Look Out Kindergarten - here she comes...

The day I have not been looking forward to is finally here. Sending A. off to kindergarten was not an easy thing for me to do. She did awesome with it (I expected more tears as she is pretty overwhelmed by the whole thing too), but I was the one who cried the whole way home after we dropped her off. She can't wait to go back again! Charlie had to sneak into the moment too. He seemed a little concerned about all this new activity and had to give each of the girls' new backpacks a thorough sniff.
A. gets her groove on before school - sister is already at school so might as well take advantage of the new CD player being unoccupied (the cats away the mouse will play)!
Wow - extreme close up! A self-portrait (to take a page out of Pike Schemes book) I wanted one of the two of us rocking out - "Getting Our Head in the Game" (this was the name of the song she wanted to listen to - very motivational for the first day of school I suppose).

The Winds of Change...

Dad and Charlie say good-bye to T.!
Thumbs up ready to go to second grade!
She has displaced the princess and the color pink - with anything that has the stars from the High School Musical on it... sigh... big sigh...
The transition to 2nd grade has been MUCH easier than it was for her when she went to 1st grade. No tears... which is so much easier on me too.
The school supply list gets heavier and heavier too.

The Party

The Idaho Girls posing for an obligatory birthday picture.
The dynamics of a birthday party are starting to change as of this year. In the past, our guest list was made up of mostly family friends and their perspective children with a few school friends here and there. This time, however, the guest list was mostly school friends which ended up making the kids outnumber the adults 3:1! It was a little wild and a lot crazy. But I think they had a good time. You would think having water balloons in August would have been a great idea but it was kind of chilly! The weather has been so different this summer.

Happy 7th Birthday!

The tradition of holding up our age for a photo op. has been around for a long time in my family. Cheesy I know - but I love it!
T. gets her first ever CD player. Whether I like it or not, she is growing up. She walks around the house all the time now - singing to her favorite High School Musical CD! I have to admit I even like the music - it is really bad, cheesy music but kind of catchy after you dull your mind and listen to it a few hundred times.
For those of you who know our parties, the look of this cake is very off! We have always had a Costco cake - always! BUT, this year T. informed me she does not like cake (shocking revelation to her mother who lives for the cake), and she would love a cheesecake. So don't fall out of your chairs, but I made a homemade cheesecake. It was actually pretty tasty. Of course, not all 7 and 8 year olds do cheesecake so I made cupcakes for them too!