Weekend at the lake

One of our neighbors has a lake house across the river about 45 minutes away. The last weekend in September they had us and some other friends up for the weekend. It was fabulous. Even though it was late September, the weather was perfect! We rode in the boat, jet skied, swam in the lake, and tubed. It was all three of the girls first time in a tube. Super fun!! Only bummer of the weekend was when Audrey got in a fire ant bed and got about 20 bites on her feet! The upside was Audrey has a super high pain threshold and was able to rebound quickly and did not seem bothered by them after the initial stings. I on the other hand found the two that I got from her rescue to itch like mad for a week!

I took very few pics cause it is hard to have a camera out at the lake but here are a few:

Crafty crafty

As those of you who know me well can attest to, I am totally not crafty. However I am so proud of my pumpkin wreath that I made this past weekend (and am devoting an entire post just to show it off!!) :

School

I LOVE the preschool that the girls are going to.  It is like a dream.  The only drawback so far has been the bus.  They get out of school a little after 3 and don't get home until 4:15.  Ridiculous, right?  But I have told the girls that I will come and pick them up if they want, but once we change to the car we are not going back to the bus.  So far they have said that they will stay with the bus but if it gets longer they want me to pick them up.  I am not sure that they really understand how much earlier they would get home.  Time is still so vague to them now.  But on Tuesdays and Wednesdays it would be especially nice as we are hustling out of the house super fast to get to dance and church.  And the church situation should be a whole other post as it has been a real eye opener to teach 16 very active, mainly boys 4 year olds.  As I told D, I leave there and feel like I need a margarita every week.

I LOVE both of the girls' teachers.  They are awesome.  Totally together but totally loving too.  And they still seem like a great match for each of them. 

I LOVE getting a calendar that shows me what they are planning to cover each day.  So nice to know a) that there is a plan and b) what I should ask them about each day.  And even better - they are doing the same curriculum in each class.  So the exact execution may be different between the classes but overall it is super similar. 

I LOVE the uniforms.  I think that I may make my kids wear uniforms throughout their schooling - regardless of what their school is doing.  The only downside to the uniforms is that I did not realize when purchasing them that Brooke would EXCLUSIVELY be wearing a jumper and Audrey would EXCLUSIVELY be wearing a skirt.  I would have definitely bought a different supply with that knowledge. 

I LOVE that they send home a behavior chart that we are expected to initial every day.  Though the girls have been informed that they are expected to stay at the top of the star the whole year.  We shall see.

I LOVE that they are totally emphasizing graphing - I am truly a math nerd at heart!  They did Venn diagrams about school rules vs home rules.  D and I did get nervous when Audrey said that she volunteered a home rule to put on the graph as some rules sound very odd without context (eg: you must at least wear panties when eating at the table).  But she fortunately said that it was a rule that you don't splash water out of the bathtub.  And that firmly fell just in the home rules section. And they have graphed almost everything that they have done: how you get to school, what color eyes you have, how many people are in your family, what type of dwelling you live in....this last one totally cracked me up as the choices here in LA are clearly different than if we were still outside of DC : home, apartment, or mobile home (or as Audrey says "you know those little homes that can move")

And I LOVE that Brooke was chosen to be star student for her class for the first month.  I went to eat lunch with her to see her get her little crown, medal, cookie, and certificate.  She was so proud of herself...and I was probably twice that proud.  Now I just hope that Audrey will be a star student one of these next 8 months (fingers crossed as I basically already told her that she would be it a different month)

My Little Noles

For Labor Day Weekend we made a road trip to Tallahassee to take the girls to their first ever FSU football game.  And as a bonus, D's fraternity was having their annual alumni dinner that same weekend too.  All 4 of us Haddens were totally psyched about the trip.  D and I had not been back to campus for probably 10 years *which does not seem possible as we feel like we graduated just a few short years ago. We were shocked at how much had changed on the campus and how nice everything looked!  It was great to be back and I therefore took a TON of pictures...unfortunately I took them all on my phone so the quality varies greatly from picture to picture.  Here are the best of the bunch.

 Brooke at the pregame tailgate

 Audrey at the pregame tailgate.  One of D's fraternity brothers told Audrey that she could have this little Teddy Bear if she went up to another guy and told him that he looked like a chicken hawk....clearly fraternity boys never really grow up.

 The girls watching the Marching Chiefs march into the stadium

The family heading into the game.  You may be able to tell from our sweaty, red faces that it was HOT that day.

 D with his college bestie Griff

 Cheering on a touchdown.  The girls played with Griff's kids Emily and Gavin the whole weekend and really had fun with them

 Now we are really looking hot!

 Our Number One fans!

 Enjoying the halftime show

 In front of the Westcott fountains and the main entrance to FSU

 The girls taking their first dip into the fountains.  They thought it was hilarious to know that when we were in college we threw people into the fountains for birthdays and engagements.

Dance Dance Dance

Since we are currently evacuated for hurricane Isaac, I thought I would do a little blog updating.  (as an aside about Isaac: we left Monday night after it was announced that school was canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday.  D has to work and stay at the refinery and I did not want to just sit around the house and wait to see if the storm got bad and possibly lose electricity...heat in the south with no air. no thank you.  So a quick 3 hour drive and we arrived in MS for a mini vacation to see the grandparents.  Unfortunately as our bad luck would have it, Audrey seems to have come down with some mysterious illness as she had a temp of 103 this evening. yuck)

I have decided that the girls can do one extra curricular activity at a time - both for convenience and cost.  The options are more limited here than in Fairfax and I refuse to drive into Baton Rouge to do an activity for a 4 year old.  So I presented the girls with their options of soccer, dance, and tae kwon do.  For a couple of weeks they went back forth and were constantly changing their minds about what they wanted to do.  Fortunately the possibility of doing different things did not enter into the equation (Hooray for the sisterly solidarity!) The time we drawing near and the girls needed to commit and make a final decision.  They selected dance.  The final push to make dance the winner: costumes.  When they discovered that they would be in a recital and would have costume changes, they were sold.

So Tuesday nights from 6 to 7 we have dance class.  Thirty minutes of ballet and thirty minutes of tap.  They LOVE it (though to be fair it is clear that Brooke really loves it more and is totally committed.  I think Audrey is 70/30 for it - but she says that she loves it).  The teacher is awesome!  And they have already done so much.  It is amazing.  Again I have zero dance background but it seems like they are learning a ton.  Their favorite part (and mine too) is when they yell Hello Bar as they turn and face the bar.  For some reason it is just so cute!

Here are some, well a lot of, pics of them from their first couple of weeks.  They are so silly and cute and they love to pull their skirts up...for some reason that is just hilarious to them!

Swim Fun

The girls have made huge improvement in swimming this summer.  They have totally abandoned their floaties and are full of confidence in the pool.  We are still working on breathing while swimming.  Basically they totally stop, look up to the sky, and have their legs pointing down at the bottom of the pool.  It is a total momentum killer and it takes a while to get a good breath and start back up.

She's always a star

Brooke showing me her injury (legitimately bad as she got her finger slammed in a door)  after her band-aid fell off in the pool.  Always funny to get flipped off by a 4 year old.

Riding on the alligator with their friend Anya.  The rides were very short as they would all topple into the water within seconds!

Here is a video of Brooke doing her backward and forward flips.  I took them on my phone and I don't know how to make them fatter.  Anyone know?

I also took a long video of them doing synchronized diving (both synchronized and diving being very loosely defined).  Unfortunately I can't seem to upload the video here, so I put it on you tube (my first time doing that).  So to the best of my understanding, if you click this link it will take you to the video.  We shall see. The Haddens as Olympians  It is over 6 minutes so I am not totally sure who would be interested in seeing it anyway. Well I don't think that the link above worked so I will but in additional information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf5-Mnxl344&feature=youtu.be
or if that doesn't work maybe this will: http://youtu.be/kf5-Mnxl344
Can you tell that I am totally tech savvy?

First Day of School

The girls started Pre-K at the Zachary Early Learning Center (aka ZELC) on Friday August 10.  It was just girls that first day. But other than that it was a totally normal day.  They rode the bus there and back.  They took their lunch and bought their breakfast.  And it was a totally great day!  No tears from any of us.  I may have misted up slightly after they left....but perhaps there was just something in my eye.

Audrey at 7 am.  Sadly I had to wake her up to go to school.  Even more sad, this is in our bed.  For some reason, ever since we moved Audrey seems to wake up a few times a week and she is WIDE awake.  And apparently she thinks that Mom and Dad must be much more interesting and down the stairs she tromps. Ugh.

Brooke at 7 am.  Also sad that I had to wake her up for school.

 The obligatory first day picture outside the front door.  LOVE the uniforms.  I want them to wear them for all of their schooling. Audrey is in the orange circle class and Brooke is in the yellow circle class.  Could Audrey be any cuter??

 Their bus pulling up (finally) to take them to school.  They hopped right on and barely looked back to wave to me and D.