Belle

I went to the local large consignment sale on Thursday and found this Belle (or as CeCe calls it, Booty Beast) costume for $3!  It is a perfect fit for her.  She's not much into dressing up in full costumes (loves tutu's, hats, jewelry and accessories though) so I wasn't sure if it would be a waste of my money or not.  But for $3 I decided to try it.  I'm glad I did!  

Bryce's 1st soccer game

Bryce had his first soccer game today!  They have only had 3 practices so it was a little chaotic out on the field, but he loved it!  They lost.  Pretty bad.  The other team had two kids that were at least a head taller than Bryce and they had obviously played last year.  All of Bryce's team are first timers and Bryce is actually the tallest on his team (he's never been the tallest anywhere before!).  I think he learned more today at the game than he had learned in the 3 practices combined and I'm sure the other kids did too, so things can only go up from here, right?  They all tried so hard and enjoyed playing together and that is the most important thing to me.  Bryce is so fast.  He could get up to the ball before anyone else, but is scared to be aggressive and steal the ball from someone so he ended up just running with the pack most of the time.  

 The cheering squad

 CeCe couldn't wait to get on the field and run around after the game!

New Groove

I think we've finally gotten into a new groove.  The kindergarten groove that is.  Bryce seems to be enjoying his days at school much more now and we even 'played school' yesterday after school for 1.5hrs. straight!!  Our days seem much busier with almost no 'me time' for me anymore.  I'm slowly getting used to that too!  CeCe is adjusting to her much later naptime (2:30-4:00 now as opposed to 1:15-3:45 for the last 2 years).  She is still loving school and asks everyday if today is Tuesday or Fursday for CeCe's school? On Tuesdays after dropping CeCe off at school I go to volunteer at Bryce's school for a few hours.  Right now we are mainly pulling workbook pages out of workbooks and organizing them for teachers.  Boring work but it helps the teachers out so much.  There are no assistant teachers here.  Crazy, huh?  I would not want to be the only teacher in a Kindergarten classroom with 16 kids! Bryce started soccer practice last Thursday and we think his first game might be this Sat.  We will find out tonight.  They practice every Tues./Thurs. from 6-7.  At first I was not excited about the late start time for practice, but it seems like it is going to work out.  I pack the kids supper and CeCe eats at practice and Bryce eats on the way home.  With it being later Anthony can come!  He meets us there and CeCe and I leave a little early to get her in bed on time and Bryce gets to stay up a little later than normal on those days.  CeCe is still loving her gymnastics class and can be found flipping all over the house and yard lately.  I need to get it on video, she will just flip and flip and flip until she runs into something.  

This weekend our friends The Aldridges invited us to go out on their boat with them.  The weather was PERFECT and we had a great time!  

Here we are on the leisurely drive out.  

And here we are on the crazy, fast, bumpy, windy, wet drive back! We had to hurry back after eating supper at Hemingways to beat the sunset.  We made it but it was a crazy ride!  The kids loved it and giggled almost the whole way.     

Saturday the weather was also perfect so we decided to try out the cable jack that's been on our back patio these last 3 years.  And what do you know, it works?  It was so fun to be able to watch the game outside! (even if the game itself wasn't the greatest).  

 Touchdown Bulldogs!

Tropical Storm Lee

The Tropical Storm roared in Friday afternoon and as of now (Monday afternoon) it is still very windy and rainy here.  Our rain gauge overflowed Saturday afternoon (it  holds 5 inches) so we don't know how much we've actually gotten but our best guess is close to 10-12 inches.  We are lucky to have wonderful drainage in our neighborhood so we don't have any problems from all the rain.  We were bummed to have to find inside things to do for our last 3 day weekend of the summer, but we have made the best of it.  Saturday morning we drove over to Foley to the outlet mall and actually stayed pretty dry.  We decided to try Lulu's for lunch and at noon on a holiday summer weekend we got seated right away.  Sometimes the stormy weather pays off! Lulu's was wonderful as always!

 Saturday afternoon while CeCe was napping, Bryce got out his new dinosaur workbook and coloring sheets and worked and colored for THREE HOURS!  WoW!!   This kid never ever liked to color before kindergarten. He is doing so good too!  His handwriting is getting better after only 2 weeks in school.  I'm so proud of him.

 Sunday morning we thought we were going to have a break in the rain so we headed out on a walk.  We got to the front of the neighborhood and the rain started.  When it rains, it POURS so we got soaking wet trying to run back home!  It was fun though!  When we got back CeCe jumped down and ran back out in the rain, she wanted to do it some more!  Soon the rain stopped and we just played outside in our soaking wet clothes for a while.

 And we decided that since we were already wet and nasty that we would give Reagan a much needed bath.

 After warm baths for everyone, we built a fort in the living room and settled in to watch The Jungle Book.

 Last night we got the play dough out.  CeCe is 'tasting' the broccoli that Bryce made.

 This morning Bryce was watching a new dinosaur show on the discovery channel and CeCe wasn't interested.  We got her little DVD player out and she settled down to watch Word World.

CeCe's first day as a Bear

CeCe started preschool today! She is in the 2 year old class at First United Methodist where Bryce went the last 2 years. Her class is called the Bear class. She's been so excited about going to school, and has been asking everyday since Bryce started "CeCe go school today?" Today was finally the day for Miss Bird and she was ready!She ran and got her new school shoes, reminded me that she needed socks with them and asked for her lunchbox. I had to get her picture by the front door like I have for the last 4 years with Bryce. It was very sunny today though, so we mostly have squinty eyes.
When we got to school she walked right in and started playing. I had to get her back outside of the classroom to put her lunchbox in her cubby/box. After we found her box she put her lunchbox in it, looked at me and said "CeCe see Mama after lunch". And she was off! I had to go find her to get a hug and kiss goodbye! No hesitation or tears at all!
When I got there to pick her up she had on her extra pair of shorts. As I expected she didn't want her teachers to take her to the potty so she had a tiny accident trying to hold it. She told me in the car on the way home "only Mama take CeCe potty". We will have to work on that one because 4 hours is too long to hold it! Her teachers both said she had a great day. She played, followed the rules and ate all of her lunch. She is so big!!!!

Bryce also had a good morning. No tears today at all, and he walked into school with his head up. I'm hoping we've turned a small corner with him.

Kiki and Papaw Duke are here! They surprised the kids by coming in town for the night. It was a great surprise for Bryce when he got off the school bus to see them.

Bye Bye Bippies, Hello Unnaweah!

Yep, CeCe is a BIG GIRL now!! When we got home from our month long trip at the beginning of the month, CeCe helped me wrap up her bippies in a nice box with pretty paper and she gave them to Baby Luke (my friend Kelly's newborn). I had been talking to her about it a little and she was excited. She would tell everyone "CeCe wrap up, give Baby Yute, bippies!" She cried the first naptime without them for about 20 minutes but that was it. No more fuss about them at all!! Much easier than I expected it to be.

Before July CeCe had never really been into the potty at all. I would sit her on there and nothing would happen, then she would cry to get down. Okay, no big deal, she was only 24 months old. But something clicked in her at my parents house one day and she started going on the potty a good bit when I would ask her to. My plan was still to wait until much later in the fall or even after Christmas. I waited until Bryce was 2.5 and it was super easy with him, so I thought I'd just do that again! Of course CeCe had another plan. When we got home at the beginning of the month she started telling me when she needed to go (#1....#2 has been another story-but we do seem to have that under control now too!) After about a week of me still putting her in a diaper and having to take it on and off everytime she needed to go to the potty I realized that maybe she was ready for panties. I was right! She's been doing GREAT!! She's been in big girl panties/unnaweahs for about 2.5 weeks now. I am so proud of her and still in shock really. Today we went to the beach for the first time in a while and it was so nice to not have to worry about swim diapers, dry diapers, etc. We gave our whole stash of cloth diapers to Baby Luke and I'm so excited that Kelly is liking them so far. I am a little worried about CeCe at school (she starts a 2 day a week program this Tues.) because she wants only me to take her to the potty each time, but I know she'll get used to her teachers too.

Bryce is having a little bit of a rough time with school. I'll leave that for another post but for now please say a little prayer that my sweet, innocent, perfectionist, rule follower can make it in this rough and tough world we call Kindergarten!

Gymnastics

CeCe and Kate started an 8 week mommy and me gymnastics class yesterday. It was a lot of fun! CeCe surprised me by trying everything at least once and enjoying all of it!

Stretching

Swinging on the bar--her favorite part
Forward roll
Walking across the bar, she surprised me by doing this on a much taller one in the other room
Waiting on her turn for the trampoline
Swinging on the rings
I think she loved it!!