Pretty, pretty princess(es)

I. Am. Kindergartener.

She's doing so awesome in school.  She loves it.  Her teacher took this picture.:)

Cuties and the boogie board

The boogie board is a sought after and fought over toy.  It's pretty old, so it doesn't even work very well,  It's a black board with a special pen, which - when used on the board - should create greenish colored 'ink'.  Then you press a button at the top and it all erases.  It's been used so often that you can't see or read whatever is written or drawn in the greenish 'ink', and nothing really erases anymore.  But regardless, when one has it, the other starts to hover.

Swingin' from the bike rack

One of the girls' favorite pass times- playing on a bike rack jungle gym. 

Pickle Day!

Today Piper's class celebrated Pickle Day!  They made a grid of a few different types of pickles, tried them, and charted which ones they liked and which ones they didn't like.  Piper only liked a plain cucumber.  But hey, you can't have a pickle without a cucumber so it's a start!

School is so fun :)

School night ice cream trip

Tonight we took the girls for ice cream before school starts again tomorrow.  They were in the present moment, thinking about their ice cream. I was in the future, thinking about the stain stick.

 

 

Dress up Monday

 

What could be better than throwing on some nice dresses and head accessories after a long day of school?  Nothing, according to these ladies!

A little sister playtime

Sunday at the park

Today we spent some time at our local park, and Daddy and Piper took a moment to pose for a quick picture. :)

Her sweet ride

The director of TenderTime drives the school drop off/pick up van with Piper and one other girl.  She took this picture to show me that Piper was happy and smiley as she waited for her time to enter the building.  The other girl goes to a different school that starts earlier and she gets dropped off first. So then they drive to Piper's school and wait until the building opens up for students - about 15-20 minutes.  During this time, Lita lets Piper use her cell phone to send Dan and I text messages.

On this morning, Piper had has a particularly tearful drop off at TenderTime,so I appreciated seeing that she recovered quickly :)

The other interesting thing is that the girl who rides in the van with Piper?  She and Piper are frenemies.  They are like oil and water, those two.  So the van rides can get a little tense at times.  Thank goodness Lita runs a tight ship, and doesn't allow any nonsense to go on for too long.

The class

Here's a picture from Piper's kindergarten class on their first day.  Piper, not surprisingly, is seated front and center ;)

More kindergarten pics

Here are a few more pics of Piper at kindergarten.

This is Piper in the van right before being dropped off by Lita, our daycare Director:

This is Piper outside of her classroom:

This is Piper in the hallway with her ginormous backpack:

This is Piper and her class on the first day (notice who is front and center):

And this is Piper in the van at the end of the week, when going to kindergarten was already old hat:

She had a great first week!  We're very happy with the communication from the school.  On Friday, we get an email about what Piper does in her class each week, and throughout the week we get email updates about particular things they've done, often with photos.  It's really helpful to know what's going on, especially because talking about her day is a skill Piper is just starting to develop (and of course we have a million questions for her!).  The pictures are a great way to ask her questions about her day, and they seem to jog her memory about specifics things she did.

We're also very appreciative of the great care and communication from the daycare.  The Director, Lita, has been giving me updates on how brave Piper is becoming. She brought Piper in on her first day and stayed with her awhile, and as Piper got in line with her class outside the room Lita asked her if she should stay longer.  She said Piper gave her a big smile, a thumbs up, and told Lita "I'm good!"  Since then, she's getting more and more independent at drop off, and knows that she should walk down the hall, wait by the door, and her teacher will come around the corner. Lita thinks that soon Piper will be ready to go in by herself!  BIG GIRL!

What an exciting chapter in this lady's life!

Watch out kindergarten...

here comes Piper Mac!

 

As we felt confident she would, Piper rocked the first day of kindergarten.  On to day two tomorrow...!

Francophiles

We're cosmopolitan in this household - I'm teaching Piper about all things French. Starting with the braid.

Not bad for a mom who's waaaaaay out of practice (since until just recently, Piper wouldn't let me so much as put a barrette in her hair) - right?  Why, merci!

Piper's peds!

Pre-first day of kindergarten lil' miss mani/pedi:

 

The only thing I should have done, which I realized after her salon visit, was to have prepared her for the fact that the person doing her nails likely wouldn't speak much English.  Poor Piper was talking her ear off, but the manicurist couldn't understand her and didn't really respond.  Piper took it in stride, and just kept talking anyway :)

Kindergarten buds

We found out that Piper's friend Sadie will be in her kindergarten class!  Tonight we had her open house, met her teacher, and had dinner with Sadie and her family.  The girls got on great, and I think it will make Tuesday go more smoothly for both of them!

Progression of a meltdown

The fairy and her apprentice