Emily Starts Preschool

So, today was Emily's big day! Her very first day at "Big Girl School"! She was so excited! Today was the day that the parents got to stay in the classroom and see how things work, and where things are and watch how the children interact with the teachers. It was pretty chaotic, and I am still a believer that anyone who can work with that many toddlers on a day to day basis and still smile throughout it all, should be nominated for sainthood! Emily did really well! She was shy when it came time to stand up in front of the class and tell her name and age, so I had to help her with that.. while she hid behind the teacher next to us! After that, it was just play time. All the kids got to basically help themselves to whatever they wanted to play (oh, sorry "work") with. This is a Montessori preschool, which means that the children select their own work for the day. It is a mixed age group of children from ages 2-5, so the older kids help the younger ones. Emily did a very impressive job with the puzzles! She blew through some pretty difficult puzzles with no problems! And she loved playing with jars and bottles and cups of popcorn kernels, beans, beads and marbles. She just poured them from one cup to another, over and over, saying she was making me milk, or juice, or soup! She seemed to really enjoy herself! After a couple of hours, Iain and I snuck away to sit outside the classroom to see how she would act when we weren't there.. we don't even think she noticed we left! She was very good and we are very proud! Also, tonight, she counted to 5! I know that's not a great leap, but she always tends to skip from 3 to 6, forgetting 4 & 5.. so for her to say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5? That's big for this week!

Today was also my 34th.. er 28th.. birthday! After our morning at preschool, Iain drove us all down to Hermiston, OR just to explore. It's only about 1/2 an hour away, so it's not a bad drive at all. And it turns out that it's a pretty nice little town! I found the Daisy Bucket Design Studio! Daisy Bucket creates some of the most beautiful scrapbooking paper I have ever seen! And to see it all in one store was amazingly overwhelming! I didn't buy a single sheet of paper, because I didn't know where to start, and I knew that if I did start, I probably wouldn't stop! They also had some other scrapping products. I did get a stamp, some glitter, some rub-ons, some flowers and some hat-pins.. that's new for me.. gotta figure out how to use these absolutely adorable little hat-pins on paper! Then we found another scrapbook store (Oh boy) where I found a bunch more stuff! More paper - yes, I bought paper here, only because the Halloween stuff was just cool! and I got some paper to scrapbook Emily's first day of school! I got stickers, more stamps, and a scrapbook page layout kit to use with the photos of Emily's new swing at Grandpa David and Nana Cauleen's house. I'll post photos of those 2 scrapbook pages when I make them.. soon, I promise!

Bradley! I got a picture today of his smile that just lights up the whole room! I hope you like it as much as I do!