Olive's first day of preschool!

Today is Olive's first day of preschool!

She has been ready to go since the first day of Cedar's jump start kindergarten always asking if today she goes to school??? So today, when it is FINALLY her turn she pulled it off in true Olive style. She was the first one up. She was up and dressed in the outfit of her choosing at 6:30am. She packed her lunch (snack) box by herself, put everything she needed in her backpack, put her backpack on her back and was ready to go at 6:45am. We managed to get her to sit down and have some breakfast. (The special ocasion chocolate chip pancakes!) and do her hair. She was a little impatient and thought that maybe pictures would take up too much time, but finally consented.


So here they are! All of my children have gone off to school leaving me sitting here in front of the computer all by myself! Honestly, I don't know what to do. I keep expecting to hear my name called out! (I'm sure I can find SOMETHING to do. I don't know, it might be hard...:)


Horray for Olive!

Three cheers for the birthday boy!

Today we celebrate one very special boy! (Well, yes, he is a man, but if you saw him on the trampoline, in the pool or playing computer games with the kids, you'd say boy too!)



Jonathon Clairmont English was born exactly 35 years ago! We, at this blog will always be eternally grateful for the little bundle that John and Marie brought into the world!


Three cheers for Jonathon! We love you!

Cedar's first day of kindergarten!

It's official, Cedar is in kindergarten! We weren't sure if he would make it today. The fever he came home from church with stuck with him until last night when it finally broke. Kids are sure funny when they are sick. He had a really high fever (104!) and was laying around acting truely sick. I gave him some medicine and he's up, jumping around like normal....Tuesday, I thought he was better. He was .5 hotter than normal, but that's not much more than wearing a hot shirt in the sun... Until mid morning when I took his temperature again and it was back up to 102.5. I thought for sure the poor little guy would miss his firts day of school, but he started sweating like crazy in the night. (That means the fever broke, right?) He wasn't hot at all but he was sure wet..I even thought he wet the bed. The big nod of "I'm better" came this morning when he was up before seven, like normal and a chipper little man. (Except for the butterflies in his stomach!) I may have to revise this post if his teacher calls me to come and get him early, but for now, he's my little kindergarten boy!

Aspen's first day of 2nd grade!

So here she is! Her first day of school was yesterday. She was a little nervous, but when I picked her up she couldn't stop talking and telling us all about her really nice teacher, the new girl that just moved here who she made friends with. The funny song they did in music, how some of her friends from kindergarten are in her class, how she got to see her friend Abby, and on and on! It was a great day!

Some random thoughts

Here is an update on the sunflowers in our swimming pool garden. This is the biggest one. It is about 15 in. diameter. It is so big and heavy it can't stand up anymore. These are really the coolest things! It is amazing to watch the bees and butterflies work and they go through each little flower that will become a seed.



Thursday we took our last summer trip to Dollywood before school starts. Aspen, Cedar and I all brought friends. It was a really fun day and the kids now have a new favorite ride. It's called "Thunder Road" and it's a motion simulated "ride" about a car chase. I was thrilled because there was no line and it's indoor with air conditioning.
Here is a cute picture of Jonathon and Olive.

My random thoughts today are that I can't believe that school starts tomorrow! We went and did all of the final registration on Friday and the kids all know where their classes are, where they will sit and who is in their class. Kindergarten has a staggered enrollment for the first week so Cedar doesn't officially start until Wednesday, which is good because he came home from church with a fever! Olive starts next Tuesday and we are set. I will have no more excuses as to why my house doesn't look better! (I'm sure that I can think of something!) Other new things are that I cut my hair! I had gotten a cute little stylish "do" at the end of the school year, and found out that I just can't keep up with much style.

Peaches!

Ever since we bought our first house in North Carolina, I have wanted to plant fruit trees. I thought it would be so amazing wonderful to walk out my door and have peaches and apricots and pears and apples right there, waiting for me to eat. I remember going to Grandma Loveridge's house and picking and eating fruit from her trees. So after we bought this house I was ready for fruit trees! I looked and lookes for Apricot trees, but couldn't find any. We did however find a lovely peach tree with a one year guarantee. (Very important for those of us who kill plants by simply looking at them.) Last year I was so excited because we had dozens of little fruits growing all through the tree. Then to our sadness, the spring frost came and killed everything. I had learned my lesson. This year, instead of decorating my trees with lights for Christmas, I decorated my peach tree for the spring. It was really very festive twinkling in the night with it's colored lights. On especially cold nights, we would wrap it in plastic making it look like an odd little multi colored ghost protecting our home. Our little peaches survived and we get to savor our little peach harvest! Peaches anyone?

Free baby wipes

I have more to blog about later, but I just found this on the Knoxville mom's site and thought I would pass it along. It is for a free container of Huggies wipes. The link is: http://marthababysteps.com/reqform.php