Maia in Preschool

These are some pictures from Maia's preschool teacher from a recent field trip to her home with the class:

Here they all are making playdough:

The whole class with Miss Julie

I find these two particularly amusing.
Apparently, this is the side of Maia she shows at preschool:

Little Duckie

This week was Yellow week at preschool. The kids were encouraged to wear yellow, and they painted sunflowers on Monday, and made duckie headbands on Wednesday.

Here's our little yellow duck
It was so cute to see the whole class wearing their duck hats at dismissal time!

Cross Country Kid

It must "run" in the family. Ooh. Sorry. Anyway, Xander has decided that he'd like to try out Cross Country as a sport. I know, seems a bit young, but kids have a lot of endurance! We're hoping he takes after Uncle Casey and not mom & dad.

The Sioux Falls Running Club is sponsoring 4 cross country meets for kids in grades K-6. There's no workouts, no extra practices or anything like that, just show up at the designated place on Wednesday afternoon for 4 weeks, and run in a race.

K-1 grades run 1/4 mile, 2-3 grades run 1/2 mile and 4-6 grades run 1 mile.

We showed up last week, not sure who else would be there. We saw many All City kids, including Xander's best friend, Isaac. They didn't really run together (Isaac's small and really fast), but they had fun sharing the experience. We're halfway through the "season," and here's some pictures.

He does not get this from me.
Look how he's smiling!
(I was a very crabby runner)
Week 1

Week 2
Xander's time was 10 seconds faster
(not because he trained- Just lucky, I guess)

This is Isaac right before the finish line.
He's a hurtin' unit- came in about 5th or 6th.
The girl about to pass him is one of my piano students :)

Another student, and a good friend from our last church, Megan

Full Steam Ahead

I'm going to apologize now. I may not get many more blog posts entered before next summer.

I thought I was being reasonable when I set my schedule because I don't have to be two places at once most of the time.

WOW am I busy. Last week, I had to get up and get dressed to go to work (teaching at USF) for the first time since May. Not bad, really. I kind of messed up and had to make a few adjustments, but now things seem to be going smoothly.

So, what's going on?

Maia had her first day of preschool at First Baptist Church. Isn't she cute? Her Tinkerbell backpack has wings on it. She's in Miss Julie's Doodlebug class with 7 other kids. The small class size makes it kind of obvious when one mom (who shall remain unnamed) doesn't read the schedule and therefore takes her preschooler to school an hour late on the very first day.

Much like Xander's school, the First Baptist preschool (chosen primarily for its proximity to USF, but turns out it's an excellent program- lucky us!) requires parents to be classroom helpers 3-4 times per semester, so I helped out in the Doodlebug room last week. Maia was extra clingy and whiny that day, but Miss Julie says that's not typical behavior for her.

By far, Maia's favorite thing at school is art. She is a very careful artist, who is getting pretty close to coloring in the lines, and likes to take time with her artwork, adding details like eyelashes to her ladybug rock that she painted the other day.

She goes on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and stays after on Mondays so that I can teach all day at USF. I am carrying a course load of 14 USF students and 16 at-home students. Each of my 30 students gets a half hour of my undivided (hahaha) attention each week. (seriously, when is my attention undivided?)

Amazingly, I'm able to keep Fridays open to have a rest day (much needed), and Matt & I take turns with our 1/2 day of commitment time at Xander's school each week, so I do have a little time for myself. Turns out I really need to do housework then because otherwise, this big house can get really cluttered really fast!

Xander is going to run in a cross country meet this afternoon. He has kind of half-heartedly been training for it, he will run a 1/2 mile with other 2nd and 3rd graders. This is the first athletic extra-curricular activity we've done with him, and we think he'll enjoy it. That's today (Wednesday) at 4:30 at a school that's pretty close to our house. (WAY closer than All City!) He will do that for the next 4 Wednesdays.

Matt's fully recovered from his surgery. He's just got a few little scars from the holes they poked in him. Now we just have to figure out how to pay for it. Turns out, having your appendix out doesn't cost nearly as much as having a baby removed from you. That's good! Not as nice of a keepsake.

Poor Matty is grieving the end of bike season at work. He has spent this week putting his beloved bikes in backstock and putting coats out on the floor in their stead. But hey, "Only 6 more months until bike season!"

It got pretty chilly here over the last couple of weeks. We've already had a couple of frosts, and the leaves are starting to show their colors. I guess Winter is inevitable, but I hope we have a long Autumn. There's something about Fall that is like a cushion to help me get mentally ready for Winter.