First Snow

Just last week we were enjoying our autumn weather and the peak of foliage here in New England. It was getting cooler and we enjoyed evenings and mornings in front of our fireplace.

Then, a dusting of snow greeted us a few nights ago. Our children loved being in the dark of the night watching the snow lightly fall on their faces. That light snow melted by the next midday.

This past Saturday afternoon it began snowing and snowed all night and by yesterday morning it had stopped. The weight of the wet snow broke many tree limbs and caused power outages throughout our state. We were fortunate to have power but, three large tree limbs were broken from two of our trees and one of our pine trees bent down to the ground. Thankfully, I still have my pink rain boots and so I doubled my socks, left on my fleece pajama bottoms and pulled on flared jeans over those and went out to start moving the branches to our back bog. Then I began to shovel the wet snow from our driveway. I was listening to our neighbors snow blow their driveways and was hoping one would be a good neighbor and help me out (I am without a husband or snow blower and no winter gear right now) but, none did.

I was about a quarter of the way through and family friends of ours from church showed up with snow shovels and mittens for the kids. Grant and Max had been wearing socks over their hands and they were so happy to now have warm, dry mittens to wear. The four of us shoveled our driveway in no time and the boys carried the heaviest limb out to the back pile of wood.
The Thompson's are wonderful, quirky people. They have hearts of gold and were our true neighbors yesterday. We thank God for them.
It's nice to know that I have help when I need it and help even when I didn't ask for it.
I was willing to clear the snow and clean up the yard on my own but, it was sure nice to have help!

First Day of School

It has happened. Somehow in 5 short years our 33 week preemies are now 5 and off to school. I did cry. When that yellow bus pulled away I fell into my Beloved's arms and sobbed behind my Jackie O sunglasses. Then I went inside and washed up breakfast dishes, listened to music loud and ate all the bacon, toast and tea I wanted. Uninterrupted.

Meeting the Kindergarten Teacher

We had the "meet and greet" yesterday. Of course, Benjamin blushed when Mrs. Wholey knelt down to introduce herself to him. In that moment, I saw him fall in love with his kindergarten teacher. Do you see the look on Elijah-Max's face? It's priceless. Mrs. Wholey is that perfect blend of Mary Poppins and fashionista. She is adorable. I remember feeling this way about my kindergarten teacher Miss Douglas. She wore blue eyeshadow and powder blue suits. I always thought she had just stepped off of a Pan-Am airplane. She could balance books on her head. I don't remember her kneeling down to greet me. I do remember finger painting and standing in line to recite the numbers zero to one hundred and feeling petrified. I went to the back of the line a number of times until I got it right.

Our trio found their cubbies and coat "closets" with their own names on apples in them.
They found out that there will be a Guinea pig furry love in the classroom next week and this said furry love will live in the classroom the whole school year!

The theme for this week is "Wild, Wild West". Their bus info was laminated on cowboy boots strung on yarn. They will wear these this week to and from school so as to not end up on the wrong bus.
We had about 40 minutes to look over the classroom and find important things like the bathroom and the teacher. They are excited and talkative about tomorrow; the first real day of school. They get to ride the bus!
How can it be that in a few small moments our little preemies went from babies to big kids?!