Life Within the Cuckoo's Nest: First Day of Preschool!

My sweet babies on their first day of Preschool!

My babies both started their first day of school on October 3rd, 2016! I know the date is probably irrelevant but this is such a big moment for me! Seriously, if you only knew me.... I never thought my kids would have to go to Daycare. I always assumed I would be a stay at home Mom, or my Mom would just keep helping me out for the rest of my life. Yeah, that didn't happen :(. But this has been good for us! It has been so good for Austin to step outside of his comfort zone and socialize with other little people as well as other big people. And Evie has been able to continue being her super bubbly social self with more friends! Yay!

I am so overly protective when it comes to who can watch my kids so over the past 3+ years I have worked crazy hours to make it all possible for them to stay at home and have a family member come to our home to watch them... completely safe and sheltered. Well, I guess the baby birds have to leave the nest sometime!

Josh and I found the most expensive, educational school in the area and when the kids toured it with me, they LOVED IT! It's called THE CHILDREN'S LEARNING ADVENTURE. It truly is amazing! Every hour they move to a different class room that specializes in something, like reading, cooking, art, Spanish, gym, you name it! Eve is in the toddler class so her learning is not so extraordinary, but Austin gets to experience it all! He comes home with all sorts of crafts and tells us how he made things like "cheese danish" in cooking class. I absolutely love it! Education is so important to us and I so badly want to inspire the desire to learn in my kids!

I took the day off on their first day to make sure if anything were to go wrong, I could be right there in a heart beat! I did get a phone call from the administrator telling me that Evie was holding hands with a little boy during dance time and he bit her hand :(. So sad! But the lady said she was fine and there was no need for Mama Bird to swoop down and rescuer her! So I spent the day at the gym, Starbucks, and finally catching up on some annual doctor's visits that I never have time to go to! Honestly, I thought it was going to be complete bliss finally having a whole day all to myself, but the entire time all I did was worry about my babies and miss them like crazy! For example, on my drive home from the gym I almost started crying because I couldn't hear Austin's little voice in the back seat asking to have a drink of my protein shake!

Back up to the drop off.... Both kids were super excited! They each had their special backpack (Austin got to pick his out all by himself) and were totally ready to explore their new surroundings! Neither kid cried which is totally unusual, but helped me feel like I was making the right decision. As we were chauffeured to their new classrooms, the kids were waving to every passerby and saying hi! Austin was so proud of his dump truck back pack and wanted to show everyone who would stop and listen!

When I picked them up they both burst into tears which had me feeling awful, but I was told that this is normal and they will get used to it. I don't know if they were just overjoyed that I actually came back for them, or if they were super scared all day and were just holding it in for the moment when Mom came back, but they did this multiple times throughout the first couple weeks. But things have gotten better now. Josh drops them off and I pick them up, which I love because I get to be the first to hear all about their days! I get to pick up their daily progress reports and find out what they ate, what songs they sang, what books they read, and all the other fun details! And then Austin and I chat about it all the way home :).

I'm only working twice a week now so we decided to only send them to full-day preschool for one day and to have my friend from the ward (Amy) watch them on the other day. She also babysits some other kids so it is a fun homey place for them to go and socialize. It's not as structured, and they seem to like Amy's house the best because they bake treats and play outside on the swing set, or play with play dough all day. She is a heck of a lot cheaper too! But I want them to start getting a more formal education as well, so this one day a week thing seems to work. Anyways, that's the scoop on our new situation and almost three months later, I am happy to report that it is going well!!

Could he get any cuter??? The answer is no! (3 years old)

Trying to get Evie to show me her sign or her backpack was basically impossible... She's only 17 months old though so I wasn't that surprised...

Yes, I was that crazy Mom taking pictures of my kids holding signs in front of the school on their first day! People were literally laughing at me.

Her sign said "First Day of Daycare" since she is technically not in the preschool part of the school yet until next year.

And here are some pictures that Amy has sent me throughout their day at her house. I love that she does that and gives me little updates on how they are doing!

Austin and Abby playing light sabers! Austin's favorite!!

Learning how to grind wheat to make bread!

Hearing Evie say "Abby!" is seriously the cutest! I love that they all get along!

Apparently it got hot :)

Miss Amy took them to the pumpkin patch with some other kids in the ward. For just $10 per kid we were all able to reserve the whole place! So the kids got to explore everything as much as they wanted! That meant Evie spent most the day in the bouncie house while Austin and Abby went down the giant slide over and over and over.... I wasn't there of course (Boo!) but Amy is great at describing all the fun to me! It helps that we are good friends!

Chasing geese!

Craft time

Austin eating the loaf of bread he made at Ms. Amy's house. He refused to cut it! Silly boy....

All the kiddos at work!

Halloween craft! Making candy corn :)

Home made muffins! YUM!

Amy also took them to her husband's work Halloween party. Apparently it is very kid friendly!

Oh these two.... I wish so badly I could experience all this with them, but then if I were there, there would be no reason for them to be out having all this fun with Amy! Hmmm... I guess this is good for all of us.