Maggie's First Day of Pre-K

Notice anything about this picture? Okay - I will tell you if you haven't figured it out already.  Maggie and Mallory both wore this dress on their first day of school this year.  

Maggie was so brave when I took her to school. I walked her inside the classroom and helped her put her backpack, water bottle, and lunch bag up.  When I said good-bye she didn't cry.  This was a first!

Another Tooth Lost

Mallory lost her first top tooth!  This tooth has been loose for days.  Mallory finally let Matt yank it out. She looked like a hillbilly because it has hanging by a thread.  The Tooth Fairy left Mallory $2 and some silver fairy dust.  It was quite an exciting morning when she woke up and saw the fairy dust.  The Tooth Fairy was also very sweet and kind to Maggie - she left her fifty cents because Maggie was sad she hadn't lost any teeth yet.

Here are a couple of cute pictures of her showing the hole in her mouth. She is modeling her newest Fancy Nancy costume.

Maggie's Meet the Teacher

Maggie wanted me to curl her hair because Mallory's hair had been curled for the first day of school.  We curled her hair for Meet the Teacher.  Here are some cute pictures before we left the house.

Maggie had to make sure she included creepy face.

As always, Maggie didn't really speak a word to anyone but me at Meet the Teacher. She got very shy as soon as we walked in the door.  I am hoping she has a great year this year!

Mallory's First Day of First Grade

Mallory started first grade today and she seemed to be really excited while we were at the house.  We had donuts for breakfast and even took a fun picture on our way out the door.  Mallory chose this dress because it is aquamarine and wore her new tiara headband.

Mallory was talkative on the way to school and never got sad or nervous like she did on the way to Kindergarten last year. We parked the Tahoe and started walking towards the school and I tried to hold her hand. She refused and was acting really weird - weird to the point my feelings started to get hurt. This girl LOVES to hug and hold my hand.  I couldn't understand the way she was acting, but tried to just grin and bear it - maybe she thought she was too grown up to hold my hand anymore.

This picture explains her actions earlier to me.  She didn't want to hold my hand because she didn't want to be left alone.  When it was time for Matt, Maggie, and me to leave she about lost it. I was so surprised!  We calmed her down and Mrs. Oldner was so sweet to her!  It broke my heart to leave her, but I knew she would be just fine.

Beach Vacation - Part 3

On Friday night, we took the girls to a fancy dinner.  We went to The Lazy Lobster. The girls got dressed up and knew they had to be on their best behavior because this wasn't your causal dinner place.

Mallory waiting patiently for her dinner. She enjoyed dining on the dinner rolls sans butter.  Her main course was pasta.  I enjoyed sea scallops that were divine!

 Maggie too waited patiently for her dinner. She enjoyed dining on the dinner rolls with lots of butter.  Her main course was fish and chips.  

Beach Vacation - Part 2

 Since the girls are a little bit older (especially Maggie) we decided to go on a few excursions when we were in Florida. The first one was to the South Florida Museum.  Mallory has been wanting to go to the planetarium and this museum had one.  The first thing we did was check out a production on the stars and the galaxies. It was a little too grown up for both girls, but they sat patiently and listened.

After the production, we went upstairs to see the manatee aquarium.  We learned about how the aquarium is also home to a rehab facility for manatees and they help them get ready to go back into the wild.  One thing we learned is manatees can live in fresh, salt, and brackish water.

On our last day, we headed out early so we could to two fun places before heading to the airport.  The first was the Sarasota Children's Garden.  This place was really neat - minus the nasty long snake that I saw going across part of it.  Thankfully not anywhere where the girls were.

There is a room with all sorts of costumes for kids to put on and wear in the garden.  I couldn't help think about all the nasty germs and cooties that had to be on them, but let the girls get dressed up anyway.  Mallory chose to be Dorothy and Maggie was a princess.

Mallory steering the pirate ship.

Mallory the queen of the tire pyramid.

Our second stop was to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to the "Winter," the dolphin, who was in the movie Dolphin Tale.  Both girls were so excited to go and see Winter.  We have seen both of the movies!

Here she is!  She is world famous because she has no tail fin and uses a prosthetic tale.

Beach Vacation - Part 1

We had so much fun in Longboat Key last year that we came back for round two.  Countless hours were spent at the beach playing in both the water and sand.  We even spent time in the swimming pool with the ocean was rough for a couple of days.

Maggie played so hard that she would fall asleep in the afternoon or early evening most days.  We took pictures of all the random places she fell asleep.  It was so funny!