Sweet baby Rose started her preschool career last May during the week they were studying the letter Z.  That’s pretty perfect if you know our unconventional hot mess!  And since she went to school all summer, I had to add, first day of fall preschool in the title of this post.  Sweet girl.  Rose has always been full out in life, and she simply loves being where all the action is.  When she was little, we used to call her our “go baby.”  Noelle had fun at lots of summer camps this summer with her friends, all Anna Kate wanted to do was spend her days with me, and Rose wanted to go to Mrs. Paula’s Preschool, so that’s what we did. 

Rose loves every minute of school, and I am so happy for her.  She’s learning so much, so fast and is so very smart.  She knows her shapes and colors and is starting to identify letters, numbers and patterns.  Rose loves music!  She makes up really creative songs every day and plays all of our instruments around the house with great interest.  She can carry a tune and has a very beautiful little voice.  Her specialty is ending her songs with impressive vibrato; It’s hysterical and I don’t know where she picked that up.  She won’t sing on command though; She has to feel it with her heart and soul.  She loves acting out stories in her head with any object that comes in her path.  In the shower, she makes up elaborate stories with our bath toys.  She speaks out loud for all the characters, changing voices back and forth, so I can totally follow along with the story unfolding in her imagination.  While I’m brushing her hair, all of our tooth brushes turn into characters that walk and talk and have issues with each other they have to work through.  I’m telling you, her mind never stops from sun up to sun down.  After my parents kept her last weekend at their house to help us out with back to school for the big girls, my dad emailed, “You sure do have your hands full.”  And mom said that one night when Rose went to check on my dad, she walked into the room and said, “I’m here to terrorize you!” 

Rose is her own little creature, unlike anyone I could ever dream up.  She brings so much laughter and joy to our family and is simply awesome.  Like our other girls, she is tender hearted, empathetic and caring.  She’s gentle and loving, however fierce and as in control as we let her be.  She’s such a mix of everything she needs to do anything she wants to do in this world.  Rose rocks! 

3rd graders are rockin’ it!

Kindergarten cuties!

Happy kids are back to school!

We had a blast getting the girls off to their first day of school and celebrating the start of a new school year!  The left picture is a before picture, and the right picture is an after picture, just to let you know we were all smiles by the end of the day too! 

Noelle showed me the hair tutorial on our Cutegirlshairstyles app last Sunday night, and begged me to do the #CGHDoubledutchback for her first day of 3rd grade.  It turned out so cute and different, and she told me she felt like a rock star all day!  She was so brave to wear something so different on her first day of school. 

I stayed at the school for a “Cheers and Tears” little social, so Mike and I drove in separate cars to school.  Noelle rode with Mike and Anna Kate rode with me, but when they saw each other across the court yard, they ran toward each other and started hugging.  It was so sweet!  They were both so proud to be at school together! 

Then, the moment of truth came when we had to drop off our Cutie Kate for kindergarten.  Bless her little heart.  When we began our goodbyes, the tears started flowing.  I told you guys this would happen!  I know her too well.  I’m calling it right now that Rose will wave us goodbye when we leave her for kindergarten.  They are each so precious and so different.  As Mike and I headed for the door, I turned around and saw this tender moment.  As much as my heart was breaking when I took this picture, I wanted to remember my girls loving on each other today.  It gives me such comfort to know that they have each other to lean on in life, as well as sweet baby Rose, who was in Jacksonville with her Poppa and Rara.  I knew this day was going to be traumatic for Anna Kate, and we needed to focus on her.  After we got Noelle all settled into 3rd grade, I definitely shed some tears, not gonna lie one bit about that!  You never want to see your kids stressed out or anxious, even though you know they are going to be okay even minutes later, it’s still no good.  I have never been so busy as I was that Monday running around catching up from the summer (and getting an allergy shot without my baby child trying to open the freezer that holds everyone’s serum!!!).  My heart was pounding as the minutes ticked by to meet them at the bus.  I couldn’t wait to hear about both of their days.  And we got excellent reports!  Whew!  We made it! 

And as I type this, week one is in the books, and we are about to start week two.  Anna Kate told us tonight she didn’t want to go to school tomorrow, but she had soooo much fun last week!  She’s still getting into the new big kid school routine, but she is doing great!  Noelle is an excellent student and does all of her work with all of her heart!  Math hit us hard this weekend, but she and Mike got it all figured out.  We are ready to rock and roll and see what the year holds!