Grandma and Madison

I took this picture on Sunday after I had already posted the other pictures. This was my mom holding Madison. She now has four granddaughters, one grandson, and another grandbaby (gender has yet to be announced) on the way.

Reed and Jamie are home from the hospital now and adjusting to all the joys that come with having a new baby (especially the lack of sleep).

More school pictures

Emily is still loving school. I love hearing her stories when she gets home every day. Yesterday she apparently got her picture taken for her lunch card, so she was pretty excited about that and keeps asking when she can buy her lunch.

Apparently during recess yesterday, some boy (she knew the name, but I can't remember) called her and another little girl "losers." Ahh...the dramas of kindergarten!

I love back to school clothes and can't resist sharing pictures of her in her new outfits!

Fun with Grandma!

Jason's mom came to visit for a couple of weeks when I first went back to work. The kids hadn't seen her in over a year and Jacob especially has changed a lot during that time! The kids had so much fun with grandma and loved the airplane rides and horsey rides along with coloring lots of pictures, reading lots of books, playing Barbies and Princesses and plenty of snuggle time.

While Grandma was here, the kids also got to go to Rainforest Cafe for lunch one day. That is Emily's favorite place to eat, so she was thrilled! I was at work that day, but here are a few pictures that Jason's mom took.





I also swiped this picture of my two cuties from her blog:



We loved having Grandma here and can't wait for her next visit!

Emily's 2nd day of school!

Emily's second day of school also went well. She woke up early yesterday morning, so I was sure she'd be exhausted by the time she got home. She did tell Jason that when she got home, she wanted a snack and to get into her PJs because she was really tired, but then when I asked her about going to swimming, she quickly turned things around and got an energy burst again.

According to the teacher report that came home, she had a GREAT second day! We are so proud of her and so glad that she is enjoying school so far:



Yesterday was also a success because they apparently got to have recess even if it 'was only for a little while.'



While I was taking pictures of Emily yesterday morning, Jacob came running over and said, "Me too!" so I couldn't resist taking a picture of the two of them together.

Emily's first day of kindergarten!

Today was Emily's first day of kindergarten. Even though I knew it was coming and we went through all of the preparations to get ready, I think I was still in a bit of denial. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were bringing her home from the hospital, so I'm still trying to figure out how we got from this....(this picture was taken right before we left the hospital with her)

to this....????

I remember when she was little, I looked forward to all of those "milestone moments" - sitting up, crawling, first words, first steps. Now, I wish we could slow time down just a little bit.

I didn't get to take her to school because I had to be at work (school) myself, but in some ways I think it was easier to have Jason do the drop off this morning because I don't know if I would have been able to hold it together. He walked her to her classroom this morning and said she was eager to jump in and start working. He took these pictures of her in her classroom before he left:

She got home right before I did and was eager to tell me all about her day. I thought she'd be exhausted, but she was full of energy and shared every little detail with me. Her only disappointment was that they didn't have recess today. I cracked up when she told me about lunch because she said, "Mom, some mommies forget to pack their kids lunches and then the teacher has to give them this card and then they have to go get a lunch from this little place but they have pizzas and milk and stuff like that so maybe one day you'll forget my lunch and I can get something like that."

I was a bit disappointed to find out that her teacher will be out all week due to a family emergency and Jason said her class is up to about 30 kids now! I hope they get that new teacher hired soon!

I'm so glad that today went well for her and excited to hear more stories from the
days that are to come!

Welcome Baby Madison!

Today I had the privilege of joining Reed and Jamie as they welcomed their newest family member, Madison, to the world. It was truly a miraculous experience and I can't quite find the words to share everything I felt. I'm so grateful that they let me be a part of it.

She arrived at 12:01 p.m. (I think that was the time they announced it) and was 6 pounds, 7 ounces and 18 3/4 inches long.

Here's the nurse cleaning her up.

And the weigh-in:

Proud mom (she worked HARD!)

Proud dad

First family photo

Last days of summer...

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted on our family blog! Each summer, I go into overdrive trying to plan a bunch of fun activities for the kids trying to somehow cram as much as I can into the short eight weeks that I have in an effort to "make up" for the other 41 weeks of the year when I'm working. This summer, I felt especially driven because Emily starts kindergarten in a few weeks and somehow I felt like the years were just slipping away from me.

On the last day of summer for me, I had a bunch of fun activities planned for the day only to be informed by Emily that she didn't want to go out. She just wanted to spend time "hanging out, watching movies, playing games, reading books, and snuggling with me." It was one of those moments where I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry. I wanted to laugh because of the irony - I had totally missed the point, it seems. I wanted to cry because it felt so good to realize that I didn't need to do all of those big things to impress them - what mattered most to them was having those moments with me.

I was having a conversation with a good friend from work about this whole "going back to school" (AKA "work") guilt that I go through about this time every year. She is MUCH wiser than I am and had this to say to me ~ "If your kid knows that he or she is loved without limits and knows that you are in their corner no matter what, then they feel secure and confident about who they are." I just loved it. I was reading Marci's blog and it sounds like a similar conversation came up during our book club group this month(I wasn't able to make it, and I'm sorry I missed it).

Having said all of that, we couldn't end our summer without one last trip to Chuck E. Cheese. My sister Melinda and her kids have been in town and so we went with them and my parents to play one last time and the kids had a blast!