We love our Veteran

 

Daddy's heart was a wee bit full on Veteran's Day this year. This had a lot to do with it....

 

And her annual home performance in patriotic attire also left him beaming....

And the icing on the red, white and blue cake was taking in Hallie's Pre-K Veteran's Day performance. She did wonderful and put on quite a show!

There were huge smiles, laughs and even some tears from this momma as I watched her first Pre-K performance at school. Oh my, I'm not ready for her to grow up....

The girls humored us mommas by smiling big for a picture with their sweet teachers....

It's fun to spoil our Veteran on that special day each year. Hal hopped off stage to pose for a quick photo op with her favorite fella. Silly faces of course....

The Pre-K kiddos did an awesome job!

Precious Snapshots

My precious babies.

Oh, I could just eat them up.

Everything about them makes me smile.

 

Our first Glow in the Dark 5K

The weather was perfect for an evening run on the night of Eden's Fireworks Glow in the Dark 5K. Although Hallie never got to meet her cousin Eden, she knows about her and knows why we were planning to run in this special race. I ended the night in tears watching fireworks light up and shine beautifully through the dark sky after the race was over. It was truly breathtaking.

 

Here are a few pictures from our fun and memorable family evening together......

 

This was Hallie's choice of pre-race snack.....yes, she wanted the entire box claiming she would share with friends at the race :)

Bella was less than impressed about the pre-race goings on around her

Hal and Harper cuted it up before the sun set

A family that runs together is crazy together ;)

We love these girls so so much

Oh and these girls too! ;)

Big fan of the glow in the dark swag. Big fan.

This chick has mom and dad's competitive blood in her. She hollered out at runners who passed us telling me to hurry up and not let them win. Hahaha! It was quite entertaining and made me proud of my mini runner

This crazy dude won the whole race! So proud of him!

This is a very blurry action shot of Hallie running in front of me. It was dark. I mean really really really dark. Especially back in the trees. But she ran about 2/3 of the 5K. I loved every minute. Well....except for the last five minutes after Bella woke up terrified of the dark and screaming.

TeNeil and Justin put on such a fun race for this community

My running buddies make me so happy

This was my second attempt at running behind my new (to me) double jogger. Let me just say that it wasn't a pretty sight to see such an out of shape momma huffing and puffing but it felt good to finish. The "you were the first stroller mom to finish" comment made me chuckle. But this lumpy stroller mom had a blast! Hallie still talks about the race so I'm guessing that means we will be repeating this fun event every year. :)

Tales of a Pre-K Princess

Meet the teacher night was a highly anticipated evening come late August. I was wondering how on earth my baby had grown old enough to be going to meet the teacher night. She had no qualms however....she was ready to impress......

One makeup removal and a wardrobe change later, we were off to find her classroom where she would meet two of the sweetest and most nurturing ladies she is blessed to call her teachers....

Thankfully she was in a fabulous mood on the morning of her first big day. Little sister makes it hard to frown in the mornings....

We got up extra early. Before anything or anyone wakes up kind of early. She had her reservations about getting out of bed before the sun woke up and made sure to remind me a few times that it was "still dark outside" but all in all it was a very successful morning. We even had time for the important first day picture. I had a mixture of feelings as we walked out to take her picture with her purple butterfly backpack and her princess lunch box......."wow, I've kept this child alive long enough to make it to Pre-K"...."I can't believe she let me blowdry her hair this morning"...."this must be some sort of miracle"....."in the blink of an eye that chalk on the ground will say senior year"....."hopefully she will still let me do this when she's a senior"...."okay, probably not".....

As we were walking out to the car to head to school she suddenly remembered one very important thing we forgot to do. Take a picture with her sissy and tell her goodbye. It was a precious moment that I'll never forget. She covered her up with a blanket because she thought she looked cold.....

 

I walked her in to her classroom that morning just because I chickened out as I pulled up to the school dropoff line. I guess I figured I ought to grab hold of that one last opportunity. She had no fear as she proudly strolled into the building.....

On August 19th she started her Pre-K journey with Mrs. Hodgden and Mrs. Coldren.....

The first day was a doozie!

For everyone.....

Well actually the first entire week was a doozy. One night that will be stuck in my head for years to come is this very one right here.....

She was so worn out that she couldn't bring herself to eat her dinner so I brought it to her in the bathtub. Once she put a bite of food in her mouth she then couldn't will herself to put forth the effort of chewing and swallowing. It was a fun time for all. Oh my!

One would think that being so exhausted would make for an easy bedtime. Well heavens no. She fought it and fought it and finally passed out around 9:45 most nights.  

After we all survived the first big week things became much easier for our school girl. She loved everything about school.....except for having to leave and come home. Some mornings still left me wondering if I even wanted to attempt to wake the beast.....but the promise of pancakes usually forced her to jump right out of bed.

Speaking of food.....

I've got a funny food story......about a month into school I got a text from her teacher asking me if I knew Hallie had been eating breakfast at school. Ha. Ha. Ha. The girl had been eating a big breakfast at home and then heading straight down to the cafeteria once she beebopped into school. I am still laughing about this. The interesting part is that she had no money in her lunch account since I was packing her lunch. Thank you to whomever was her breakfast benefactor for that period of time. Don't let the sweet face fool ya....she's a sneaky one....

Remember above where I mentioned how blessed we are to have such wonderful teachers for our girl.....well, Mrs. Hodgden had recently won Woodward schools Teacher of the Year and was a finalist for state teacher of the year. Wow! What an accomplishment. Lauren, Cassity and I surprised Mrs. Hodgden and the kiddos one afternoon in their classroom with a big cookie cake and some balloons to celebrate... 

The rides to school have become more interesting by the day. We have to have some sort of stuffed animal friend, a drink in the cup holder that she doesn't take even one sip of (but it must be there) and who knows what she will be wearing. One day we're like this.....

And the next......

Many more Pre-K tales to come....