Our New Friend Colton!

This weekend we had a baby shower...although not your typical baby shower. The baby is already here! Surprise!    Here he is....
Meet Baby Colton!

 

 

You see about a month ago, my friend Erin called me up asking if I wanted to meet the new member of the family.  I thought she got a dog.  Boy was I wrong!  Instead she had a baby boy!  

 

Now Baby Colton entered this world as a surprise to EVERYONE!  No one knew Erin was pregnant including Erin!  I saw her these past 9 months and would never in a million years have been able to tell she was preggers with this little guy.  His birth is what we should call a "Surprise Miracle."  He was born a healthy 8 pounds!  I immediatley had to go and meet the little guy.

 

Even though we didn't have time to prepare for his arrival, he already made instant BFF's with these two!  

 

Miss Evie is going to be E's little mama helper.  That's just who she is.  She LOVES babies!

We all fell in love with our friend right away.



 

So like I said, we had a baby shower for Erin and Colton at her house.  She got oodles of great things and everyone had a great time! 

 

There is another new baby in our group and it's so exciting.  Our Girls Christmas is getting bigger every year (and another one coming on Thursday too)  Santa Gil better rest his legs for all the kiddos headed for his lap this Christmas!

So here are some pics of our new little friend Colton.



 

Jessica Jill Photography took these amazing photos.  Is he not the most precious thing ever?

Welcome to this crazy world Baby Colton.  I believe everything happens for a reason and now my BFF finally has the man of her dreams because nothing can get much better than this little guy right here.
(P.S.  We'll be your neighbors soon E so get used to seeing a lot of us!)

The Weekend!

And just because we had a busy week last week with school starting, the weekend was also full of plans too! 

Gracie had a birthday party at this place called Bear Paddle.  It's in Fox Valley and it's totally cute.  It's a little pool and they offer swim lessons and birthday parties.  It was for her friend Amber from Kindergarten.  Lots of her other Kindergarten buddies were there but now they are in different first grade classes.

 

They got to play tug-of-war with the raft.  Gracie won!

 

Then the instuctors were moving the raft and they had to try and stay on.  She did good.

 

And of course swimming isn't swimming without a noodle ride!

 

All the kids had so much fun.

 

Then they all got to clean off by going throug the "car wash."  The pool here is actually saltwater.  

 

It really was a neat little place.  I got some information on it.

 

Here is Gracie with her friends...of course Lacey, her BFF was there, but so was Kate, Marin, and Allison.  And they are all in my Girl Scout troop too!  They are the cutest little bunch of girls you've ever met.  I got to hang out with their moms during the party and they are cool too!

 

Amber's mom wanted to do what we did at Gracie's party....sit by Amber when she is opening your present.  Gracie picked out some Lego Friends.  In fact, she got lots of them!

 

Today we went on a nature walk and brought a scavenger hunt too. 

 

The kids were so excited.  Everytime we found something on the list, I would stamp it.

 

Walking on the bridge was one of our favorite parts.

 

Grandpa came with us and Presley made sure he didn't get left behind.

 

And everytime we passed a bench, we had to take a break. I guess it was deserved because I didn't realize how far this little hike was.  When we got back to the car, we realized we hiked 2 miles!  No strollers. No wagons. No bikes.  Just our feet!

 

We also found a little pond.

 

So of course we had to go throw rocks.

 

It was fun.

 

It really was nice and the kids loved it. We found everything on our list too!  We even found buried treasure on the path because we found 2 spraypainted X's!

 

The kids did good considering....there were some complaints but we agreed that next time we would bring our bikes.

 

It was a busy weekend for Daddy too because Uncle Frog and Uncle Chad came up to go the Cubbies game.  They even had a limo come pick them up!  But first the kids got to go sit in it.

 And Friday night was also our ice cream social at school. The kids got some pretty yummy ice cream!

 

Such the cutest pic!  Although all my pics are out of order.  oops!

The First Day of School!

Today was the BIG day!

The First Day of School!

My kids were up and ready to roll.  They were all excited and I made them signs.

 

My first grader all ready to go.  She is so excited to be able to eat lunch at school, have recess, and get to have art, music, and health class too!

 

She is growing up so fast but yet still wants to be a firefighter.  

 

My sweet girls all ready for school. Boy do they really know how to make their mama feel old!

 

All right...seriously, how did my little twinnies become old enough to go to school?  They were so excited and I think meeting their teacher yesterday helped.  Presley has decided he wants to be a policeman and Evie want to be Izzy (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates).  Although I think she only said that because she was watching the show when I asked her.

 

Isn't she not the cutest little preschooler you ever saw?  So proud of my big girl!

 

And this boy was ready.  I even got him to wear a polo shirt for the first day!

 

We hit a slight snag however because as you know, I am mom of the year and totally forgot to submit the medical forms.  Ugh!  How stupid could I be?  Luckily Chuck was off yesterday and had to run to the pediatriction's office TWICE because they couldn't find if Presley had the chicken pox vaccine.....It was a complete nightmare.  We had to get up early today to take them to the nurse.  Thankfully we were good to go or they would have not been able to start today.  Lesson learned!

 

The proud mama and papa with their school-aged children. I'm scared to blink for fear they might be heading off to college next!

 

And then because I am THAT mom, I snapped pics as I was driving through the dropoff line to drop Evie and Presley off for their first day.

 

Daddy got out to help out.

 

A teacher grabbed them and off they went.  There were no tears.  No looking back. Only smiles and a "Bye Mommy!"  AAHHH, it was like taking a knife.  I had to let go a lot today. And it made me happy but it did indeed hurt.

 

After I sobbed on my way to school with Gracie,  I had to distract myself with some Eric and Kathy so get me laughing.  Gracie just couldn't wait to get to school and get started. She loves to carry my keys for me every morning and open the door.

 

As soon as we got there, we ran into Miss Stewart, Gracie's new teacher!  And look!  They match!  Aw, super cute!

 

Now this year is not only totally cool for Gracie because she gets to be there all day, but her BFF Jackie is also in her class.  Yes, my girl Holly decided to have her daughter come to Wesmere this year too!  They were so excited but I think Miss Stewart may have had a heads up because they don't sit near each other.

 

We joke that were going to be HMP's!  Although I think we are already.  We took this picture like half and hour before the bell even rang!

 

And then we made Miss Stewart do it too. See the look of HMP in her face?

 

But we didn't hang out in first grade all morning.  We did go to our own classes to get ready for the day.  When the bell though, they we were...following our girls down the hall snapping pics with our camera!

 

And yes, we did walk into the classroom with them.

 

And yes, we had to take pictures of them sitting down at their desks.  

 

I called my mom at lunch to see how preschool went. She said Evie and Presley came out smiling and talked about how they read the book "Pete the Cat", played at the park, colored, and Presley even talked about a boy named Ethan and Evie said she made a new friend too but can't remember her name.  I'm so happy they had a great day!  Presley even asked if he could go back tomorrow and I had to tell him he has to wait for 4 more sleeps.

Gracie had a fabulous day in first too!  I peeked in a couple of times (you didn't see me Nikki) but all seemed well.  I watched her at recess out my new classroom window (it has a great view of the playground) and saw Gracie playing.  I also saw her walking down the sidewalk hand in hand with Jackie. She was all smiles after school when she came back to my room.  She ate most of her lunch and enjoyed the little lunch card I hid in her lunchbox.  She even got to go to art today and that was a huge deal too. And then she got to play with Jackie after school for awhile and that made me happy too.  I got a little bit of work done.

My first day?  I had a good one.  I really did like my class and I think I am going to enjoy teaching 2nd grade.  I have a nice group of 23 (my smallest class ever) and I think it will be great! 

(But I am so exhausted and glad tomorrow is Friday!)