School Days

I'm not so great with goodbyes. Or change, for that matter. The girls' last day of Mother's Day Out was today and had you not known better, you would have assumed they were graduating from high school and leaving the nest for good. Towns' class had a beach party to celebrate the last day of school which made for some good fun. And naturally when you have a beach party at school, you have to ditch the backpack and pack a beach bag to the brim instead. Apparently that's written in code somewhere in the 4 year old handbook. She started packing yesterday - she's a packer like you wouldn't believe. She could hardly wait for today to come so that she could put on her beachy crab dress and hit the road!

Of course, Cate hadn't been dressed for a 5 full minutes before she'd ripped the bow out of her hair and thrown it to the floor! That's one battle I'll fight 'til the end! :)

I have pictures from almost every single school morning when they came out of the front door and stood together for a sec before they both sat down on the stairs to check out the scenery...

After that, they give each other really good love...

Like clock work (after the hugs and kisses), Towns holds Cate's hand to help her down the steps and doesn't let go until she's safe at the bottom on the sidewalk. Now that Cate's older and more independent she mostly likes to walk down on her own. But then occasionally when we're lucky like we were this morning, she'll grab Towns' hand and then mine too and we'll walk down all together. Mornings around here are pretty special to me for some reason - I think it's the routine and how we all just fit really well together. That's a post for a different day when I have way more time...can you tell I'm a little sentimental?!

On to the beach party...

Towns & Ms. Libby

Towns & Ms. Jennifer

Cate's teachers have been so super sweet all year and have loved her like crazy. And as a mother, you just couldn't ask for more from a teacher! Although, this last week of school hasn't been so hot for Cate...she was in time-out a few times which doesn't surprise me in the least. We're working on it, though! She and I had a talk before school this morning, and she had a good report when I went to pick her up! :) After we said our goodbyes and her teachers shed a few tears (ok, me too), they handed me a gift for her with instructions not to open it until I got in the car because it wouldn't help the sappy mama to open it in the class room. My mom gave me the same exact gift when I graduated from college...maybe that's the reason I was a basketcase! She just finished her 1 year old class and I'm already reading the book to her like she's preparing to set out on her own...

Ms. Connie and Ms. Taunton each wrote something to her in the book...so sweet!
What a treasure!


After school, we headed to the new park in the neighborhood to enjoy the sunshine and play until time to pick Bethany up from school. We're so thankful for the new place to play...it's fabulous!

I've got two little monkeys on my hands. They climb up everything imaginable! Towns thinks her new trick is the coolest...scaling the fridge! She makes me a nervous wreck, and she's supposed to be the calm one! It's Cate who usually gives me fits!



Cate was in a mad dash to get to the top before the little boy beside her. She's a competitive little thing!

This one made my heart stop...and when it started beating again we had a little conversation about showing panties to the whole playground and how next time we'll definitely be wearing bloomers!
I couldn't get a picture of Cate doing the same exact thing as Towns in the picture above because I had to have both hands on her, but she didn't hesitate to think she was just as big as her sister!



My lack of time lately has gotten in the way of my blogging - I have so much to catch up on!
One thing that can't wait any longer to tell you about is Bethany's Awards Day at school last week! She got an award for having all A's and one for Outstanding Student (which was a surprise because she knew she was getting a second award but didn't know exactly what it was). We are SO incredibly proud of her! She's had a great year at Oak Park and has so much more to look forward to!
Congrats Bet!

Getting her Outstanding Student Award...

Towns couldn't get to Bethany fast enough to give her a great big hug!