Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Landon starts Preschool

Travis and I both struggled with the decision to keep Landon out of Kindergarten until next year. He turned 5 in July and was "age eligible" to attend, however the school district where we lives prefers Kindergartners to be at least 5 and a half when the school year starts. Landon was pretty close to that age so the school left the decision up to us. Let me tell ya, I wrestled with this decision for DAYS. I didn't want to put him in Kindergarten this year only to have his struggle and need to be held back. I also didn't want to wait a year and have him end up being one of the oldest in his grade next year (he will now be 6 when he starts). Ultimately we did what we felt was best for Landon and our family and today he started his official year of preschool!

Both Landon and Brynne were attending a preschool that we really loved, but we were beginning to feel like they had reached their maximum learning potential at that particular school. So we decided to enroll Landon in a private Christian preschool that is much closer to our house. We also decided that being only 3 and a half Brynne should really just stay home with me for another year.

Landon was pretty excited to start school today, and I was cautiously optimistic! He has had a tendency in the past to have anxiety when thrown into new social situations. He woke up in a great mood and was genuinely happy to meet his new classmates.


He even asked me if I wanted to take some pictures this morning! OF COURSE I did! Here he is telling Brynne how much he is going to miss not having her at school.

Landon 5yr 1mo and Brynne 3yr 8mo



Landon wrote his entire name on the concrete out back, so cute.


Landon standing in front of his "cubby" on his first day of preschool


Landon has to take a car with his name on it and "park" it by his picture each day so everyone can see who is there each day.


Landon's parked car behind his picture

Warming up by playing with some colorful dominoes


Sweet Preschooler!



One last picture before Mommy leaves...

...but then Brynne and I were halfway out the door and she said "wait Mom, I gotta go give Lan a hug and tell him to have a good time." Ugh, melted this Mama's heart.

Landon did great in school and was well behaved. He came home raving about his kind teachers Miss Kathy and Miss Shirley and said he had such a fun day. What a relief! On one hand I am so sad he is growing up so quickly, on the other I am so thankful he has found his confidence and there were no tears today! I can't wait to see everything Landon learns in this new program, I know this year will fly by!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Aquarium of the Pacific




Back in May we took the kids, and met up with some friends, at The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Ca. We picked a great day to go as the weather was perfect! Not too hot, or humid and mostly cloudy. The kids had the BEST time. The aquarium isn't the biggest place so we couldn't have spent more than a few hours there, not to mention a few of the major exhibits were closed. We ended up staying about 2 hours and then walked along the water and had a nice lunch. I took a ton of pictures, here are some of our favorites.


Landon and Brynne watching the wave fountain~




Running off a little energy as we were waiting for the aquarium to open~

Time out for a picture...barely~


The kids loved looking for "Nemo" and "Dory" in this huge fish tank~


Love this picture of Landon~


He was amazed at all of the fish and sea creatures~


Checking out the sting rays~







During feeding time you can watch a brief informative show about the sea lions. It was great and the kids LOVED to watch the sea lions playing in the water and catching the fish in their mouths. Definitely the hit of the day for them!

Landon was pretty nervous at first~






It was so cool how the sea lions swam right up to the glass. Our little animal lover was in Heaven!


Next we went to check out the sharks~






Then we made our way over to "feed" the lorikeet birds. This actually turned out to be a big fat waste of $4 because the birds were not hungry at all and it was nearly impossible to get them to land on us. Luckily Daddy managed to attract one and the kids got to see one close up!~






Daddy and Landon~


Brynne and our friends' daughter Lillie~



Landon doing a little climbing before lunch~