back to school

Well, Jack officially starts pre-school this week! It's crazy to think that tomorrow is his first day of the next 14 years of his school-ager life.....pre-school through grade 12. Craziness. I'm soooooo excited for him! He's such an independent little man and I think he will really thrive in a school setting. When I drop him off on his first day, he won't cry. I might. He will gladly let go of my hand and run inside. I'll beg for one more hug and kiss goodbye! On the way to his school, I'm certain he will ask "Mommy, am I going to school all by myself or do you have to come inside? Can you and daddy and Macy stay at home while I'm gone all by myself?" He LOVES going places and being dropped off and doing his own thing. This doesn't happen all that often in a 4 year old's life! Until pre-school. Once pre-school starts, he will regularly be dropped off at school and picked up hours later. He will finally have something in his life that is all HIS and that me and daddy and Macy have nothing to do with. He will LOVE it. I'm looking forward to seeing him grow through pre-school. I just wish I could be a fly on the wall in his class to see all the hilarious things he does and says when we're not around. But, I can't. I get to come back to my house and run a daycare while he's having a wonderful time at school. We'll have a wonderful time at the daycare as well.....it will just be different not having him around all the time!

Tomorrow we go to Jack's pre-school for a "mock" school day. He understands that we are just going to his school to practice how to go to school. I will stay there during tomorrow's session. But then Tuesday is when it all starts for real. I can't wait!!! Such an exciting milestone in my little guy's life!

Jack has recently started reading a little! He has always been very drawn to words and print and we have adored that quality in him. He has known the letter sounds for quite some time now and has been putting those sounds together to read some words too. But this past week he has REALLY started picking up on a bunch of new words. It is truely amazing to watch him try to read. He sounds out each letter and tries to say them real fast together to read the word. It is kinda hard though because so many letters have multiple sounds. So, we're just going with the flow and pointing out words on pages of books that he could read by sounding it out. Quite cool!

Little Macy had her first professional photos taken this past week. When Jack was a baby, we had WAY more professional photos taken during his first year.....but sine then we've acquired digital cameras and have grown in our photography skills, so we haven't found the need to pay extra $$ to get professional photos, but we did want to have some done when she turned one. So we went. She only flashed ONE smile during the entire session. And she wasn't even looking at the camera. It was quite cute really. She wasn't quite sure why there was a strange man behind the camera (instead of Mommy or Daddy) and two or three random people standing behind the photographer trying to get her to giggle. She was certain that they were wanting her to crawl over to them and play.....but alas, they really wanted her to stay in the middle of the backdrop and just smile....we finally convinced her to stay in the middle of the backdrop....but then she never did smile. That's ok. She's got a serious side to her.

And....she has finally started crawling! About a week ago she decided that the army crawl just wasn't cutting it and pushed up on all fours and took off. She hasn't discovered stairs yet, but she's getting close! She is also now pulling herself up to her knees and even TRYING to pull herself up to standing. She has a long way to go! We had some people come to our house to evaluate her physical development and they gave us some great tips to get her on her feet more. So far, she's improved quite a bit since they were here a week ago. I don't think she'll be walking anytime in the near future, but hopefully next she'll start standing up on her own and cruising along the furniture.