Our Lily is 6!

It's hard to believe that our little girl is turning 6 on the 28th, yet all the signs are there. She's got her first wiggly tooth, she's chattering happily about school and she's super proud of all the things she can do for herself. As her parents, we are awfully proud of her too. We are so very blessed to have such a sweet, funny, engaging, smart and loving daughter. Happy Birthday Lilianna!

Feeling like Fall & Family

We've been in school now for a month and I can finally say it feels like we are hitting our grove. Lily's tears about the bus are down by 90% (and we're optimistic that they'll be gone this week!) She's doing so well with making friends, becoming more independent and keeping up with the academics. Andrew, whom I orginally thought was totally go with the flow, actually had some stress about me returning to work. He turned into what a friend of ours calls a "Mommy-monster." i.e. he needed mommy alllll the time. He finally seems at peace with our schedule and is back to his happy self. My work schedule is settling into place. Nothing like getting 34 new kids, 4 new teachers and a brand new building! It's a great assignment and I'm feeling more on top of all the demands.

We had the estate sale for Grandma's house. My family worked so hard to get ready for this. It's quite a job to break apart a home of 56 years! The sale went really well and I now 100% know what the term bitter sweet means. As we sorted through all the posessions, they triggered so many great memories and made us miss Grandma that much more. It surely is an end of an era in my life as I've spent all my Thanksgiving, Christmas and countless hours there. As my dad and I sat on Grandma's porch, I realized that this is a place where I grew up, confided about my fears to my Grandma, shared my triumphs during college, planned a wedding and brought home 2 children from the other side of the world. Now this chapter is closed. Then after the sale we all gathered at my inlaws and had the perfect evening with a beautiful view, great company and a yummy dinner. It gave me such a sense of how family endures and how many great times we have together and will have in the future. Fall is definitely in the air and we are looking forward to more family birthdays, pumpkin patch visits, trick or treating, football games and more great family times.

Andrew and Dan Dan

Settling into our new school year........

Whew! Our family has had many, many transitions the past 10 days. I've functionally been assigned to a new job. It's a wonderful assignment, but it's alllll new. New classes, new building, new students, new teachers and all that takes extra work. I'm optimistic that it'll be a good year.

Lily has ventured off to the world of kindergarten and big-kid school. If I ever questioned our decision about sending Lily to kindergarten on the older side (5 turning 6), I know now our decision was 100% right. She's doing well with her classroom, likes her teacher, reports she's making new friends and is happy about what she is learning. However, the bus ride is overwhelming her. It's a short, direct ride and she only has to take the bus in the morning. Still, she's scared to death about being left on the bus, getting lost in the sea of kids infront of the school or not making it to her class. It breaks my heart as her mom to see her so sad and that I can't totally fix this for her. Hopefully, this will get easier and in a month or so, her tears and fears will be all gone.

Andrew has started going to his sitter's house. Thank goodness for Andrew's go-with-the-flow personality. While Lily and I are feeling some growing pains and aren't fans of change, Andrew seems to take it all in stride. He takes after his dad in that way. He wasn't the best napper at the sitters, but I believe that'll change in the next few visits.

Despite all the changes, we've had some nice family time lately. Lily and I did a little mommy-daughter shopping. She saw a Mulan costume at the Disney store and being the softy that I am, I bought it for her. Here she is modeling it.