Addie's First Day Of Preschool

Addie's First Day of Preschool - She doesn't look it, but she's excited! Addie's New Bumble Bee Backpack


Addie's first day of preschool was on Tuesday. At drop-off, they had the parents sit down with the kids on the circle rug to sing a few songs together before we left. They sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and then moved on to two other songs that I am not yet familiar with. My funny lil girl insisted upon dancing to the other songs rather than sit in mommy's lap and sing. I was a little embarrassed at first, thinking that people were going to look at my daughter like the "hyper one" who can't sit still...but I soon got over it. She definitely marches to the tune of her own drummer and I don't think I ever want to hinder that behavior. Another lil girl stood up to follow suit and her mom kept trying to get her to sit back down - futile in my opinion, they are 2 after all!!

Once the songs were over, the kids all leapt up to go play with toys and the parents were told to give a quick goodbye and leave the room. Me & Grandma said goodbye to Addie and started to walk out of the room. I was shocked when I turned around to see her face start to scrunch up and she actually started to cry. Addie has always been super independent; when we go to parties or playdates or open gyms, she always runs off to play with things and rarely looks to see where I am or what I am doing. I imagined that she would be the one child who didn't cry when she was dropped off at preschool. I quickly left, as the cries of several other children started up as well, and I didn't want to prolong any sadness.

Today, they had the parents just drop the kids off, hang up their backpacks, and quickly say goodbye. They had playdoh set out at the table, so Addie was quickly interested in that and I don't know if she was one of the few that shed tears today. She told me on the way home though that she wants to go to school everyday, so I'm thinking she likes it a lot! Trust me, if I could afford it, I'd send her everyday - working in peace and quiet is a beautiful thing!!

Addie's New Room

So, last weekend, we "officially" moved Addie into her new room. I was very happy that I didn't need to take apart her entire twin bed, the hubby and I were able to slide the base on its side, from one room to the other.

I put up these great decals that I bought with her bedding at Target, they're very cute and add some much needed life to the room. The only problem with them is that they're repositional and Addie has learned that she can peel them off and put them wherever she likes (which of course, drives me nuts, but I can see how they would appeal to a toddler!). I'm not sure how long they will last at this rate, but we're trying to explain to her that if they're taken off too many times, they won't stick anymore.

I came across a cute project at The Kindred Spirit Mommy for a hair barrette/ponytail ribbon holder which Addie so desperately needs, as I'm tired of finding her barrettes all over my house. So, I bought some coordinating Owl fabric and finished it last night (while watching the Big Brother finale, was a little bummed Lane didn't win the grand prize!). I didn't take any step by step photos, but it is super easy. You just buy a stretched canvas, I went with an 11" x 14" one, and get some fabric to cover it. Most people would use a staple gun for this project, but I don't currently own one, so I used my trusty glue gun.

The finished project.

Close up of the fabric (which I love!)

Back of the frame.

I simply glued the fabric to the back of my stretched canvas, starting with one side first, then the other, then the bottom/top and finishing up the corners last (after trimming off any excess fabric). You just want to make sure after you glue/staple down your first side, that you're pulling the fabric to make it as tight as possible before you tack down the next side. Then, I glued various sized coordinating ribbon to the back, starting with the top first, and then the bottom. I purposefully did not glue the bottom of two of the ribbons (the thin Hot Pink ones) to the frame to be able to use as ponytail holders. I sealed the end of those ribbons with a lighter to prevent them from fraying. This project literally took me 15 minutes and I think it will be a really decorative, yet functional addition to Addie's room.

I also plan on adding "Adeline" in wooden letters to the wall that her bed is against at some point, I just have to find letters that I like and figure out how I'm going to paint or decoupage them to match the rest of her room.



I'm working on organizing the baby's room still, I've gotten all of Addie's clothes bins from her first year out the basement and am working on washing and hanging them all in the baby's closet.



In addition to starting preschool next week (which I know Addie is super excited about), I've signed her up for swimming lessons with Daddy and gymnastics/tumbling class with me starting in November. I figure it's good for her to get out and about and be active in the winter months, especially since she doesn't really have the luxury of leaving the house during the week, while I'm working.

It's a Girl!!!!

I cannot even express how happy I am that the baby is another girl! I think both me and my husband were fully expecting it to be a boy, so it was a nice surprise when the tech said it was a girl! Being able to re-use all of my baby stuff is huge, and I love that Addie will have a sister to play with. We also don't need to re-decorate Addie's bedroom (phew!). I spent part of the weekend cleaning out the "sewing/craft" room to make space for Addie's stuff. I think she is a little hesitant to change rooms, but I keep pointing out to her that she has so much more space to play in. I'm hoping the owl/forest decals I have for her new room will help get her excited as well. We've already decided to name the baby Eleanor - I think it goes beautifully with Adeline, and we'll call her "Nora" for short. I'm pretty sure her middle name will be Stacy, after Elliott's sister. It might seem a bit soon for some people, but I plan on having the nursey back together in the next couple of weeks (including having all the clothes washed/hung, everything organized and put in its place). The baby won't even be here until mid-late January, but I feel like I'll have less to worry about later.

We're going camping this weekend for Labor Day (with Grandma, Grandpa and our two nephews) and I'm really looking forward to it! Been busy the past two days organizing all our camping gear and making lists of everything we need to buy/bring.

Updates

So, I haven't been around in awhile, life has a way of catching up with you I guess. I started working full-time from home in January. I have found it extremely overwhelming at times to manage my workload and my daughter at the same time, and also struggled with the fact that I can no longer really leave the house during the day, except for the occasional drs visit or quick errand.

And I also have that problem where I dive whole-heartedly into something and do it so much and so often that eventually I tire of it and have to move on to something else. I find it difficult to keep up with more than a few things at a time, for example, if I'm doing an awesome job managing our budget/meal-planning/coupon clipping/etc., I'll spend so much time and energy on these things that than all of a sudden, I'm not sewing or scrapbooking or blogging, and vice versa...

Unfortunately, with the arrival of a second child in January, I feel like I have to become more organized/more focused to do all that needs to be done and all that I love to do. We are very excited, I miss having a baby around! We'll find out the sex in five days!! I'm actually getting really excited/anxious to move Addie into the big bedroom and fix up the lil bedroom for the baby. That of course, means moving my sewing/crafting stuff to the basement.




We're in the full throes of potty-training right now and it's actually going fairly well. Addie expressed interest in going on the potty several months ago, so we let her do it when she wanted, but she lost interest after a week or two, so I didn't push it. She is now wearing big girl training pants all day (except at naptime and bedtime) and doesn't have any accidents involving P.P., after a week or so. Still working on #2 though. I bought her a bunch of "Potty Presents" to try and incent her to remember to get to the potty beforehand. We'll see how that goes. She actually starts preschool in mid-Sept, so I'd like her to be almost completely potty-trained by then, even though it's only a two hour class.

Elliott is going back to school to finish his degree, so he started a class this week, and while it's not a subject he's thrilled about (ART), I'm happy that he's starting to work on something that I know he will be super happy about when completed.