A Few More Bits Of September

Friends At The Lake
The Hughes joined us for some lake time and the kids played about three hours while we moms got to catch up!

Dates
Dad and Makin - Panera breakfast (Makin's request)

Mom and Lorelei - The mall, to spend birthday money and have our date. This was one of my favorites for a mother/daughter date. She loved having her own money to pick out something. She chose a stuffed animal from the Disney Store (which we need like a hole in the head), a carousel ride, and a book. It was so fun seeing her face light up with excitement when the carousel started going. Precious memories for this mom! Then we headed to Starbucks and did some school work and colored. (Makin was in preschool, because of parent teacher conf. she did not have school.)

School
Makin had a surprising change of attitude about preschool. After the first week, he said he didn't want to go back and woke up sad/crying every school morning. We trudged through a few more weeks with me deliberating what to do with this turn of events. After emailing the preschool director, I finally found out there WOULD be organized class outings for him to get to know his classmates better. They are just behind getting those organized and getting me a class directory.

Thursday of week 4 he finally told me that morning, "I'm excited to go to preschool." Phew! Now I just need to remember this month-long thing could be a norm for him!

I was able to go read a book to his classroom one day. (They asked Moms to read books and help with art, we signed up at meet-the-teacher.) It was nice to get a little glimpse into his day and his classmates. He definitely has a couple of boys who are his buddies already.

My Personal Trainer - hoping to go most Thursday mornings!

Journaling Is One of Her Favs

Lorelei has continued to love school. We had a few rocky first at-home weeks, especially with reading, but we seem to have a great rhythm going now and we are loving it (most days) just like I had hoped. I had a parent teacher conference mid-month and got a glowing report from her teacher. Just loved hearing so many positive things and getting to see what she has written so far in her "writer's workshop". Cannot wait to see what the rest of the year brings.

Lost Tooth #5 At School. A dream come true for her. :)

She got to read to the Hughes' dog, Angel, as a reward for working well on her reading/math at home.

The kids had a lemonade stand to help with Lorelei's school fund raiser.

Fall
We go a little nuts about the start of fall around here. Leaf cookies were awesome this year, I feel like they can finally help without me going totally crazy. We also got out our pile of fall books and the kids delved in. (They are put away and brought out seasonally because I'm weird like that and because I feel they are loved more when they aren't out all the time.)









To celebrate the start of fall, we headed over to Mary's house for the kids to have a little fall party. (I anticipate this happening throughout the year since they won't get as many seasonal parties at school, particularly the Hughes kids who are home-schooled full time. Seasonal parties are just what this Mom loves too right!?)

We moms got our first pumpkin spice lattes of the season, we all enjoyed snacks and the kids made a couple of crafts. First they painted a fall picture and then did fall mosaics. I had to chuckle when I told the kids to paint "any fall picture" and Makin was painting along and said, "guess what I'm painting...a football field!" Proud daddy moment for sure. :) Of course, intermixed was just a fun time playing with friends. :)

Husker Football Season Begins!

Birthday Party Fun
We celebrated Macie's birthday at a special painting party. This was the kid's first time at this type of store and they spent lots of time working carefully on their creations.