Happy Birthday Mrs. Matthews!

Yesterday, was my first day to volunteer in Abree's kindergarten class. I helped kids with an alphabet exercise, played color/shape BINGO, traced and cut shapes for homework and helped them to finish up their "I Am Special" book.

While I was there, I found out that Mrs. Matthew's birthday was on Saturday. She said she planned on spending the WHOLE day, at Boise State (ESPN Game Day, tailgating and game).

Inspired by the kid's, Abree and I made Mrs. Matthews a BSU rock and card.

"Dear Mrs. Matthews,

You are a great teacher. You have fun activities. Hope you have a great birthday.

Love, Abree

PS-Have fun at the BSU game."

Kindergarten Orientation

As a mom, you think the day will never come.... when all of your children are in school and you actually have some kid-FREE time to yourself during the day. I am here to testify that it does. This my year.

I'm being weaned gradually, with only 1/2 day Kindergarten, but from 12:50 to 3:10-ish (when Taylee gets home) I have no kids to answer to.

Everyone keeps saying, "What will you do with ALL of your FREE time?!" At first this distressed me... "What AM I going to do with my time?!!" But as I really started thinking about it, I started to relax... "What ever I feel like I WANT to do, GOSH!" said in my most Napoleon Dynamite accent. Reality?...... probably volunteering at the school with my kids. :)

The week before school started, Abree was invited to a Kindergarten Orientation.

We got to meet her new teacher Mrs. Matthews.

We also familiarized ourselves with the classroom and other important places; bathroom, line-up spot, backpack place and cubby. One of Abree's favorite places was the kitchen area. She only eyeball-ed it, while we were there, but I'm sure she will have many hours of fun with it, in the future.

Another highly anticipated area is the puppet theater.

After 3 years of pre-school, this girl is READY for Kindergarten!

We were excited to find out we already knew 3 of her classmates.

On another BRIGHT note, Abree started reading this week! She's known the letters and sounds for some time now, but I just hadn't sat down with her to put it all together until now. She can read 3, 4 and even some 5 letter words with blends. I am impressed!

I'm excited for this new stage in her life.... but boy, it sure does make me think about my own. As I think I've mentioned before, I'm not one that loves change, but I guess I'll just have to "get used to it". :)

Writing this has given me anxiety.... or maybe it's just a sugar buzz from the 2 brownies I just ate.