A Weekend Recap and the Rest of the Texas Pictures

Before I forget: Yes, Sydney is starting Kindergarten this year.  In fact, this week she is at "K Prep," which means she goes to school every morning from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., and is being observed and evaluated to make sure that she is paired with the teacher best for her.  (I think that's a politically correct way of actually meaning, "To make sure any kids who cause a ruckus when together are separated into different classes.")

It's also to help the kids get familiar with the Kindergarten section of the school and the cafeteria, so that they're not so shell shocked come the first day of school.  But, as I've mentioned before, Sydney is on the extreme end of the spectrum opposite of clinging to my leg in fear.  In her entire life she has never not happily walked into a brand new situation full of people she's never laid eyes on, ready to experience whatever is waiting for her.  I know, I'm lucky.  But I already know Lorelei is not like that, so I don't feel too guilty about having such luck.

Here are the girls standing in front of the school (great capture of the school building, right?) the Friday before K Prep (so, last Friday).  My friend had set up a tour with the Principal and asked if we wanted to join them, so we did.  Lorelei especially loved it, and is having to wrestle with feeling left out of Sydney's new experience.  I think she'll get over it once preschool starts up again (because I can't contain myself, I'm going to share with you, once again, how late school starts this year: preschool starts two days later than public school, on SEPTEMBER 10TH.  WE MIGHT AS WELL WAIT TO START SCHOOL UNTIL AFTER CHRISTMAS.).  (Not really though, I'll take September 10th over January 2016, even though the time between will be a mere blink of an eye.)

Sydney's darling dress is courtesy of her cousin Hailey (hand-me-down -- woo hoo!); Lorelei's dress is LulaRoe

Moving on.

I'll give you a quick synopsis of our weekend (I still owe you pictures from Annapolis the weekend before!), and then share the rest of the Texas pictures with you.  Saturday morning/early afternoon turned into an unplanned organizing/purging/car waxing (Chet, not me) session.  I feel like I can't even tell you exactly all that got organized/purged, because it was such a frenzy, but it was good.  I can tell you that we whipped the girls' room into shape though.  I feel like it had gotten out of hand, in that the play mess they made each day was too hard to clean up (I know, it sounds like I'm enabling them).  But really, we were storing way too many toys in their room, so they weren't really even sure what to play with.  When they did play with it, there were too many baskets and bins with certain toys going into certain places, that Sydney and I were the only ones who really knew where everything went (God forbid Chet and Lorelei be left in charge of clean up!).  So we greatly reduced the toys actually kept in their room (the rest went to the basement, which I will rotate back to their room periodically), and also came up with a storage solution for all of their little "things."  I can't stand "things," but once you have older-ish kids, you can't always control the "things" that make it into the house, and you certainly can't control which "things" they'll latch onto and freak out if it ever goes "missing" (read: trash).  So I emptied two identical under-the-bed storage containers (extra long containers, the biggest we had), and we separated Lorelei's "things" into one and Sydney's "things" into the other.  Now the room clean-up rule is very simple: if you don't know where something goes, it goes in your bin.  It's worked out great so far, and I think part of the reason is because the bins are clear, and because they are shallow, so there's only room for a single layer.  Does that make sense?

After all of the organizing and such, I ran quickly to the grocery store before it was time to take the kids to church for monthly babysitting.  Chet and I went out to eat, and it was lovely (the loveliest part is always that there are no interruptions).

Sunday morning we went to 11 a.m. church, then drove straight to my friend Cheryl's house for a Mary Kay BBQ.  She lives quite far west of us, so the kids napped on the way there, and had fun playing in Cheryl's children's playroom.  Some of our really good friends from the Academy/Chet's ship/Jacksonville also live in that area, and we coincidentally got a dinner invitation from them for that same evening.  We happily let them feed us too, and our kids love playing with their kids, so it was a full, fun Sunday.

Texas picture time!

If this doesn't look like typical outdoor summertime lunchtime fare, then I can't help you:

(I took Bubby to the doctor for his 18-month check up last week, and the doctor asked, "How much longer are we going to keep the pacificer?"  My response: "His sister was three when we made her give it up, so I think we have a while."  Once you have three kids, doctors and their opinions on certain matters become irrelevant to you.)

The girls excitedly greeting Papa John, who came into town for a day visit (I just realized I have no pictures of Papa John; I snapped pictures of he and the kids using his phone):

Uncle Grant visited too!

Bubby was too busy checking e-mail to pay attention to the television:

Chet/Daddy finally arrived!

Uncle Grant and Bubby fist bumping:

I started the possibly terrible tradition of celebrating half birthdays this past April (Lorelei's 3.5 birthday), so we celebrated Syd's half birthday while in Texas:

Her I-feel-sick-post-cupcake face:

Group shots:

For the record, this did not happen on the first plane ride when Bubby was sitting with me...I suppose Chet is a more comfortable "bed" than I am:

Happy Wednesday, everyone!