# 14

Yesterday was Claire's first soccer practice. Cory and I both went to meet the other parents and see how she would do as she has never played before. She seemed to have fun and did pretty well. Cory said that he would go out this weekend and buy a soccer ball so he and Claire could practice in the backyard. Watching all these 5 year old little girls running through their drills and trying to make their foot reach the ball and kick it around cones was too cute, you could see on all their faces how hard they were concentrating. Not sure when our first game is, but you can be sure I will be there with my camera in hand and will let you all know how they do!








Even Paige made a new friend while the older girls were practicing. Here is Paige and Chelsea talking about God only knows what while their sisters were working hard!

Wordless Wednesday

Sorry that I haven't been a very good blogger lately, but I have been a busy lady trying to get our new house really feeling like home with painting and nicknack's. Here are a few pictures of what we have been up to the last few weeks.

The long awaited 3 level swing set is all finished and has been for a few weeks now, the girls are really enjoying playing on it and I am sure they will get even more use out of it once the weather cools off.

Killian LOVES his new backyard and anytime you ask him if he wants to play ball, he quickly responds like this.

Then this.....

And will do this as long as you will kick the ball.

Paige and I have been spending more time outside as well, especially in the afternoons when we are waiting for Claire to get home.

Smelling the daisies

Claire's room all finished!

I am all finished with Claire's room and am really happy with how it turned out! I think the polka dots are adorable and Claire loves them as well. All I did was take a 9" plastic plate and trace some circles on a big piece of paper. I then cut out some paper stencils which I placed around the room with some painter's tape. I had Cory help look at the layout as two sets of eyes and ideas are better than one. Next I took down the paper and traced the plate with a pencil in the same spot. Taking a very small paintbrush I traced the outside of the circle and then filled it in with my regular sized brush. It really wasn't bad at all, I got it finished a lot faster than I thought I would. All we have left to do is hang a few of her pictures and she will have the first room in the house that is completely done!!

Both the girls have these little niches in their rooms which are great for a desk. I didn't put any polka dots above the desk yet because I am planning on getting a big fabric covered bulletin board. Once we have hung the bulletin board I will see if I think we need to add another polka dot or two.

First Day of Kindergarten

* I realized that I didn't say that Claire LOVED her first day! She had so much fun at school and really likes her teacher!!

Today was Claire's first day of Kindergarten and we were all so excited! I was having a hard time with letting her go, last night before bed I had butterflies in my stomach and all the heartache that every mom has when she is sending one of her babies off to Kindergarten for the first time. I was sad, however, so proud of Claire at the same time. She was so ready for this day to arrive and has been for a year now. We had meet the teacher yesterday and I could just see how comfortable she was with herself and the surroundings which help calm my nerves. Her being so confident and brave really did help to make me that way as well.

Here are some pictures of her all ready to go and eating her breakfast of Frosted Flakes.

Then we all headed outside to wait for the bus to arrive and in the meantime I snapped a few pictures of my little Kindergartner.






Here comes the bus and she was definitely ready!
One last goodbye!
So the going to school part was great, everyone did great and there were no tears shed, not even from me! However, the coming home part was different and there was some tears shed, not by Claire but by me. The bus drop off time was suppose to be 12:30pm, well that came and went and 12:50pm was quickly approaching. Now I know that it is the first day of school and the bus driver is learning the route so they may end up being a little late, but I was starting to panic. I grabbed the phone and called Cory at work asking him to call up to school and find out what was going on with the bus. We quickly called me back and told me that the bus did not leave school until 12:25pm, it was running a little late (ah yeah just a little) but she should be home shortly. 1:00pm I see the bus enter the other entrance of the neighborhood and my nerves begin to settle but not for long, 10 minutes later she is still not in my arms telling me about her day. I go inside grab the phone and call my neighbor Dana who's little girl Grace is also in Claire's class and on the bus. She proceeds to tell me that Grace has been home for almost 15 MINUTES and that she saw the bus go to the back of the neighborhood and then back out past her house. It is hard to understand unless you are familiar with our streets but the bus should have turned off of her street and came onto ours and it didn't. Panic kick back in AGAIN! I called Cory and explained all this to him, he gives me the number of school and who he spoke with earlier and I called up there. I explained that the bus was in our neighborhood and then left and my daughter is STILL on the bus. She is useless and gets a hold of the bus dispatch to find out what is going on. To make a REALLY long and emotionally EXHAUSTING story shorter, they finally brought my baby girl home at 2pm, yes that is correct 1.5 hours later than she was suppose to. Can you say I was a wreck, totally freaking out and crying on the phone with my mom (who was great in all this she went up to school for me to talk to them in person) all I wanted to know was where my baby was and how to get her in my arms. I had a nice (if you will call it that) talk with the bus driver and the counselor from the school that actually was on the bus with all the Kindergartner's and they both assured me that this will NOT happen again tomorrow. Claire did great and came off the bus looking like this:
All smiles even though she said she was hungry and hot! My poor baby, she said she still wants to ride the bus tomorrow so I guess we will try it one more time.

Painting Painting and More Painting

That is what I have been doing for the past week. I have gotten both of the girls rooms finished for the most part. Claire decided to do a soft yellow walls with light pink polka dots. Paige wanted soft pink walls with blue polka dots. I did Paige's walls last weekend and Claire's walls this week. Now I have cut out 9" circles that I placed on the walls as a visual before I trace the plates onto the wall and officially fill them in with paint. After I am all finished with the girls rooms, which should be later this week, I will post some pics which I have had several request for! Next I am moving onto the master bedroom and bathroom. I have decided to keep the same colors for the most part except I am going with a little darker Khaki in the bedroom and a little more icy blue in the bathroom. After our bedroom is done I am heading downstairs to the family room and kitchen. Again I have all the colors picked out for those rooms as well, slowly but surely is what I keep telling myself, however, I am on a mission. :)

Lightning Bugs

While I was outside with Killian (our dog) the other night I noticed something, I hardly saw any lightning bugs. Back when I was in elementary school I remember going outside late at night during the summer with a glass jar and collecting lightning bugs and then before going in for the night letting them free. There seemed to be hundreds of them, they were everywhere. We always had so much fun with these little bugs and where just amazed by them. Anyone else noticed they just aren't around like they use to be?

Here are a few pictures of our new backyard, we are just shy of an acre and then we back to common ground so it just seems to go on forever!! Our yard goes as far as the burning bushes and to the last tree you can see. It goes further to the left and right I just took a picture straight up the middle for the most part. Cory is working on getting the girls swing set all put up and should hopefully be done this weekend.