Grace's Last Day of Mother's Day Out

My little pumpkin is now an official preschooler!
Boo hoo - she's growing so fast! Tuesday she completed her 2-year run in Mother's Day Out. I feel so blessed that her first "school" experience was at our church's MDO. This program is a hidden gem. It is small, held in the cutest house-like building, and the best part is it is staffed with THE most incredible director and teachers anyone could ask for. I remember my hesitation to put my then 18 month old in a program twice per week for a few hours back in the Fall of 2008. But I knew she needed the exposure to other children her age. She was painfully shy. In fact, I remember clearly the call from Cheryl, the director, just a few days into the school year asking me to come pick her up because she was crying inconsolably and they had tried everything they could to calm her down and distract her and nothing was working. When I picked her up between sobs she said "Go Home". It broke my heart. I remember feeling so helpless, wondering if I was doing the right thing, thinking she was still too young. But I also remember the optimism with which Cheryl and her first 2 teachers in the 1 y/o class told me that she would come around. It would just take her a little longer. And you know what? They were RIGHT! I'm so glad we stuck with it. As a compromise, that first year I picked her up right after their lunch at 11:30 a.m. so that she wouldn't have to go through nap time there. It suited her perfectly. She grew to love the program and by the time May rolled around, she was happily leading the way to her room and telling me to go. She blossomed under the care of such amazing ladies. Thank you Mrs. Laura & Mrs. Veronica!!! Beginning of School 2008 (18 months) & 2009 (2 1/2)

This school year (2009-10), she was ready to go from that first day. No more shy little pumpkin. She was leading the way, ready to have fun with her friends and loving every minute of it. She stayed the full day (8:30-2/twice per week) and had a blast with Mrs. Maria & Mrs. Patti. She loved all the fun art projects they came up with, loved the music program, and loved playing outside. And she didn't do too bad either during nap :) Here's her class picture this year: Aren't they so cute?

And this was her when I picked her up this past Tuesday: She was out! They had a "jumpy jump" (bounce house) for the last day and she had a blast! She was teary eyed saying goodbye to her sweet teachers. The little pumpkin has a great big heart and she feels things deeply. I love that she loves school. I truly credit her MDO program with helping her come out of her shell. We can be somewhere and she now has to tell everyone there goodbye - so cute!

She's a big girl now and she's ready for "big girl school" as she calls it. At the recommendation of a friend, we recently had her tested for a gifted preschool program sponsored by the local school system and she tested at the 99.9%, IQ=145. We knew she was smart but it's funny to have someone officially tell you so. Mama & Daddy are so proud of you Grace! So even though she's registered for a private school program, we are most likely going to enroll her in this program. It's a small program close to us. We met the instructor who was so knowledgeable and so nice and toured the class and those kids were learning all kinds of things but most importantly they were having SO.MUCH.FUN!

The program has a half-day option and that just seems like a great plan for us. We were definitely not ready to have her in an all-day program at just 3 1/2 years old. We'll see what next year holds but for now we're ready to have some SUMMER FUN!!!! What are your plans for Summer? Or maybe just "lack of plans"? That sounds WONDERFUL to me!

I'll be back later to share the last of my Minnesota posts from our trip, but I didn't want this week to go by without recording for our family this last day of MDO for the little pumpkin.

Hope the end of school is going great for all of you!
Congrats to all the graduates!

Mall of America

Shopping Time! Who am I kidding? With all our sweet little ones it was more like
Playland Time! And it was wonderful.

Day 4
In awe over...Lego Land! When you pull three little girls away from playing and exploring all the new stuff and try to get them to sit down for a picture, this is what you get: {Jenn C - where are you when we need you??! Just kidding! But Angel & I DID talk about planning a girls trip next year quite possibly to your wonderful city!}

You get a much better picture if you ask them to give you a spooky face. That, they can handle! Time for Thomas the Train! Hudson's first ride! Somehow Angel & I managed to stuff ourselves in there with all 5 kids! Choo Choo! Time for a little Dora adventure Ready, Set...GO! While all that craziness was going on, a little someone just snoozed... Always a classic... I just love this little boy! Sam is the sweetest! His smile can light up a room like nothing else can. I loved getting to know him better and getting the sweetest hug from him when it was time for us to leave. Waiting patiently... ...for this fun ride! Time for a little ferris wheel action! Noonie, Allison, Grace and me in this one Dave & Sam in this one! Time to call it a day but not before shopping for a few souvenirs at the Nickelodeon store. Mimi: thanks for the spending $ you gave Grace & Hudson! Grace picked out a Dora castle and Hudson picked out that fun cup...and a little t-shirt with Mama's help.

A fun day indeed! As you can imagine, the kids slept great that night :)

Minnesota Zoo

A fun day at the zoo is what we needed to get over our travel duldrums and boy did the Minnesota Zoo deliver!

Day 3
Bright & early - that's 10am while on vacation :) - we headed to the zoo. Angel, Noonie, and I and 5 giddy little ones ready to run & play. The MN air was a bit chilly (check out Hudson hiding in the picture) but it was a beautiful, glorious day. I must say the Minnesota Zoo was fantastic! We've gone to quite a few zoos since the little pumpkin loves animals and this one was A+. Highly recommend it if you're traveling in the area.

Having had a blast the day before playing with Allison & Emily "her friends" that first day, Grace woke up asking where "her cousins" were :) It was a joy seeing these three sweet little girls play together. Noonie made sure than no one ran away - no small job if you know our bunch! I love that Angel's girls started calling my mom Noonie right away. So sweet! Sam & Hudson LOVED the tropical exhibit with all the fish and tanks. Here's Hudson mesmerized... ...by what, you ask? By THIS! Yikes!

The Minnesota Trail at the zoo was a lot of fun. Here are the girls howling like wolves. Grace checking out her wing span :) Not quite owl sized. But the girls had the most fun collecting these stamps located all throughout the trail! After all that walking it was time for a cool treat. Funny how all three picked the Pink Panther Pop :) Hudson enjoyed some good naps at the zoo but he woke up in time to enjoy some of that frozen treat too! That PPP sure came in handy when Grace got accidentally kicked in the lip by another little zoo visitor hanging on the monkey bars at the playground. Big busted bloody lip. OUCH! And you know what else Hudson enjoyed while on our trip? Yes! A bath in the sink!!! A first for my little guy. He loved it! And it was lots easier than chasing him all over the bathtub :)

And another milestone...Hudson fed ME for the first time! Without any prompting, he reached out and gave me a bite of his graham cracker. He sure knows how to melt his mama's heart! Such sweet memories.

getting there...

Wow! Traveling with not just 1 but 2 littles sure gives packing a whole new dimension. I'm not sure how moms with 4, 5, 6 kids do it, but hats off to you!

Day 1
We decided to fly out of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport so Day 1 involved a bit of driving. Thank goodness my littles are great car travelers. Watching Grace filled with anticipation over our trip was the best. She was E-X-C-I-T-E-D to say the least. This is one way to keep a curious little one from wandering off... Growing restless, but humoring Mama for one quick picture before going out to dinner. Ssssshhh, don't tell hotel management, but HOTELS = JUMPING ON THE BED for our family :) It's the one time I let the little pumpkin jump to her heart's desire so when I mention "trip" and "hotel" to Grace she has an even bigger reason to be excited! Let's GO already! Day 2
We got up at 4am and were out the door by 4:45. Little did we know what was to come...Yes, we missed our flight :( Even though we got there right at 5am for our 6am flight, there was only 1 ticketing agent for AirTran and over 40 of us in line. Wait, there was also a ticketing agent for First Class but although she had 0 passengers to check in, she didn't help any of us (can you sense I'm still bitter?). When it was finally our turn, the agent weighed our bags and told me one of mine was 53lbs, exactly 3 lbs over the limit. No big deal, right? WRONG! Those 3 little pounds cost me $50 bucks! "You don't have time to redistribute if you want to make your flight," he told me, so I forked over $95, $15 per bag (standard) and $50 for the weight penalty. It gets better.

As he was about to tag our luggage, the label machine ran out of paper and off he went to fetch more, then couldn't figure out how to make it work so 15 minutes later we're finally ready to go through security. It's now 5:45am. We turn the corner and see a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG line of people. We figure they're waiting to check in. Nope, they're waiting to go through security. Only 1 line for 4 airlines. One line with over 100 passengers in it. It's not looking good.

The kind business lady behind me told me that sometimes when she travels with her kids and there's a long line, she goes to the security guard and asks if she can perhaps go through the security check point reserved for pilots and flight attendants and they usually say Yes. I hate this kind of stuff, but off I go to beg the security guard if he'll let us do that so we don't miss our flight. No sooner have I gotten the words out about having 2 little ones with me that he matter-of-fact tells me in the flatest tone, "Reschedule your flight."

We figure we might as well go ahead and go through security and reschedule on the other side since our bags are already on their way to MN. And in a low moment I then decide since they are being oh, so nice, I'm going to be oh, so nice too and take my sweet time taking off my shoes, the kids shoes and basically unpacking all 100 carry-ons for the x-ray machine to scan. Yea, a little passive agressive move - not so proud of it now - but that ticketing agent KNEW when he checked us in that there was absolutely no way we were going to make our flight...and I DID have time to redistribute those 3lbs. to save $50 bucks! OK, I'm over it now :) We finally get through security, go to reschedule our flights (which means we missed our connecting flight in Milwaukee too) and are re-routed to Atlanta with minutes to spare, but with a much longer layover that puts us in Minneapolis 3 hrs. later than originally planned. 3 hrs = no big deal. 3 hrs with 2 restless little kids = NO FUN!

Luckily, the littles were WONDERFUL on the plane. Baby Hudson spent most of his time like this: And Grace had fun checking out the clouds and trees ("broccolis" she called them), and playing with her chalk mat
(tutorial coming soon!) A couple of movies later (THANK YOU Mr. DVD Inventor!) we landed in Minneapolis!!! And although by now I had a full-blown case of laryngitis and no voice, the crazy flight mishaps were all worthwhile just to see my dear friend Angel in person (2 camera happy girls = papparazi like adventures :) and watch our littles play and giggle like they had known each other all their lives. More on our trip to the Zoo, Mall of America, and glorious time spent with THE sweetest family and BEST HOSTESS ever coming soon but for now check out Angel's Chicken & Wild Rice Soup. It is seriuosly THE.BEST.SOUP.EVER. She even topped it off by making this wonderful peanut butter pie for dessert. Told you she was an amazing hostess :)