Liv goes to preschool

The little girlie started preschool today!  (Also that one little strand of hair on the left that is kind of separated from the rest of her hair is totally driving me crazy in this picture, but what can you do?)

She was SO excited.  She had to wear this insanely huge red t-shirt so that they would easily be able to tell that she is in the red pod.  Granny helped sew in the sides so that it wasn't so huge.  She has been so excited for preschool ALL summer long, and so today was finally the big day. 

We managed to get dressed, force down half a pop tart, and do her hair with minimal fussing.  However, I can see that the getting dressed and getting her hair done every morning, when we need to leave by 7:00 to get her and the boys to school on time, are going to be pretty painful pretty soon.  Oh well.  

She wanted so much to be dropped off like the big boys, so she didn't even want me to walk her in.  So I dropped her off in the car rider line.  I handed her to her preschool teacher (the little kids have to be exchanged hand to hand), and squeezed her and she was off.  She didn't look back.  She was so excited and not at all sad about leaving.  

I didn't expect to cry, so when I started to feel the emotions of sadness, I was a little surprised.  I think I was a little surprised that she was SO ready to go, and it got me thinking about the future when she goes to college and she will probably just mosey off to her new dorm room and not even look back at me.  Sob.  So I cried a little.  And then Leesie and I headed to Evansville, across the river, to get her birth certificate, which whoops, I should have already turned in.  But the eclipse traffic coming back south was SO insane, that I abandoned ship and turned around.  I would have been stuck in that traffic for hours coming home if I had decided to go.  Whew, good thing I didn't.  She'll go to school Monday and Wednesday (just three hours) for the next two weeks, and then after that it'll be the Mon-Thursday schedule (still just three hours).  I think it's pretty clever that they have this phase in period, because she was pretty exhausted when I picked her up. 

Playing catch up

So now that I'm all caught up with the beach pictures, it's time to post some other pictures of the rest of the month of July and the beginning of August.  Lucky for me, I haven't been very motivated to take a bunch of pictures. 

After we got back from the beach, I totally went through an end of summer slump.  I felt exhausted and tired and pretty much just didn't want to do much of anything.  So we really didn't.  We chilled around at home, we went to the YMCA, we played with friends now and then.  But mostly we stayed around home playing with toys, and videos games, and watching TV.  Nice lazy summer days. 

Now, however, those days are long gone.  The kids started back in school on August 9th.  Cameron started second grade and Jace is in fourth.  They're getting so big.  I dropped them off and it felt pretty much like we were coming back from a two week break, instead of a two month break.  They didn't need me to walk them in, so I went through the car drop off line just like normal.  Nothing too special.  

Look at those cute little goofballs.  I made them laugh, which is why they have such authentic smiles on their faces.  There WERE NOT, in fact, super thrilled about starting school again.  Also Jace is carrying the seventh Harry Potter book, which he has since finished.  And he keeps saying, "What am I going to read now?"  and I know what he's feeling.  It's like this sense of something so wonderful that you love, just being over.

I haven't had the heart to break it to him that there is really nothing out there in the fiction world better than Harry Potter and that, unfortunately, he peaked in fourth grade.  Hehe.  I mean, there are books, of course.  But I still haven't come across anything as good.  Let me know if you have. . . 

Family pictures

Almost done

Big girl camera post 3