A Skating Party!

Kendall was invited to her friend Jase's birthday party last night. He was in her class last year, and his mom is her teacher, Ms. Tiller! She said that Jase was so sad when he found out she had Kendall, because that meant she wouldn't be in his class.

Kendall has never skated before, and she kept telling me she didn't want to. Even when I was putting her skates on and lacing them up, she was saying, "I'm not going to skate, Mom. I'm not going to skate." I got her up and started walking with her around the rink though, and she decided she liked it! We went and had her wheels tightened because people told us that would help her and it totally did. She had so. much. fun. She skated the whole time, with and without me, and asked if we could come back tomorrow after Cooper's birthday party. :) She even said she wants her 7th birthday to be a skating party!

Ms. Tiller was so sweet and she skated with her a lot of the time. They had these awesome walker things that helped Kendall a lot, and she rotated between using them and not. She really did look like a little old lady when she was using it. She moved so slowly. :)

Both Jases were there - Jase G and Jase B. She sat with them for cake and ice cream, and they were cutting up and she was just laughing hysterically. Apparently everything they say is SO FUNNY!

Check out little Miss Kendall....slowly but surely. She loved it!

 

And of course - the Hokey Pokey! Brought back memories of skating all the time at Holiday Roller Rink, growing up. I'm so glad she tried it and that she loved it - we'll have to go as a family sometime!

 

 

 

Wee Place Meet the Teacher

These precious girls have been so patient, trying to wait for their school to start now that Kendall has started back. They didn't understand why their school didn't start the same day! Thursday night, the 28th, was meet the teacher for them, and they were so excited to get to go. Cooper is in the 4 year old class, the Cheetahs, and Calli is in the 3 year old class, the Giraffes. I can't believe it's Cooper's last year of preschool before going to Kindergarten! This is all just happening so fast. The girls will still be going two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday, from 9-1.

We went to Calli's room first and she had fun walking around, checking everything out. Her teacher's name is Ms. Jackie.  

Kendall found the dress-up center...

 

And then we went to Cooper's room, where she found out that Ms. Nikie and Ms. Jeannie moved up too! They were both her teachers last year, and she was so excited to see them, she gave Ms. Jeannie a big hug.

Look at how well she is writing her name! She's been practicing a ton and we are so proud of her.

Cookies and punch before we left...we had to get home quick because the Aggies were playing their first game of the season!

Her faces crack me up!

We are ready for another year at Wee Place and so thankful for all the sweet staff that love on our girls.

Kendall's First Day of First Grade!

 

I still can't believe I'm saying that - first grade. She's a "grader" now - not just a Kindergartener. Crazy.

Kendall was so ready for the first day of school. I got to take her shopping on Saturday for a new outfit for the first day, and she chose this cute skirt and shirt. She popped right out of bed Monday morning and was ready so fast. She really did that all week, and so far mornings have been very easy!

Randy and I both wanted to take her to school, which meant Calli and Cooper got to come to school, too. Calli was ready to go - we had to wake Cooper up and dress her real quick so she could go. Calli wanted to pose in some pictures with Kendall.

Kendall helped me make our chocolate chip cookies on Sunday to give to Ms. Tiller. We even saved a bag for Ms. Woodward, so Kendall enjoyed getting to go see her.

 

Waiting in the cafeteria with her class! She loves McKinley and Alivia.

This picture cracks me up - she was telling me she was tired of me taking pictures. It's already started! She felt so confident and was not scared at all on Monday morning. In fact, when she walked in the room and Ms. Tiller told them to have a seat at their desk, she didn't have a chair and she just walked right up to Ms. Tiller and asked her for a chair. Randy and I looked at each other, saying, "Who IS this child??" No big deal - she got a chair and started getting ready for the day! So, so proud of her.

 

We are praying that she has a wonderful year, and learns a lot! Can't wait to see the difference in her first and then her last day of first grade! We will just soak up every day in between then and now, though. We are NOT rushing it!

 

 

Kendall Meets Her Teacher!

We have been waiting for Meet the Teacher for Kendall since Kindergarten ended in May. She has wanted so badly to know who her teacher was going to be and who would be in her class. I still just can't even believe she is going to first grade!

Thursday, August 21st, finally got here and we got to go to the school, turn in all the paperwork, and find out who her teacher was. She was just beside herself, she was so excited. Randy was able to meet us there. On our way in to the school, we ran into her sweet friend Alivia, who told her that she got Ms. Tiller and that Kendall did too! Kendall was so excited and couldn't wait to go see Ms. Tiller. She was a Kindergarten teacher last year, so Kendall was familiar with her, which I think has helped so much with her being so brave going to school this year. Love it!

Checking out her new classroom with Dad.

Ms. Tiller! This girl was so happy and couldn't wait to come back to school the following Monday. Such an answer to prayer!  

A picture with Alivia after she broke the news to Kendall!  

This was the first thing she did, right when she walked in. So happy, so confident, and so ready for whatever first grade had to bring.  

We love our school, we love Kendall's teacher, and we are excited about first grade!

Oh - Kendall wasn't the only one who got to meet her teacher. Calli was able to meet her new speech teacher! Now that she is turning 3, she will start going to speech at Brannen twice a week, just for drop-in speech. This is Mrs. Ledbetter, and she will be Calli's speech teacher. We had her ARD to get her services started this past week and we are super impressed with everyone and are anticipating big things for Calli this year!

 

Adoption friends meet!

We had such a cool opportunity last week! We got to meet some friends I've made online throughout Calli's adoption process. Early on, I joined a facebook group that was for people adopting from China that were along the same timeline as we were. It was great - we could share how long certain steps took us, what we were doing as we waited, things we were thinking or feeling - whatever! All from different agencies, all from different parts of the country, but all adopting from China within the same few months.

Out of that group, another group was formed of people adopting children with clefts from China. Now we had another way to share information about doctors, procedures, and more specific medical concerns. I learned a lot from being in these groups and it was great to hear from people in the same boat as us.

Two girls in both those groups were Tiffany and Winn. We realized that all three of us were in Texas, so we made that connection, and then shared information on Texas-specific timelines, doctors, etc. We talked about meeting up sometime, and were finally able to make that happen a couple weeks ago! Winn is in Austin, Tiffany is in College Station, and since we're south of Houston, we decided to meet in the middle at Tiffany's house. I looked forward to "meeting" these girls and their girls so much!

What was crazy to me was that all three of us had adopted little girls from China with clefts, all around the same time, and our girls are all within about two weeks of each other in age! In addition to that, each of us also have biological children - and all girls! So crazy. Tiffany's girls are just 9 months apart, and Winn has had her second daughter since she came home from China! We have so much in common, so it was just so great to be able to hang out, talk adoption, China, cleft lip and palate, sibling stuff, mom stuff - all of it! There is just no way to understand that experience of traveling to China and adopting unless you've done it, so it was just cool to be able to share those experiences together. I love the relationships that our girls can have - that Calli can see other families that look like ours, and that Kendall and Cooper can as well! It's just good for all of us. I'm so thankful for the ways God provides for us and hope we can continue to develop these relationships!

August misc

Tomorrow is the last day of August! And a big day for our family! As I try to get caught up on the blog, I wanted to post a few miscellaneous pictures from this past month.
Kendall got to go to her friend Anna's birthday party at a cute local candle/soap shop! The girls got to make their own soaps and she loved it. I love this picture of Alivia, Anna, and Kendall. She has such sweet friends.

Kendall and Cooper got to go to Vacation Bible School at another local church the first week of August. This was Cooper's first year to be old enough to go and she has been looking forward to it for awhile. They had so much fun.

Since Calli wasn't old enough yet, we had lots of fun mornings together. She still had speech as usual on Monday and Wednesday, but we got to do some other fun things together. One day I took her to Brew n Bake and she got a little ice cream while I had my chai latte. So fun!

We went to Chick fil A after VBS one day with the Mitterlings. These kids are a mess and they love each other so much.

 

We got to have Baby Bethany come over to play one morning! She's not a baby anymore - she's about to turn one! The girls love playing with her.

Calli drew her first intentional picture one morning and pointed it out to me. Three big circles - she said it was our family, and said the biggest circle is me, the one in the middle closest to the bottom is her, and the one on the right is Randy. I learned in college about kids' drawings and how they show what is most important to them - definitely still a mama's girl. :)

Debbie and Steve got a new puppy named Kona! The girls love her and one evening when they were going to be in Houston for awhile, we got to go over and let her out and run her a little. The girls were pretty pumped about that and they did a great job helping her get some energy out. :)

It's been a great last month of summer and we're already enjoying all our back to school activities and of course...birthdays!!

Kendall in Bounce

Last Sunday was promotion Sunday at church. Each girl moved up to the next grade or class, so Kendall moved to 1st, Cooper moved to the 4 year old class, and Calli moved up to the 3 year old class. This meant that Kendall moved out of our preschool environment and into our elementary environment, called Bounce! A couple of weeks before promotion, the Kindergarten class went to Bounce to get a feel for what happens so that they would be more familiar when they move up. The hour starts with large group, where they sing songs that have motions with them and hear the Bible story. Then they break up into their small groups by grade level to go a little deeper with their small group leader about the lesson. Our friend Kaitlin took this picture on one of those preview Sundays - check out Kendall - hands clasped in front of her, she looks terrified. She loves dancing and doing motions to songs, but this large group and all new place had her totally overwhelmed. I asked her why she was so shy and she said she was just going to be shy for four times. Not sure why four, but ok.

So last Sunday was her first official week there, and she did awesome! They ask that the parents come with them the first week so they get a feel for what their kids are doing, too. Since I was teaching my preschool class, Randy was able to go with her and said she did great! She enjoyed large group time, she went to small group well, and she had so much fun that she said she wanted to go again the second hour! Because I'm teaching one hour and then attending worship the next, we had talked about me bringing Kendall with me to "big church" so she wasn't staying in Bounce two hours. She was excited about that, but when she had such a good experience that first hour, she decided she wanted to do it again! We're so proud of her for trying new things and actually enjoying it. Tonight she has already said she's excited to head back to Bounce for the second week tomorrow!

Aggieland and a vacation!

Early in August, the girls spent a week in Ft. Worth without us! We met Gigi and Peeps in College Station on a Sunday, they took the girls back to Ft. Worth with them (all three!) and then Granny came down to Lake Jackson with them the following Friday! They had so much fun and it was such a wonderful break for Randy and me. We're so thankful for our parents and the ways they love their grandchildren and us!

Sunday we got mostly packed before church, then went to church and then home for lunch. We weren't leaving until about 2 for College Station. Calli got confused when we came back home after church, because she thought we were headed to Aggieland. She threw a massive fit getting out of the car, and it lasted quite a while. She was actually cracking me up because she was so upset about not going to Aggieland, and I took this video to show Randy of her fit.

She was very happy for us to finally get on the road. :)

We met Gigi and Peeps on campus before dinner because I wanted to take a few picture of the girls. Here they are - classes of 2030, 2032, and 2034. Love it!

 

We had a great dinner with Gigi and Peeps and then they were on their way back to Ft. Worth! Randy surprised me earlier in the week by telling me was planning on us spending the night in College Station Sunday night for a night away! We had so much fun driving around campus, driving around time, eating tons of great food, and resting. College Station has changed so much and we loved checking it out. We also loved seeing the new construction at Kyle Field. Randy said he could have set up a folding chair in the parking lot and just watched it all day long. We also met our friends Zach and Jenna for yogurt. They had just gotten engaged the day before, so we were able to see her ring, and then they asked Randy to marry them! So fun. That's her ring box with a note in it for Randy that said, "Will you marry us?"

 

Mosher - my freshman dorm.

Check out that new scoreboard!

The Mitchell mansion, where Randy lived with Scott, Matt, Sparkman, and Tony. Lots of craziness happened at that house.

Monday we did more eating and some shopping and then headed back to Lake Jackson. And then I had such a great week. I went to the beach twice and read, did some cleaning and organizing, lots of crafting for Cooper's birthday party coming up and Alden's shower, met Randy for lunch dates, had a few meetings I didn't have to find childcare for, and had a lot of alone time! It was so great to have a for real break, and by the end of the week I was so ready to see the girls and squeeze them!

 

They were having a great time in Ft. Worth too! One night they went to Kiki and Pops' house and swam and watched Frozen with Aunt Megg.

 

They spent a lot of time with their cousins at Gigi and Peeps' house and even got matching Frozen t shirts. 

They had a swimming day!

And they spent one night at Granny and Papas' apartments!

 

Mom drove down on Friday and spent the weekend with us! Saturday we swam at her hotel pool and rested, and that night we went shopping and out to dinner. Before we went home, the girls asked if we could stop in Chuck E Cheese, so we did that real fast and they loved it!

Sunday morning at church - Kendall was NOT in the mood for pictures. Loved having Granny with us at church though!  

We were seriously so thankful for a week of vacation. It was good for everyone! Thank yall for making that happen, grandparents! We love yall!!