favorite.  Now will you pay for my college?

It's hard to wrangle 5 excited kids at an amusement park and take pictures with your crappy dappy iPhone.  Sorry.  Really, I'm sorry.  I promise that for Mommy's 7th anniversary of her 29th birthday she will get a new 'puter and will do some better blogging!

It's hard to make jokes about Sofia because she's just so sweet and stoic.  She's fun to ride roller coasters with.  She sits there all serious with her hands up.  I, on the other hand, screamed and cried my face off.

Here's Mommy with the Spinny Brigade.  Awesome.  Mommy loves this picture.  She loves these kids!

Here's AJ laughing at Daddy for something...

Even Jack got to go on some rides - but he wasn't even a Mini!  He was like, a Reese's Pieces or something...

Mommy is forever perplexed that amusement parks serve such a plethora of fried food.  Because THAT'S what you need right before you ride the Scrambler...

Yay for Cousins!  Yay for Hershey Park!

Fun!

Love,

Lilly, Anna Jane and Jack

Hershey World

Hi there!
Did you wonder where we were the end of July?  We were on VACATION!  A TWO WEEK VACATION.  Let me say that again - A TWO WEEK VACATION.  Have you ever been on A TWO WEEK VACATION?  We hadn't.  It was our first long vacation and it was fun, and awesome.  Our first week was in Hershey, PA with the Cousins.  So here's a photo dump from Hershey World with my excellent commentary.  Sarcasm at no extra charge (unlike Hershey World, where the air you breathe comes with an extra charge)...

Hey kids!  Hey kids!  Look at Mommy!  Look at Mommy!  Or...don't...

So Hershey World has this great "Make Your Own Dessert" station.  It's so fun, you get to pay $10 for a dessert you make yourself.  BONUS!  Edible paint on the table!

This here's Jack's creation.  A cookie with every peanut butter-type topping he could grab from the topping bar.  Hands off, Grandma...MY cookie.  MINE!

Look at that little mouth full of chompers!

I opted to make a $10 s'more.  For the record, back in Mommy's college days she'd make you a S'more for a dollar.  For real.  She was very popular at the concerts after the show and she only fell into her fire pit once.

Yum.  Matias made some funky cookie pizza pie.

He's not sure, but he'll eat it anyway.  Wondering where Anna Jane and Sofia are?  Yeah, me too.  I'm sure someone's watching them, right?

And here's just one of many gratuitous pictures of AJ and Uncle Sean.  Because nothing ends a post better than a nearly naked Anna Jane and Uncle Sean with flowers on his head!

Love,

Lilly, Anna Jane and Jack

Eat a Peach!

Did someone forget to tell South Carolina that it's the middle of August, and that it's supposed to 1. stop raining every day and 2. be warmer than low 70's?

Last year Mama went on a field trip with me to the Apple Farm (no organic apples!  Mommy thought she had blogged about that but she can't find the post - anyway the story goes like this: preschool field trip to the apple farm and on the hayride tour, Apple Farmer asks kids if they like to eat worms with their apples?  No!  We don't want worms in our apples!  Well, good!  That's what pesticides are for!  To keep worms out of your apples!  If you want worms go get you some of them organic apples!) but they were plumb out of apples when we went (no worms, either).  In South Carolina if you want to pick some apples, you need to pick 'em in August - because it's (usually) so hot and humid down here there are only a few varieties that will actually grow and you gotta get 'em while you can!  BUT if you want to pick PEACHES?!?  You've got all glorious Summer for that!  So we opted for a bushel of peaches, and a half a peck of apples and we burned one cool Summer afternoon in August pickin' peaches and apples and chucking them at each other's heads.

Peach pickin' is fun, 'cause you can eat the peaches while you pick 'em (pesticides and all!  we're in the South, y'all! a little chemicals on your fruit puts hair on your chest and on your toes!)  There are peaches everywhere you look, and you know, we love peaches!

Hope you're loving what's left of your Summer!

Eat a Peach!

Love,

Lilly, Anna Jane and Jack