Sunday, August 19, 2018

Atlanta in August

We had plans to leave for Atlanta right after school on the first Friday after school started.  My day started off amazing with this sweet gift from one of my parents!

After school, the kids and I went home to meet Matt, get the car packed, and hit the road!

The next morning we were up bright and early and headed to SkyZone for Ben's 9th birthday party!!!  LL hasn't been to a SkyZone in about 5 years, and Cooper has never been!

They had this awesome inverted wall and both Cooper and Daddy made it to the top! (Cooper did the smallest and Matt did the medium).

Matt got a jumping pass and both kids loved having him participating!  LL broke her ankle on a trampoline a few years ago, and it's still pretty sensitive.  We really wanted her to participate, so we wrapped her ankle in sports tape, and it actually helped so much!!  She was able to jump without any pain or having her ankle twist at all!

They had a "Nerf Wars" area that Cooper was pumped for!


These are all the kids that came to Ben's party (minus LL).  It was a great turn out and a perfect party for 9 year old boys!


I kept trying to get pics of Matt and Cooper jumping, but someone was always blurry.  This cracked me up, though, because this is how Cooper looked in every single picture - straight like a pencil!

That afternoon, the kids hit the neighborhood pool....

...while I headed to see Taylor Swift with my girls!  Katie and I have literally been talking about going to see a Taylor concert together since I went back in 2015 (and Katie went that same year, too!).  Well, this year we finally made it happen!

The concert was in the brand new Mercedes-Benz stadium!

Pumped for a fun night with my friends!


Last time I saw Taylor, I had floor seats.  This time, literally the next to highest row in the whole stadium - haha.


Taking this picture was so hard because it was so steep and we were all terrified!

Loving our glow bracelets!

We may have been high up, but we still had a blast!

I love seeing the whole stadium lit up with the bracelets!

While I was at the concert, Matt and Gino had a boy date...

...and Laura had dinner and a movie with the kids!

I don't know if traveling the first weekend after school starts in my favorite way to do things, but we all had an absolute blast!!



Thursday, August 16, 2018

First Day of School 2018! Kindergarten and 4th Grade

We had meet the teacher night on a Friday, and then the first day of school was the following Tuesday.  The night before, we did several things to prepare.  First, we had our traditional spaghetti dinner - we've been doing this as our "night before school" dinner since LL was starting Kindergarten!  I bought Cooper a "the night before Kindergarten" sticker-stories book from Amazon.  It had a ton of stickers for him to put in as we read, and he loved it!  Finally, we put the kids down for an early bed time since they would be waking up early the next morning!  After the kids went to sleep, I went upstairs to check on them, and found Cooper like this.  When I tucked him in, he had no Avengers in his bed (they were in the toy drawers below his bed).  He had gotten them out and tucked them in all on his own.  It was adorable


The next morning, we were all up nice and early and had plenty of time to get ready!  
Kindergarten for Cooper, 12th year for me, and 4th grade for LL!

This year, I wasn't going to be able to walk the kids to their classrooms on the first day.  At my old school, the times were a little different, so I could usually swing it.  At my new school, I start getting kids at 7:30, but they weren't opening the doors at LL and Cooper's school until 7:45.  Thankfully, Daddy came to the rescue and took both kids and walked them to their classes!

Daddy also did a great job of getting their "back to school" pictures before they left the house!

For the last two years, LL has been so involved in picking out her clothes for the first day - and I love it!  She always wants a dress on the first day (which I love), and this year she found these super cute glitter shoes that she had to have!

I can't believe we're sending my baby to big school!


This year and next year will be the only two years that these two are in the same school!

They had to wait outside for the school to open the doors.

Matt and LL went to drop Cooper off first, and some first-day anxiety set in.  Poor guy.

Thankfully they got him involved in some toys and he was fine after that!

Matt walked LL to her classroom, but he said no parents were actually going in the room, so he just snapped this picture in the hallway.

That night, we were all exhausted!  Haha.

It's so easy to forget this in May...but it's so true!

The three of us are excited for a great 2018/2019 school year!

Monday, August 13, 2018

Open House 2018 - Kindergarten and 4th Grade

This school year was a big first for us: having two open houses at the same place!  This will only happen two times ever in the course of our kids' school lives (this year and next year).  Since I got a new job, both kids were changing schools, too.  Cooper went from private preschool to public kindergarten, and LL went from Cook County schools to Lowndes County schools.  Open house was the Friday of my pre-planning.  Matt picked the kids up and met me there since I was coming straight from work.

Kindergarten and 4th Grade!

Cooper has been excited all summer about starting Kindergarten, and we have been hyping it up!


LL has been more nervous about 4th grade.  She just changed schools last year (she went from the primary school to the elementary school), and this year she was having to change again.  We talked to her about how she would know so many more people and see lots of kids from church and stuff, so we really tried to keep it as positive as we could!


Both kids did great at Open House, and I think it helped to make them way less nervous about starting school.  We didn't take any pictures in their classrooms because it was pretty hectic, but we did take some outside when we were done.


Cooper has just started wanting to take pictures with my phone a lot, so he insisted on taking this of us with LL.

The kids and I are all starting on a new journey this year, and I am just so excited to see what it has in store for us!


Sunday, August 5, 2018

Summer: Week 10

Our very last week of summer vacation was from July 23 - 29.  The kids still had a little over a week of summer vacation left, but after this I had to go back to school.  Here's what we fit in on our last week:

Monday
I had PL (professional learning) on Monday all day, so I dropped the kids off with Gigi on my way to work.

Ben was at Gigi's house, and Gigi declared this day the "no technology day" - which I loved!  No computers, no phones, no ipads!  Obviously swimming was on the agenda!


They did a lot of board games together.

And they spent a lot of time being creative!

That night for dinner I had Book Club!  July's book was "The Favorite Sister".  If you want to read along with us, our book for August is "Bring Me Back" by BA Paris.

Tuesday
Tuesday morning I had an insurance meeting, and then I had lunch with my new team members.  

After lunch, the kids and I headed home.  When we pulled in, the kids were playing in the garage and Cooper started yelling about a huge spider.  He was right!  This thing was massive, and I could tell it had all of its babies on its back.  Of course Matt was out of town, so I put this bucket over the spider and texted this to Matt to let him know I had a present waiting on him when he got home in two days - haha.

The kids and I declared this night movie night!

As I was going to bed, the dogs got into a little scuffle.  I picked Lola up and realized a huge section of her ear was ripped off!  Ugh!  I called Matt and he said to just put some neosporin on it and watch it.  It's been a few weeks now, and her ear looks fine!

Wednesday
Wednesday I had New Teacher Orientation all day.

They gave us our ID's and I'm 100% orange in mine - haha.  Just call me an oompa loompa.  Thankfully, I think my school is doing their own ID's, so I don't think I'll be stuck wearing this one all year!

All of the 2018/2019 new teachers for Lowndes County!

Thursday
This was the first day this week that I didn't have any school related activities that I had to do, so the kids and I fit in some fun!  First up: our last kid's movie of the summer!

Poor Logan wasn't feeling a group picture - haha.

After the movie, we met Oma, Opa, and Ben at The Mill for pizza and games!




After lunch, the kids wanted to play at Oma and Opa's for a little bit, so I took that opportunity to run up to my classroom and work for about an hour.  I started working on my bulletin board, and was about 2 feet short on my paper!

Friday
Friday was a chill day.  The kids and I started off by going to the gym.  We spent the afternoon at home, and then the kids went up to my classroom in the afternoon to work with me for a few hours.

I saw this on social media, and nothing has ever been more true for our house.  The downside of super long, dark hair?  It's everywhere!

Saturday
Saturday morning all 4 of us hit the gym and I had a killer workout.

The kids wanted to see Ben, so we went to Gigi's for a little while.  That night, Cooper got to have his first big boy sleepover at Gigi's with Ben.  

LL was so sweet and didn't pitch a fit at all when Cooper got to stay at Gigi's and she didn't.  To reward her for her good behavior, we went and got froyo at bed time!

Sunday
My sister came in town on Sunday, and she wanted to see my classroom.  Matt took the 3 kids to our house to play, and she helped me hang these lights in my room!