Kicking Off The School Year - 1st and 3rd Grade

It has been a blur of nerves and excitement as the school year got started.

Meet The Teacher

Lorelei's teacher this year is Mrs. Rhine who has been working with the school for 7 years and I believe this is her 3rd year teaching 3rd! I'm excited to see the end-of-the-year picture and see who is taller. ;)

I have heard from many other teachers and parents that "she is so organized" which sounds perfect for me! Mrs. Rhine told us this is also the year she pushes them to be more responsible for their own work and making sure they get items turned in on time etc. I do not see this being a problem for us, but I guess we will see! Lorelei's feedback after the first day was, "She is funny!"

Friends excited to be together again!
Jaedynn, Reagan, Nayeli, Lorelei and Savannah

Makin has our beloved Mrs. White this year for 1st grade! We cannot express how happy we are to be working together again and for Makin to have this sweet and wonderful teacher. This is her 3rd year teaching 1st at GCA.


Makin was chatting the evening of the first day of school and just said. "I love Mrs. White." :)

These best buddies were thrilled to be sitting next to each other.
I'm interested to see how long they get to stay this way. :)

First Day Photos

Both kiddos were quite nervous about their first day. This surprised me, although I'm not sure why. They come from a long line of nervous-for-school people on my side of the family. ;) When they got in the car after the big day, they were all smiles and had nothing but happy things to report. Including that they barely had time to miss me. :)

So excited to have a rolling backpack this year.
Much needed!

And just in case you thought these little photo shoots looked easy...

We did have a little fly-on-the-wall who gave us a sneak peak into 1st grade at lunch. :)

(Makin is on the far left of the pic...)

Our Traditional 1st Day Ice Cream

Home Days

Playing around with the coins in his math manipulatives and loved grouping them to make $1s.

Celebrating the first week of school on Friday...Puppy and Kitty Nutella Pancakes!

Smelling the spices for our Science lesson. Just loved the facial expressions!
The next week he tasted a pickle for sour and had a similar reaction. :)

Our 3rd grade history book spans a lot of grade levels so this year it will be a lot of me reading and Lorelei listening.
The first lesson was about Mozart and Handel, so we kept it a little more interesting by looking up some of their famous pieces. This was a fireworks display choreographed to Music for the Royal Fireworks.
I have been told by several moms that they love this history book so excited to read it with Lor!

Taking The Temperature of Room/Cold/Hot Water for Science

We enjoyed getting back into our Wednesday library routine, but realized there will be some kinks to work out with the new grade levels. Trying to give ourselves grace and remember the weeks will get better! Makin (the child who was not crying most of the morning) had a blast with two of his classmates having fun between lessons.

Week 2 At The Library

Extras

The kids still had some coupons for free smoothies at Smoothie King from their library reading program. We enjoyed the time together having that special stop after school. They loved the smoothie treats and I loved having them excitedly tell me about their days. It made me really thankful we were not rushing to tumbling and soccer like most Tuesdays of last year and has me brainstorming the best ways to fit in our extra curriculars so we can have more down time like this. It was so nice not to be in a rush.


School Quote...When talking to Makin just before his second GCA day I asked if he was at all nervous.
Makin: I'm 100% excited.
Me: So not even a little bit nervous?
M: Well I'm 1% nervous.
Me: Well then that means you are 99% excited.
Makin: My scale goes to 101.

We have been working on building the community for GCA and I'm one of the two room moms for 3rd grade. We decided we needed a bit of encouragement our first week so eight out of the twelve moms made it for a Starbucks drink after drop off.

End of Summer Break

I cannot believe this post is already going up.

We spent about a week recovering from our trip and prepping for school. I felt really behind in every way so will need to figure out how to fix that in upcoming summers. I was frantically ordering school books while also starting birthday party plans and I couldn't keep up with my to do lists even after quite a few "list" days. Then we settled in and fit in a bit more fun between tasks to finish our summer break.


We enjoyed a morning at Main Event. Late August of last year I found out about the Summer Fun Pass available and it seemed like it would be a great summer bucket list item. The kids loved it. They played a couple of rounds of putt-putt golf, did the ropes course (Lorelei technically did it twice, still cannot believe it! I was so proud of her!) and pool, but their favorite by far was Laser Tag. They played several games and had so much fun.

We headed to Addie's new house for a back-to-school pool bash, complete with a mid-morning ice cream snack!

We have fit in lots of swimming at our community pool all summer. (Thank goodness the pool will be open past Labor Day I believe...)

Watermelon Day

We managed to have our Watermelon Day festivities on National Watermelon Day this year!

After seeing some watermelon-y decorated treats at the stores, we decided to make watermelon cupcakes this year (with dye-free dye, yes its a thing). The kids had a fun time, even though the colors didn't quite turn out as we hoped.

And of course our afternoon meant eating huge slices of watermelon in the grass.

Eating Like A Puppy (Of course)

He decided a wiggly tooth meant he needed a spoon this year!

Summer Oklahoma Visit

Because my parents live almost exactly half-way to the Sr. Stahl's house, we decided to combine our summer visits this year. So after our Colorado jaunt, we headed to Oklahoma. Yes, it was a new challenge packing for three road trips within a road trip. ;)


I LOVE peach pie and got to eat this delicious dessert soon after we arrived.








We started our first morning off with a fun activity my mom planned. She put together a scavenger hunt for the kiddos. They each had their own list and items to hunt for. Some shared and some specific. They really enjoyed it and it will be a fun memory!

What we refer to as "Heavenly Light" just looked gorgeous this particular morning.

The peacock feathers mom found near a neighbor's house were one of the favorite items.
Lorelei mentioned taking it to show her class. They also really loved their specially painted rocks.
Lorelei painted her own rock for a friend later.

One evening after a "tell me a story about when you were a kid" request I was trying to explain our elementary school see-saws and how we could make them jump in order to even out each side because there are three sections in the middle. (See...you don't even know what I mean do you?) I asked Nana if they still had our old equipment and thankfully they are still using it in the small town our school was located in. It was fun taking the kids to check out the "old time" playground equipment. We did go past the old school as well, but that was a bit depressing with how run-down it has become. It was fun giving them a little glimpse into my childhood. :)

When going through A.J.'s room in search of some Legos, Nana and the kid stumbled upon an unopened box that was a Lego chess set. With Uncle A.J.'s permission Makin assembled it and wanted to play a game each day, if not more than once a day.

We headed to Sunset Lake after getting a delicious box of peaches from the Colorado peach truck. (So yummy!) The kids love exploring here.

Checking out a baby hawk in the tree.

The swings were especially popular this visit. We caught gorgeous weather!

Lorelei liked to chat with Nana while she would swing.

Papa took the kids to check the cattle and run through the irrigation sprinkler.

When reading a book about ice cream earlier this summer it talked about the different machines invented through the years to make ice cream. This lead to us asking if Nana could make some home-made ice cream during our visit so the kids could see how it worked. Of course, it was a huge hit.

Thanks for a great visit Nana and Papa!