Life as a 3 year old

I thought Rachel would have a tough time with Ethan being at school all day, but honestly she loves it.  Don't get me wrong, she counts down the minutes until 3:15 every afternoon just like I do, but she is loving having me all to herself.  This past Tuesday she had meet the teacher at preschool and we started yesterday.  She has Mrs. Pam - the same teacher Ethan had at three - and she's the youngest in her class.  She had a really rough start to preschool last year so this week I've been chanting "no tears in preschool" to myself (all you church of Christ folks out there are probably singing that to "No Tears in Heaven" right now...you know you are!).  We talked about how there is no reason to cry because she's a big girl now and I'm right there and yadda yadda yadda.  God answered prayers and she made it almost all day without getting sad.  I saw her when her class was coming out of stretch-n-grow and she was sad.  Later that night she told me it was because she didn't think I knew the teacher (the normal teacher was out yesterday) and she didn't know if I would be happy about that or not.  Hilarious!  According to her, the best part of the day was eating a cupcake for William's birthday and playing with the Dora castle.  It was SO WEIRD driving up to school with just her.  Ethan and I have made that drive together every Tuesday and Thursday for the past 3 years so it was quite a change - and a lot more talkative trip.  Should be a fun year!

With Mrs. Pam at meet the teacher

Ready for the first day of school

First one in class (a perk or curse of being a teacher's kid)

Playing putt-putt on Labor Day

Getting some air at gymnastics last week

Sporting her first french braid pigtails (Amy - I had flashbacks of braiding your hair on Friday nights before the game!)

Playing dress-up with Tatum & Olivia

Posing - she got dressed in this outfit and walked around the house saying, "I look really good in this...really good."

One more sleep

To help Ethan count down the days until Clay gets back, we've been numbering the "sleeps" we have until he's back.  Well, tonight we're finally down to one more sleep.  I guess I'll have to move out of the middle of the bed now!  Just a few pictures of what we've been doing this week to make the days go by quicker.  My angel of a SIL asked Ethan to spend Monday and Tuesday with them and he had a blast.  A lady from church asked Rachel and me to come over and swim and have lunch on Monday with some other girls from church.  Isn't it funny how lunch is always better at someone else's house?  This is the standard Rachel face for this week -


Sunday night we had our monthly small group meeting and chose to have ours at a park and grill burgers.  The weather was actually very nice.  Rachel had a great time befriending every other child there, and Ethan spent half an hour watching the pickup soccer game - I was so proud of him.  Once again you see "the face..."



And today Ethan had his first "gyntastics" class.  Macy had a gymnastics birthday party several weeks ago and E has been talking about it ever since.  So, I decided to take him for a test class at a gym in Fort Worth - they actually have one class a week that's just for 4&5 year old boys.  And they were nice enough to let him join even though he isn't four.  He bounced right out there and didn't look back.  My face hurt at the end of the hour from smiling so much.  He jumped, flipped, ran, stretched, twisted, and bounced his little heart out.  Clay has the good camera with him so the pictures aren't great, but you get the idea (he's in the blue shirt).