1st day of Kindergarten

Kindergarten? I just can't believe how quick this has come, I also can't tell you how excited I was for this day.  =)  She still isn't too excited but doing better since meet the teacher night.  She will be going to school from 7:20am to 2pm, Monday-Thursday, this will be a big change for her, for all of us.

I found this on pintrest and totally loved it, it was a good tool to remind me of the not so typical pictures to take.  Feel free to double click on it and take it or email me and I can email it to you if you would like it.  

Ashley had lot's of fun picking out all her new supplies

Her first day of school lunch

Yes this is what time she had to get up for school. And as most of you probably know Ashley is NOT a morning person, this in itself has had to be a huge adjustment in our schedules and routines.  And we have been doing it for a week and a half before school started.

Thanks to the advice of Aunt Cece and Erin's handwriting, with out that it would't have been legible, lol anyway, we made Ashley this adorable shirt to wear the first day of school.  Class of 2025, doesn't that seem like light years away?  That is the year she will graduate High School.  Her teacher LOVED her shirt.

The back read...Let the journey begin...

Walking into her class

Kai is in the class right next door to Ashley, so after dropping her off we stopped in and said hi Kai.  =)

So there was a parent meeting a couple weeks before school started and really encouraged letting the kids ride the bus, said they were safe, yadda yadda yadda, so Erin and I decided we would let them try it the first week of school, while the bus drivers were teaching the kids the ropes of bus riding.  Here they are pulling up after their 1st day of school.

Kai and Ashley both had a good first day of School.  Dan snagged them up as soon as they got off the bus and took them to have an ice cream.  Kai and Ashley both agreed the funnest part of the day was recess and the bus ride home, lol. Ashley did also say it was a long day.

Here she is the 2nd day of school

And this was on Thursday, the last day of school, she came home and took a nap.  Overall we survived the 1st week of school.  =)

Meet the Teacher

We had Ashley's Meet the Teacher night on Friday, August 3rd.  We were really excited to see that Ashley got the teacher we were hoping for, Mrs. Cox. She is an amazing teacher who has won teacher of the year on several occasions and teaches in a style, I know will work well for Ashley. Ashley was excited to see her new classroom, find her desk, cubby and in general check out the class.  We made sure she knew where the bathroom was and the drinking fountain too.  =) Here are our pictures from Meet the Teacher.

 She found her desk pretty quick, she is the only Ashley in her class.  =)

 Such a bright and colorful room, I LOVE it!

 Thier goal with these is to stay on green.  =)

 Her new Teacher.

Monkeys---very fitting don't ya think?  lol 

July

Well fore sure the highlight of our July was our visit from Sara and the kids.  July was still pretty busy for us but with nothing too exciting.  We continued with our summer movies, library days and gymnastics days.  We had lots of playdates and did more swimming.  Here is our July re cap!

Our good friends Pat and Leah have been waiting a long time to adopt a baby, it finally happened for them and we couldn't be happier and more excited for them.  This was at her baby shower. 

We got a visit form Dan's Cousin Jeremy and his family this month too.  We had a fun day walking around the craft fair, going to lunch then of course taking them on a rhino ride.  

One of our play dates, Jon lit rockets off and the kids LOVED it.  Double click on this picture to enlarge it, Ashley's facial expression is hilarious.  =)

Not a great picture but super cute of Allison.

Grandma Cyndy came up to visit for a couple days as well and she too got to go on a rhino ride.

My sister and family got to move in to their new house.  They are just a couple miles up the road, it is so nice to have them so close now.  We went over while they were moving in and Allison fell in love with their pet tarantula. 

watching tv and staying out of the way.

This is downtown where the whiskey row fire was, Dan had taken Ashley and her girlfriend Sophia for a milk shake and when they passed by here they both stopped and had to tell each other what their daddy's were doing in the fire, Dan said it was super cute and they even had passer byers stopping to listen to them talk about the fire, so cute, they love their daddy's and are so proud of them.

Yeah she was trying to hop the fence to ride the neighbors horse.

made cloud dough one day, the kids had a blast and played for hours with it.

ok so who is this can you guess?  Is it Melissa? Ashley? Allison, Erin? Angelina?

if you guessed Melissa you were right.  I was about 5 in that picture.  =)

When grandma came up to visit she brought the girls their very own Beta fish...THANK YOU Grandma, lol.  The girls are totally loving their new pets.  We are looking forward to seeing Grandma every 2 weeks to come clean the tanks.

Ashley starts kindergarten this year, I know so hard to believe.  She is still very histant on going, not excited one bit.  About mid month she was invited to a jump start kindergarten class, it was for 2-1/2 days.  So of course we jummped on the opportunity to take her and et her a little used to school.  Basically it was just a way to introduce the kids to the teachers, the school, the rules etc.  Ashley said it was ok, but still doesn't wanna go to school.  Here she is the 1st day we dropped her off, I was very happy one of her friends from story time was also there and she got to sit next to him.  

Kai will also be starting kindergarten and he too went to the jump start classes, this was them after their 1st day.  He totally loved it and is so excited for the 1st day of school which is August 6th.

She still loves to catch lizzards

ZOEEY'S BACK!!!  We have had fun getting to see and spend more time with her lately.  =)

My cousin Jenny's daughter turned 10 this month.  We had fun at her Hawaiian swimming party.

In late June we got some caterpillars and watched them turn into butterflies.  The girls loved it, well I should say we all liked watching them through each of the stages.  What a fun science experiment it turned out to be. Here we are at the final stage... letting the butterflies go.  They had hatched a couple days before Sara got her but they wanted to wait to show them their pet butterflies before they would release them.