Back to School. Back to Reality.

Tomorrow is my first day back with students.  I always think of the teacher work week as a warm-up to the real first week back to school.  You think you're tired that week, but nothing wipes you out like the first full week of school with students.  It's right up there with the first week with a newborn.  It's like your body forgets the physical and mental demands of teaching 120 kids for eight hours straight.  If your lucky, you feel like a normal person again by Labor Day.  And because our school is still under construction, things are even more chaotic than usual.

But I'm excited!  I love the anticipation of meeting all my new students.  And this year, I will have some students as Seniors that I taught as Freshmen.  The first day of school makes me so excited that I have trouble sleeping the night before.  I love that I get to "start over" every year.  Start fresh.  Get a chance to do it even better this year.  Not many professionals get that opportunity.

But at the end of the day, the best part, is always picking up my two little angels.  Nothing compares to Elizabeth running across the room to hug me when I walk in.  Even Caroline lights up when she sees me.  Seeing their sweet faces re-energize me and gives me my second wind.

 Ready or not, here we come 2011-2012 school year!

TGIF

I am so very glad it's Friday.  This has been a long, exhausting week.  The bad news is that our weekend is going to be just as busy.  The good news is that it's mostly fun family stuff keeping us busy:)

The mornings have actually gone pretty smoothly and I think we have a pretty good routine down so far.

Their faces in this picture make me laugh.

 Caroline has been sleeping until 6:30 every morning.  Then she wakes up so happy and ready to talk to us.  (I hope I didn't just jinx it!)

Elizabeth's routine is the same as it has been for school days.  She basically gets up, gets dressed, and we're out the door.  She drinks some oj or milk on the way to school, and eats breakfast when she gets there.

I feed Caroline at 6:30 and I treasure our time together in the morning.  That thirty minute feeding is really the only time we have alone all day.  One-on-one time happened often when E was a baby, but Caroline usually has to share her time with her big sister.  Honestly, she doesn't mind.  But I love our sweet time together in the morning.  And afterwards, she lays on my bed and watches me get ready. 

Elizabeth is NOT a morning person.  Just like her mama.  This is her disheveled look she has before her morning juice.  I have that same look before my morning coffee!

But we both perk up in the late morning, early afternoon.  She's a wild woman between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. (minus nap time).  And by dinner, she's on her last wind.  By seven, she has run herself ragged and is ready for bed!

Caroline is pretty worn out by then too.  So it goes from crazy wild to peaceful quiet in our house around 8:00.

Here are my loves cuddling with their daddy before bed time.

Photos and Videos from my iPhone

We haven't taken too many pictures with the camera this week, so I thought it was a good time to clean out the pictures on my cell phone.  Some of them have been on there for quite a while.

This was when E had her black eye earlier this summer.  

I took this picture to send to a friend who gave Elizabeth this present as a "big sister" gift.

My Little Shoppers!  Elizabeth loved having her cousins ride with her and push her through the grocery store.  They are so much more fun than mom!

This chair was the perfect size for Aleaha to comfortably hold Caroline.

Elizabeth really enjoyed her donut for breakfast.  She basically licked the chocolate right off.  Which is one of the many reasons we don't typically have donuts for breakfast:)

Elizabeth was the big winner at the Arcade.  I'm not even kidding.  She kept hitting jackpot and getting tons and tons of tickets.

One of the games she played with Grandma.  

Learning to ride a motorcycle with Alexis.

Caroline sitting (actually propped up) on Elizabeth's chair.

My sweet baby in her car seat.

My fun-loving toddler in her car seat.

Alissa and me on the SGA Officer retreat.

 Alissa and I took 16 Student Government Officers to WinShape at Berry College for a day of team building and communication training.  The kids had a blast, and we did too!  We participated in two of the activities in which the students used my phone to record.  I had no idea until we were done.  I had only asked for this picture for proof that we did it!  The videos are quite embarrassing, but fun to watch and laugh at ourselves!

The first one is the rock wall.  And in case you can't tell, my students' accents are fake.  They are quite the comedians!!

This pole was so much higher than it looks in the video.  Climbing it was no problem.  But standing on that little platform was terrifying.  Alissa kept asking if the belayers were paying attention and I was worried that my harness wasn't tight enough.  It was definitely a lesson in trust for the SGA sponsors!

What a difference paint makes!

Our house was pretty much move-in ready when we bought it.  Thankfully, there was nothing major that had to be done.  But there were some cosmetic things we wanted to change in order to make it our own.  Mainly paint.  Our list of things to do (like upgrading some fixtures and appliances, adding a screened in porch, and redoing our closets) is still growing, but those are the big things that might take a few years!  It's taken us a little over a month to move in, paint, and get things basically where we wanted them.  I feel like we've reached the fun part where I get to start decorating and adding pieces specifically for our new home.  Here are a couple of the rooms we've worked on.

The girls' playroom was painted this yellow gold color with a mural of the galaxy (to-scale according to the previous owner) on the wall.  Not exactly what I envisioned for  my sweet little girls.

The paint we chose was called sea salt and it is my favorite!  Choosing paint color is so intimidating to me, but I have to say, I love how this turned out.  The hardwood floors are great for all of Elizabeth's rolling/riding toys and it's easy clean up for me.  Plus, the bead boarding protects the walls from her running those toys into them.

I love this little closet too.  I started putting all the girls' "good" books on the shelves that I don't want them to tear up since they can't reach them.  It's also a good place for games.  Eventually it will serve as their dress-up area too.  I have a feeling it won't take long for these shelves to fill up!

This is a picture of the breakfast area when we moved in.  Red is my favorite color, but I wanted to lighten it up and use red as an accent instead.

So we painted it Svelte Sage which is the exact shade of green I was going for.  Sometimes it even has a blueish tint.  We also added the crown molding which I think makes any paint look better.

Now I don't have to worry about decorating above the counters because the molding really completes it.

On this wall we just added molding, but I'm considering continuing my accent color (Svelte Sage) throughout the entire downstairs.  I love it that much!

Somehow my "before" picture of the fireplace wall deleted from my photos.  This wall was that burgundy red color too.  Now it's my favorite green color!

We still need a decorative screen for the fireplace and I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with my mantle, but like I said before, that's the fun part!  And I seriously think I'm going to use this green color throughout instead of just an accent wall color.  Plus, I think the fireplace and coffered ceilings are accent enough.

And finally, Bert's haven... the basement.  We did not paint this particular room, but we had built-in bookshelves added on either side of the TV.  The insets on this wall just screamed for built-in bookshelves!

I haven't spent any time yet decorating my shelves.  They mainly just serve their purpose, to hold books. But the oversized cabinets on the bottom are a life-saver.  All of my extra serving dishes are on the right side and games are on the left.  And there's still room to spare!

They have spotlights on the shelves which really makes them pop.  But when I turned them on to take a picture, I realized that the left side was burnt out.  You can't really tell with the flash, but it makes a huge difference.  Even though it's the basement, I eventually want to add crown molding to this room (and a few other rooms).

We also had Elizabeth's room and the guest room painted.  But that's for another post!

Team Kelly

The girls finished their first full week of school, and we are glad it's Friday!!  Caroline's teachers told me every day what a sweetheart she is (I think so too)!  They said she hardly ever fussed and she slept really well.  I guess she's used to sleeping through the noise of kids playing because of her busy big sister.

Friday was Team Spirit Day at their school.  Since there are a lot of teachers' kids who attend there, I put Elizabeth in her Pope shirt which she loves to wear.

One of my girls had to represent the Vols, so Carline wore a Tennessee onesie.  I was afraid she would get cold, so I put her "baby legs" on too.  The people around here don't really like the color orange too much, but we are proud to be Tennessee girls!

Before dropping her off, I asked Elizabeth what team she was rooting for, thinking she would say Pope Greyhounds or Tennessee Vols like we'd rehearsed.  Instead she shouted, KELLY!  I just laughed and gave her a hug.  I don't know where that came from, but I'm glad she's proud to be apart of Team Kelly!!

Watch Bebets!

Elizabeth has been singing her alphabet and counting for some time now.  I used to record it just to capture her learning them.  Now, I record it per request from Elizabeth herself.  She is fascinated with watching herself on my phone.  She will ask me to record her, then immediately demand to watch it.  She is always saying, "Watch Bebets!"  By the way, she calls herself Bebets.  She can say Caroline's name and many other more difficult words.  But she has a block against saying her own name.  But I secretly love it.  It's like her own nickname for herself.  Who knows?  I might start putting B for her monogram! Ha! Ha!

Back to School

Yesterday was our last day of summer in terms of school.  Unfortunately, not in terms of the heat.  But we did make our way outside after church to take a few pictures.   

Elizabeth is really into the flowers.  That is, picking them!

Last night, when the girls were in their pjs, we played in their playroom together.  As you can imagine, this is Elizabeth's favorite space in the house.  And to my surprise, we actually play up there just about every day.  In this picture, I had put in a Disney movie.  The first movie attempt with Elizabeth.  It lasted all of about 10 minutes!

And the last day of summer break, means that this morning was this precious girl's first day of school.

We have always called daycare school.  It just helps me feel better about it.  And to this day Elizabeth gets so excited to go to "school".  This was the look Caroline gave me when I told her she wasn't going to be with mama all day!  Ha!

 Can you imagine how hard it was to leave this sweet face all day?!

I do love my job, but picking my two girls up at the end of the day is definitely the highlight!

And here's a picture of Elizabeth after school drinking her water from a big girl cup.  She was so proud (and wet)!