School? Or Free Daycare?

I am seriously peeved at the moment. Mikenna has been in school for 3 days now and has not had one homework assignment or any papers coming home what-so-ever. I will be making an appointment with the school/teacher and find out just what the heck they have been doing and what they want the kids to accomplish this year. I'm not this crazy, fly-off-the-handle parent either or think that my daughter is a genius and should be put in college; I just feel that they should at least be getting started already!

Mikenna comes home, I ask her what she did for the day, "Um, I played with playdoh, and went on a bus to see ponies." Okay, did you learn anything? "Ummm, I did shapes..." Did you read? "My teacher read us a story, she has the same book we have..." Did you do numbers? "We wrote some numbers on a dry erase board..." I understand that we are only 3 days in, and some things may have slipped her mind. But Mikenna can read, write, do addition and subtraction using numbers up to 20 so far, among MANY other things. Playdoh and shapes in my oppinion are things learned in preschool and reviewed in kindergarten... They get it, let's move on...

I also feel that there is a lack of communication, the bus thing kind of irks me the wrong way, I don't mind if she goes on field trips but I would at least to know that they have our daughter out on a bus and what the purpose of the trip is - even if it's for fun, I'm all for fun, I just want to know about it.

I hope that things were just slow this week, being the first week of school. But before we waste too much time, I think I may need to speak with the teacher about what exactly is on the agenda for first grade. Wow, I was hoping I would feel better after venting, but not so much!! GRRRR!! :(

First Day of First Grade

I can't believe that my sweet Mikenna is already in first grade! We went to her open house to meet her teacher and her new classmates; but we were the only ones there and we stayed for quite a while! Mikenna's backpack was so full that she had to lean over to keep from falling over! :)

This is Miss Reed, her first grade teacher at Mountain View Elementary (they are planning on merging the three elementary schools in January 2011 so it will be Rawlins Elementary soon.)
I was so nervous for her: a new school, new teachers, new kids, new everything! I stayed in the doorway for a little bit to make sure that she was comfortable before I left her. She was much more shy with the teacher yesterday than with the kids today, so I'm relieved! :) She was talking with Mary, Kaden, and Gavin.

We all missed her so much while she was away!!

She wanted a to cut her hair shorter, so she has a very subtle a-line do now that is just adorable!

Before

We LOVE spending time at Noni's salon! :)

There wasn't much for supplies this year, but that's what her list called for... We went to Casper to get her supplies, clothes for all 3 of them, and to see Noni of course! ;) When we got to the stores there, they were picked clean - both Target and Walmart didn't have a pack of pencils in sight. I never wait this long, and now I realize why! :)

Adiee's First (Real) Haircut

I say "real" haircut, because miss Mikenna cut her hair when she was only 18 months... It was a very tragic day for me! Haha :) It hasn't been funny up until this moment, because she has spent the last 2 1/2 years trying to grow it back! She is in desperate need of a haircut because of all the different lengths. It took some talking her into, because she want's Rapunzel hair and she told Kasey, "When mom waters my hair, it goes all the way down here" (trying to reach her mid-back) It's the cutest thing! But we need to even it up!

Before:

See all those different lengths in her hair!

During:
She was so excited!!

Look at her!! She is LOVING getting her hair washed!
After:
Isn't she GORGEOUS!?!?!

Adiee's Actual First Haircut:

I had just got a ponytail in her hair for the first time and Mikenna had chopped it off before I had a chance to take a snapshot. I was sure this wasn't going to happen to me, I was always so careful about where I kept our scissors... I had just gotten done trimming Mikenna's bangs the day before and I didn't wait for her to leave the bathroom completely before I put the scissors away (in the medicine cabinet, behind everything, on the top shelf, on the opposite side of the toilet) So that means, that she had climbed onto the toilet, got onto the counter, walked over to the other side, opened the cabinet without falling off and retrieved those stinkin' scissors. The day it happened, I went upstairs to see what those little boogers were doing and it was sort of late in the afternoon so the lighting was dim in the hallway. I passed Mikenna coming out of my room and she was on her way down the stairs - "Hi, Mikenna"; "Hi mommy". I saw my bathroom light was the only one on so I went to see if Adiee was in there. Sure enough, she was sitting on the floor. I went to pick her up and noticed all these tiny slivers of hair on her clothes, so I brushed them off and then saw her ponytail was GONE!!! So, I screamed "Mikenna!!! Get up here now!!!" I was so incredibly mad at her! When she came into the bathroom, I took one look at her and just started bawling! Not only had she cut off Adiee's barely there hair, she had also cut off her own bangs and ponytails!! It was a sad day for me to say the least, I called a couple girlfriends who had girls so I could fall apart and they would understand... Kasey and my mom were the last on the list because I knew they were just going to laugh - and they did!! Well, needless to say, Mikenna didn't touch another pair of scissors until she was in preschool! And after it was all said and done, I was very thankful that there were no missing ears or fingers - no blood whatsoever. So it definitely could have been worse, that's for sure!! :)

Adiee and Isla were goofing off with clippies while Mikenna was getting her hair cut :)

Queen of Randomness

My sweet Adiee wakes up this morning and crawls into bed with me and says in one sentence only pausing to breathe, "You are the beautifullest mom... You are such a nice mom... I like your hair...(she's got to be fibbing, I'd just woke up myself) I love my pretty mom, you need some dangly sparkly blue earrings with horseshoes on them then you would look even prettiest...(now that's specific!! I wonder where I could find some, they sound gorgeous! haha)" I laugh and say, "Why thank you Adiee", then she says, "I don't like your dragon breath!" (Ohhh, there's a truth! Yes, you caught me, I haven't brushed my teeth yet Adiee) Haha!! She is so funny! Great start to my Monday! :-)

Summer 2010

So my forecast for 2010 hasn't turned out anything like I thought it would at the beginning of the year... Starting with having to cancel our Oregon Coast trip because of a great job opportunity - it was a total bummer, but sometimes you have to do the grown-up thing, right? But it wasn't for nothing, Kasey landed the job that he had been after since he first started the electrical apprenticeship! And our summer has been pretty LAME to say the least! Half of it was spent apart, and the other half was spent moving, and having to stay in Rawlins because of on-call weekends...

Swimming Beauties...

Isla may just be a jump-aholic :) She loves the trampoline!

We went for a family hike earlier this summer. I have quite a few pictures but these are a couple of my favorites:

Miss Adiee had her hair pulled back in a nice ponytail and a crown (the jeweled headband she insisted on having...) After climbing mountains and a few re-adjustments this is what her hair looked like - a MESS!! But still beautiful to say the least! :)Pretty little Mikenna!
Isla loved throwing rocks into the creek, she was very particular about which ones she was going to throw! :) Funny little thing!
Just a couple of our pictures from the camping trip from the post "Go Ahead and LAUGH!!" The one camping trip we went on this summer - which is unheard of in this family! :)
Kasey and his brothers had been planning a camping trip for a few days in the Big Horn Mountains but they changed their plans so that they could include us since he had to stay in Rawlins for his on-call weekends, but a lot of good that did... He couldn't even stay out there with everybody because there is no cell phone reception! So we all spent a lot of time going to town to hang out with him, so again a camping trip that didn't count (not to mention it was freezing and windy) :/ But it was sweet of all of them and their families for trying to accomodate us :)
It may have been cold and windy, but that didn't stop the kiddos from having a good time :) They picked me a bouquet of wild flowers, we saw a family of big horn sheep when we went to check out the dams, had a picnic at the park in Sinclair so Kasey could come during his lunchbreak, and went to the prison museum.

Fourth of July weekend, Kasey was stuck in Rawlins by himself and I spent it with my family at my grandparents place at the lake. I was going to drive to Rawlins to be with Kasey, but he wanted the girls to see the fireworks. Turns out we wouldn't have missed anything because the city of Rawlins put on a decent show, but hind sight is 20/20... We were on the phone during the display so he could hear Isla's reaction to the bursts of fire in the sky since she was just a sleeping baby during this time last year. During this weekend, I got french braids in Adiee's hair for the first time and she LOVED it! She is always begging me to braid her hair because I do Mikenna's all the time but her hair wasn't hardly long enough - note all the stray hairs around her face, but who cares... It made her happy and that's what counts :)
There was so much excitement that weekend, Isla passed out on the couch because she wasn't about to close her eyes on purpose and miss anything!! haha :) She looks so sweet!

I was looking through some of our pictures to use for this post and I found this funny one, it was moving day and the girls were having a blast sitting in Kasey's kayak.

That's it for now... :)