Kaycie's First Field Trip

This morning was Kaycie's first field trip, and she was definitely excited about going to the apple orchard.  The weather was almost perfect too as you can tell the kids aren't bundled up :o)

Here all the kids are listening to "Mrs. Apple" talk.  An interesting thing she told us was that their orchard lost 97% of all their crop due to the weird spring weather we had this year.  She also stated that every orchard grower from the Mississippi River east lost anywhere from 60 - 100% of their crops!  Once the growers realized that their crops wouldn't happen this year, they started calling around the country to find apples.  A lot of their apples came from Washington State.  She told us that Washington was having an overly abundant year for their apple crop - that is until a hail storm came about 2 weeks before the harvesting time!  Lost quite a bit of apples from that.  What an amazing year for apple growers.  Mrs Apple said this has been their worst season in over 100 years!

Enough of that . . . as I stated earlier, here the kids are listening to Mrs Apple.

Kaycie and I on the hayride - her favorite part!  She even waved to the cars driving past :o)

We drove around the huge field of pumpkins.

At the end of the hayride, all the kids and parents got to pick a gourd.

Nothing in Particular

Here are some pictures from the past month or so.

Kaycie playing computer games.

This is how Kaycie takes her afternoon naps - I have to make a tent for her  :o)

Had to throw in this picture of our cat Punky sleeping  :o)

The Girls

Today the girls wanted to go outside and play.  It didn't take long before Allyson came in and wanted me to rake the leaves in a pile. I told her "I'm not gonna rake no leaves!"  I told her she could do it, and she was able to get the rake and go at it.

While Allyson raked, Janae and Kaycie picked up leaves with their hands and put them on the pile :o)

The coveted result - a pile of leaves to play in!

Kaycie and Preschool

On Monday Kaycie got to bring home the class puppet, Albert the Alligator.  She was totally excited and even read Albert a book soon after she got home.

Today was Silly Day at preschool.  Here is my silly girl with mismatched socks and . . .

. . . silly hair

Last week all the kids at preschool got to paint a shirt they brought to school.  Today (Silly Day) was the first time they got to wear them and bring it home.  Here is Kaycie's painted shirt.

Our Little Artist

Janae drew this picture this afternoon, and I personally think she is doing a great job!  I also think that this is one of her best so far.  She usually likes to draw right after watching her favorite show when she gets home from school.  Do you know who's who?

Me, Kaycie, Allyson, Janae and Rodney

First Day of Preschool

Even though I've been waiting for this day for a while, it doesn't seem possible that it has finally arrived.  My baby girl is now in preschool.  Today was Kaycie's first day, and she was definitely excited and a bit nervous.  She had no qualms when we got there.  She got out of the van and walked right in the building like she's done it a bunch of times.  (It probably didn't hurt that she saw big sister Janae do this all last year.)

When I picked  her up later that morning, she was full of information on what she did at school - play outside, eat fish crackers at snack time, sing the Muffin Man song, play dress up in the toy room, paint, etc.  It's kinda funny but at one point she wanted to know where her friends were.  We've been calling her classmates her friends even though she hadn't met them yet, so now since she finally is in school she still isn't officially friends with everyone yet cuz she still learning to know them.  I told her it will take a little bit before she knows everyone and is comfortable playing with them.

What did I do today you ask?  Well, I first stopped by the drug store to pick up a prescription, then headed to the credit union to do some banking.  I then went home and did some things on the computer and kept watching the clock as I guess I was afraid time would get away from me and I'd be late to leave to pick up Kaycie :o)  Nothing overly exciting, but last night Kaycie told me that I could do laundry when she was at school :o)  I don't think it has totally sunk in that this is going to be a normal routine thing - where I will have time three days a week where it's just me, but I do know that I'm going to enjoy whatever I do or don't do.

Pictures

Here are some pictures from the past few weeks and some from just tonight.

Janae and Kaycie waiting for daddy to come home.  They got a little impatient and left their post about 5 minutes before Rodney actually got home.

When Allyson started kindergarten I took a picture of her getting off of the bus the very first time (actually it was the second day as I was video taping her on the first day and couldn't handle both the video and the camera).   So I wanted to do the same with Janae's first (ok actually second) day of getting home from kindergarten . . .but Allyson kept getting off the bus first.

I told Allyson on the third day of school to let Janae get off first, and she did.  :o)

Love those faces!

Kaycie is now thinking that she needs to sleep on the hallway floor like her sister :o(  !!!!  This is what I get to maneuver through each night and morning.  Like I had said on Facebook - I have a hallway land mine.

I'm done with the cute pictures now, but here are two we are hoping to identify.  Does anyone know what this is?!  I first found it early last week attached to our back door on the mailbox.  I just thought it was something that stuck while floating in the air.  I took a leaf and knocked it down.  That's when I thought I noticed it might have been alive.  Didn't think a whole lot about it since I had knocked it down.  That is until this afternoon.  I once again saw it attached to our mailbox, but this time it was on the side of it.

It kinda looks like a worm is inside, but it doesn't really look like it's trying to get out.  Just sticks it's head out.  The whole cacoon thing moves so you know something(s) is in there.  If you touch the mailbox, the head goes in and the top of the cacoon thing attaches back to the mailbox.  Any ideas?

The Beach

The other week Rodney asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday.  I thought about it for just a moment and then promptly said "go to Lake Michigan to the beach."  And that's what we did!  Throughout this week I kept an eye on the weather forecast.  At first there was a slight chance of rain and upper 80's.  The closer today got the chance of rain was gone and the temps kept rising to the lower 90's :o)  My only concern was that with it being that warm then the beach would be super busy, but that didn't stop us from going.  And we are all soooo glad we did.  The girls had a blast and us adults did too!   

After packing a picnic lunch and gathering all the things we were needing, we headed out at 10:00am.  We weren't entirely sure how long it would take us to get to Silver Beach, but we were kinda figuring 1 1/2 hours.  And we were correct. 

When we go to Silver Beach, we don't actually go to the main beach area as it is always very crowded, which it was today.  We go down just a bit to another beach area, and when we got there this morning it wasn't crowded at all.  It was quite nice.  But by the time we were leaving though, it was definitely getting more busy.  So we picked the perfect time to go :o)

The girls wanted to go to water right away, so I got them in their swimsuits and Rodney changed as well.  We went down to the beach for a little bit until it was time to eat lunch.  The girls reluctantly agreed.  After lunch Kaycie wanted to play on the playground, so Rodney and her did that while Allyson, Janae and I went back to the water.  It didn't take too long before Kaycie and Rodney were back as the equipment was kinda hot.  Allyson finally convinced me to change into my swimsuit (I haven't been in one for years!), so I was able to enjoy the water too.

It was a totally enjoyable birthday day!  There is just something about being at the beach.  Seeing the horizon, the boats, the waves, the sand . . . That's my dream paradise.  And it is appearing that it is also the girls' :o)

Here are some pictures from the day.

Walking out to a sand bar for the first time.

Originally Janae didn't want to put on her swimsuit as she wasn't going into the water.  She was going to make sandcastles.  But I told her that she still needed to put it on in case she gets wet.  She said okay, and I'm fairly confident that she's happy she did.  Why?  Because she spent waaay more time in the water than making sandcastles :o)

This is early on in the water.  She didn't go out very far at all.  But just wait . . .

Out on the sand bar watching the boats.

The only good picture of me in the water.  I will spare you the images of me in a swimsuit - not a pretty sight.  Next time I will need to find something different to wear, so I don't scare the whole beach away.  :o\

Notice how far Janae is in the water?  After lunch she started walking out to the sand bar by herself!  She's always been the one who takes a while before she is willling to try something new.  And usually once she finally tries it, she loves it. :o)

Playing in the sand on the sand bar.

They started out making a wall, but it turned out into the girls' initials - J K A

In the waves on the other side of the sand bar.

Nothing like your toes in the sand!

Beautiful!

Think she's enjoying herself? :o)