First Day of Preschool

Our little girl is growing up!  She started preschool this week.  Rebecca is attending El Puente Spanish Immersion preschool at Grandville Christian.  She goes M/W/F afternoons.

Rebecca's first day was on Monday.  She did great!  She hardly even said goodbye to Mommy and Abram because she was too excited to play with the toys and see all the kids.  That's Rebecca :)  Always interested in what's exciting and new.

She did a craft, read books, had a snack and even went out for recess (her favorite part, I think).  Rebecca was very excited and is already picking up a few Spanish words.  We'll see how long it takes for her to start reading as well in Spanish as she does in English :)  We'll hopefully order some Spanish books from her book order this month to start practicing.

As expected Rebecca was pretty wound up and stimulated after school.  She spent a couple hours in her room after she got home listening to a book on CD and relaxing.

She is very excited for her second day today.

Rebecca also started a new semester of Kindermusik yesterday.  Unfortunately it's a pretty small class this year (5 kids...only 2 girls).  Most of her friends had to switch to a different class, dropped out or moved up to the older class.  But she still loves spending time with Miss Lynette and dancing and singing.  Plus this semester there is a big emphasis on story telling!  Rebecca's absolute favorite thing to do.

Abram wasn't so sure about it...since he thought it was a nursery.  But he had a blast climbing on chairs while Rebecca was in class.

We are excited to watch Rebecca learn and grow this year.  And we're off to a good start.

End of Summer and Labor Day

We really tried to make the most of our last few weeks of summer.  We spent a lot of time outside.  Abram finally discovered the sandbox.  And that's his go-to toy outside now.  I think the kids have been extra clean lately since they needed daily baths for a while.

They have both also started to really enjoy swinging.  Rebecca is finally loving the "big kid" swing and isn't afraid to go high anymore.  She'll spend our entire time outside on a swing and keep asking to be pushed.

We also took a few trips to John Ball Zoo in August.  Since we have a membership we wanted to make the most of it.  We even went twice in one week while the zoo was still open longer hours.  We discovered that going right at 9am is the best time to see the animals.  Rebecca and Abram had a blast interacting with the chimps and the otter.

Abram has been spending his time inside climbing, climbing and climbing some more.  By the end of the day we put away pretty much every large toy or box of toys (block box, etc.) because they are all used for stools :P  He's also proving to be all boy...walking around spitting on the floor and making himself toot :P

We have also discovered that Abram will actually eat...if you let him sit in a regular chair.  From the day he was born he has wanted to be able to keep up with his big sister.  If she doesn't need a high chair, neither does he.  Although he takes it to an extreme.  He thinks he should sit in a chair to eat a cracker or take a sip of water...and he can climb in the chair himself, so it's hard to convince him otherwise.

We ended our summer and kicked of our fall with a trip to Crossroads Village with Mary's family on Labor Day.  It is a small old fashioned village.  You can walk through the houses, shops, church and cider mill.  They also have a fast carousel and a few kids' rides.  After walking around and going on rides we had a picnic lunch.

We had to get back on the road for nap time so we didn't have time to ride the train or go on the boat.  But we still had a great time.  The kids had so much fun with their cousins.

Now it's back to fall activities and getting into a routine.  We're excited to see old friends and make new friends.  But we'll miss our lazy days of summer.  It's been such a joy to watch both Rebecca and Abram grow and develop this summer.  They have both matured so much.  And we're still suckers for those big brown eyes.