Big Kid School

Thanks to Ms. Martha (the tall cow shown below) and her 3rd grade class, the girls were able to get an early start on their Halloween festivities this year. Ms. Martha's class has adopted Scott as a pen pal while he's in Iraq, and she invited the girls and I to come in for the Read-A-Thon today so that her students can get to know us a little bit and we them.



I was supposed to read to the class while my girls warmed up to the idea of being in a new, somewhat strange with all the costumes, place. However, just yesterday we got a new DVD from Scott of himself reading 3 books for the girls. So, we shared our DVD and got to listen to him read on the class room's big screen instead.

After his books were read, the class divided up and went to work at several fun centers. Ms. Martha invited the girls to just wander and participate in what ever they wanted. We carved a pumpkin, played with play dough and shape blocks, and finally warmed up to all the students and the "big kid school" environment. Ella worked on a special project, but I won't say any more about that and ruin the surprise for Scott.

The girls dressed up as "pitty pincesses". Several weeks ago it was decided that they would all be Fancy Nancy after their favorite literary character for Halloween, but then a couple of days after that my sweet friend Dena brought over several of her daughters outgrown princess dresses. Sarah immediately decided that she'd much rather be a "pitty pink pincess in-ted". In fact, Sarah has been excited about these dresses, particularly the pink ones, since Dena brought them. She really likes to wear them around the house... all the time! Thank you Dena for providing hours of dress up fun!

I thought I had done such a great job of collecting all the pincess attire last night. I remembered the Halloween shirts that I made them wear underneath the dresses that are too big. I remembered the blankety-blank clip clopity shoes... all four pair, and even the thick tights that went underneath it all for warmth. I just didn't allot enough time for feeding them and then dressing them in said outfits by myself and getting to school by 9am. We hijacked Mimi's morning, and she ended up going with us to school. Thanks to Mimi's help we were only just the tiniest bit late, but Ms. Martha didn't seem to mind at all.

We are thrilled and count ourselves very blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives. A huge thank you to Ms. Martha's 3rd grade class for adopting Scott for your soldier pen pal, and for sharing in some fun activities with the girls and I. We had a great time and look forward to coming back to "the big kid school" again sometime soon!!