Yeay for Jacob!

I am so proud of Jacob! He came home with this special award from his teacher today. He was very excited to show me and I was excited to see it! He told me that today they were working on writing words. Such an exciting time. I am thrilled that he is enjoying school.

Last Monday I went to a scrapbooking class and we made these layouts. The most memorable part of the evening was that the one lady was upset with her husband because she had to drive the Ferrari. Sounded like a horrible deal to me! Anyway, I thought I would share what I made.

This was the left over material from the class. I could probably make good use of these materials too! I will sign up for another class, I am just waiting to see what classes they post next. I also bought one of their kits and when I work on that one I will post some of the pictures.

School!

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School has gone well for the boys! They come out tired, but happy. It is a LONG day for both right now. But I think as we get more into the routine, they will get used to it. I am glad the weekend is here! Can't believe it is Friday night and we aren't off visiting someone! I have a huge craving for pizza and wings! I could also settle for Shawarma from the King too! Hope you all enjoy the weekend.

Tomorrow

Well, my two boys will be going to school tomorrow for the whole day! What ever will I do?...Perhaps actually get some things done? I will miss them. But I see that they need more to do during the day than shop and hang out with mom. I hope Nathan has a good day. He's the one I am more worried about. He is not the greatest at listening...or keeping his hands to himself...so I am praying he will be a very good boy at school tomorrow. If you are reading this...maybe you can pray for them too.

Tonight is meet the teacher night. They do this quite differently. I will describe after we have gone. Should be an interesting night:)

Sarah!

These pictures are of Sarah at 4months (really I was late due to the move so more like 4.5 months) They turned out great. I was quite happy when I saw them. And now I can share them online because we finally hooked up our new printer which also scans. The scanning didn't take long at all, and I think the quality is still quite good. I am so excited I can do this now. It should save me some money for those monthly pictures I like to take:)

Sarah is growing so fast. I can hardly believe she is 4.5 months old. She is a very happy baby. Quiet and easy to take care of. I am very blessed. Her brothers love her soooo much. They continue to be very loving and careful with her. I hope it continues. She found her voice this week. Well....at least a little shriek. The boys also think this noise she makes is quite funny, so they always laugh at her. Needless to say, she gets a lot of attention from them. I see a spoiled little girl in my future.

Nathan's First Day!

Nathan went to meet his new teacher yesterday. She showed him around the classroom. Showed him wear to line up, and got him to make his "apple" to hang up on the tree. I was really encouraged by her friendliness and enthusiasm. I think he will have a great year. I just can't believe he goes for full days. Are they crazy or what!!! I also think that he will be quite tired on the way home from school.

The school had to make some changes due to a high number of kids registering for Senior Kindergarten. Those changes mean that it will now be a mixed class. So all their kindergarten classes will have both junior and senior kindergarten kids in them. Good news they won't be in the same class! And our days don't change and Jacob will keep the teacher he already met. The reasoning for this....numbers. Making sure there are not too many in one class. I know the teacher talk behind all of this. I am still not a huge fan of blended grades. It is a lot of work for the teacher. Nathan's teacher did tell me they were a hold out school until now. She said that about 85% of KW is blended grades in kindergarten. So she wasn't surprised when they had to make the change.

He did great. Wasn't shy at all like I thought he would be. I do really like the fact that he meets his teacher on his own and checks everything out on his own. I think that is a positive experience for kids starting school. An easier transition anyway. I guess we will see how next week goes. Jacob goes for Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Nathan will be going Thursday and Friday. I think my boys will be tired on Friday.

Sarah dipping her toes in to cool off.

Lions.

The first thing we did when we got here was go on the safari. You can drive through in your own car or sign up and pay a little more to do the bus tour. We decided to take the Van in. Sarah was sleeping so we thought we would just let her sleep. So you enter the park in your van and follow the road through several different areas seeing many kinds of animals. The cool thing is, if you the only thing that is between you and these animals is your car. So if you got out (which they don't allow you to do and are stationed everywhere watching you) you could theoretically, just walk over and give them a pet. They also could walk over and get very close to your car. A very neat experience.

Baboons on someones car!!

I thought the Baboons were the best part of the safari. They are crazy! They jump up on anything even if it is moving and if you have anything loose on your car, well it will be removed by a Baboon. They will pick and pull at anything loose! We thought that some people must have put some kind of food on the top of their cars in advance, because certain cars had a lot of Baboons around them. The kids really enjoyed watching them jump around too! They were so excited when one finally jumped up onto our van.

Elephant show

They even offer elephant rides. I so wanted to try that out. But it was quite hot and we were running out of time. We will for sure go back and check out some of the things we missed. They also have other shows. Elephant bath and water time, a parrot show, and a birds of prey show.

Baboon on our van!! Check out Nathan's expression

Ostrich checking us out. It actually kept tapping its beak on the window. They sure get up close and personal!

Awesome water park for the kids. My kids LOVED this. It was a hot day so it was a great way to cool off. The other great thing about this water park is they have several staff members located at various parts to make sure the kids are safe. Chris and I sat in the shade and watched the kids play.This picture was taken from the bench seating where all the parents were sitting down. Sarah had a good nap in her stroller in the shade while her brothers played.

Nathan loving the slide!

Hmmmmm.... two boys with water guns. Watch Out!

Well as you can see, we had a great time. It was a very fun place to go! Thanks Ethan for the recommendation!!! When you come visit us next summer we will have to go together!

Jacob's first day of school!

Today was Jacob's first day at Big kid school. He was very excited about going. He was so excited about finally getting to use his Spider man back pack. We got to school a few minutes early. Of course to take pictures. It was quite an interesting first day. The principal came out and invited everyone to come to the flag at the front of the school. He then introduced himself and invited us all to sing O Canada. Then everyone said this little poem about Lexington School. He had a few more announcements and officially opened up the school by ringing this old bell the school had. Never been to a first day like that.

Jacob found his teacher and they were off to their classroom. It was 28 degrees here today so he wore his crocks to school. But I soon realized he wasn't going to like wearing his indoor shoes without socks!! So of course, I drove home and got him some socks. He was surprised to see me and I even got to spy on him at recess. He was playing with kids and having a great time.

When I picked him up, he was excited to see us. But I could tell he was tired. He was lying down on the couch when he got home and I had to keep encouraging him to outside and play in the pool. His reply was, "Mom!, I just worked all day I'm tired." So after a good laugh we went through all the stuff that came home in his back pack together. He went and hing up his calendar from the teacher on the fridge and showed me his "homework." Very cute. Meet the teacher is next week and I don't think parents make appointments, I think they just show up and it is very casual, and they see the classroom and are introduced to the school council.

Hard for me to be on the other side of things today. I am used to first days of school, but with other people's kids. And I usually know how their days went because I was there. So I had lots of questions for Jacob and he finally said, "why all these question when I come home from school, I'm tired." I guess I wanted to know too much!

Well the kids finally went into the pool and they found a frog in the pool today. The frog has been rescued and placed in a safe frog friendly location.

All in all, an exciting day out here in the East!!