Auntie T is comin...to town!

Who's excited about Auntie T coming? This guy!
Auntie T and Ella talking about butterflies
Auntie T posting their butterfly on Ella's window.

Last weekend, Auntie T came to visit. We tried to go to the Franklin Park Conservatory to see their butterfly exhibit but it was closed. We ran around and did a few other errands then came back to our house to play for a while. Auntie T likes to nuture the girly in Ella so she came well stocked with craft supplies, dresses, and butterfly stuff.

Monday School

The Happy Participant
Classroom o' fun
These two are trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool
Look at Myles giving his Mom the ol' stink eye
Ella's on the right, Luke's in the back and Myles is in front of Luke. The driver is a friend from Miss Lori Story Hour and the kid in yellow is her little brother.

Ella and Myles are participating in a local program called "Monday School." It's done at a local church that's right behind our house. It's Sunday school/pre-school just on Mondays. They try to focus on getting the kids ready for Kindergarten so they have them do things like homework (ugh!) and eat a packed lunch at school. They teach the kids sign language and other fun stuff. The best part (besides the great learning they do) is that it costs only a dollar. A DOLLAR! Ella and Myles really seem to enjoy it so far.

Shhhhh! It's a secret

Here's the outside

Lots of name practicing...and a drawing of me, Robin, and Ella playing jump rope.


Here she is copying the words Billy Gorilly from her CD...not sure what the rest is.
Here is a page of what I'm calling "mirror image writing" where she decided to write all the words backwards. Crazy, huh? I think she did better than I could do. Maybe she's bored with writing them correctly? Who knows.
Here's a drawing of Mickey Mouse.
Here is a page of construction paper mice. She designed, cut, glued, and put faces on them with absolutely no instruction from me.

Ever wonder what a 4 (almost 5) year old would put/write in her diary? Well, here it is! All of the sudden, she's so creative and artistic. I'm not really sure where it came from--must be Aron's side. I couldn't make a construction paper mouse to save my life.

The Peach Whisperers

Here are Aron and Robin picking all the peaches in Ike's path. Oh the madness!

Hurricane Ike? Yikes!

Ike huffed and puffed and blew this tree down. Aron and Robin, peach gatherers

Hurricane Ike blew threw town last weekend and caused some serious tree damage. Ike also blew quite a few of the peaches (let's call it 3 bushels or so) off of Aron's beloved peach tree in our backyard. He and Robin gathered them all up while I sang "Millions of peaches...peaches for me...millions of peaches...peaches for free....LOOK OUT!" (If you don't know the song I'm referencing, don't worry about it.)

1/2 Marathon? Check.

To the victor goes the spoils.

I just walked 13.1 miles but I still have to carry this guy back to the car??

My friend, Jamie, and I did a 1/2 marathon yesterday. It was oodles of fun. If you haven't been to it yet, check out my other blog by clicking here.

While I was off walking, Aron and the kids had a blast playing at all the different playgrounds and just hanging out. There were a few trips to Starbucks for chocolate milk and m & m cookies.

Everyone who completed the course got a medal. When I crossed the line, I was greeted by the kids and Aron. Ella tugged on my arm and had me lean down so she could ask me if this was the first race I had ever won. So cute!

hothothot

Oh, wow. It was hard not to laugh while I watched him do this. In case you can't tell, it's the truck that is producing the HotHotHot song.

No that's not me going "Woooooooo" It was the chick beside me.

This one's for you, Uncle Jeffy.

Play that funky music, O U!

This one's for you, Amy!

Celebrate good times....come on!

Because Aron was home and has his appetite back, we decided to get crazy and go out to lunch on Friday after her first pre-K day to celebrate. While we were there, Ella showed us her very first piece of school work. She had to draw stems on flowers and then color them.

Who's Mommy's little artist?

Does anyone else find the humor in this?

My Dad, bro, Aron, and I were all riding home from the OSU game when we saw this sign. It made for some good laughs.

As an aside but along a similar vein, we all know that my Dad's a little crazy, right? See also posts My Dad---YIKES and Darn! I'm not adopted. Anyhoos, after the game, we decided to go out to eat. The sandwich I ordered came with a tomato slice. I chose not to eat the tomato because raw tomatoes are not my favorite food. Sometimes I'll make myself eat some because they're good for me but sometimes not. My Dad looked at the tomato slice then looked at me then looked at the tomato slice then looked at me. He then told me "Better eat your tomato, it's good for your prostate."

No, I'm not kidding and neither was he (no matter what he tells you).

The Academics

Our buddy, Sam, went to the our preschool last year and had the same teacher. He said he liked his teacher but didn't really like "the academics." I told him "the academics" must've worked despite his distaste for them since he was advanced enough to know what the word "academics" means. He gave me a funny look--I think he thinks I'm weird : )

So here's her new classroom. I think there are 10 kids in her class at any given time but not all of them are there on the same days. Her teacher's name is Mrs. Lori (not to be confused with the story hour goddess, Miss Lori). No picture of her yet--I'll work on that.

I think I'm going to do a post soon detailing all the things she can do now and then do another one at the end of the year to see how she's progressed. I'll try to get to that over the weekend sometime.

Looks like we made it!

Who's ready to go to pre-K? Me!
Who's ready to go inside for pre-K? Me!
Who wants to give her little brother a hug goodbye before pre-K? Me!
Who's being forced to hug her Mom goodbye in the parking lot? Me!

Today was the first day of pre-K. Ella decided early in the week that she wanted to wear her Hello Kitty shirt, Hello Kitty skirt, Hello Kitty shoes, wear her Hello Kitty backpack, and use her Hello Kitty lunchbox. I though it might be a bit of overkill to have all that Hello Kitty wear so we scaled back a bit. She went with just the Hello Kitty skirt and backpack. (The lunchbox wasn't needed because she wasn't staying for lunch today).

She was pretty quiet when she got inside to pre-K. I told the teacher she would warm up in a little while but would probably be shy at first.

That's me!

There's my most recent quilt (It has a black border with multi-colored stripes between the cows on the left and the cat one on the right. It has a red ribbon on it) . I entered it in the local fair this year and it got a second in its category.