First Day of First Grade

Jaxon Cole LaRue

first grade

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;

Bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart.

Then you will win favor and

a good name in the sight of God and man.

Proverbs 3:3-4

This is the scripture that Jaxon's school has built its theme around for this year. The their theme is word power. They will correlate their daily and weekly lessons with this theme. I have no doubt that this will be an exciting year full of so many lessons, memories and blessings. I am so grateful that Jaxon is able to attend Holy Cross and that the staff and students feel like a giant extended family. We were all so excited to go back this morning and see everyone and give everyone great big hugs!

Its a family tradition to decorate the breakfast table for all of our special days and of course the first day of school is no exception! I love watching the kids discover the themed tables in the morning. Its almost like they are witnessing magic :) They go to bed to an empty boring table and wake up to a mini celebration just for them. Of course I never plan  what I will be putting on the table until its 11:00pm and I need to get it done  before I fall asleep standing up... Luckily all of our fresh homework supplies made the perfect decor for the first day of school.

He couldn't decide what he wanted for Breakfast so he chose a little bit of all of his "easy" favorites. Just FYI that is a pancake and sausage on a stick not a corn dog for breakfast ;)

He is so excited to be a first grader!

He was very excited to sport his new backpack and lunch box. Since this is his first year going full day it is the first time we got to pack a lunch (of course I couldn't wait to tuck in a little love note <3) and his first year with a real backpack. He feels very grown up!!

Of course his back pack, lunch box, thermos and folders are all batman. We didn't agree on the back pack choice at first but came to a compromise on this one.. He got his way of course ;) but its cute.

We put together a little treat for the teacher. A teacher survival kit :) It really wasn't much, but it was fun to make. It included things like highlighters with a tag saying "because you are the highlight of their day" and paper clips with a tag that read "because you hold it all together" If any of you want the instructions let me know. It really was a cute little project.

Jaxon would take a gift to his teachers every day if I would let him. They deserve it too! :)

Off to school we go! Its always so exciting. I love that they encourage us to come in and say hello. I got so caught up in all of the emotions and trying to keep baby sister from coming unhinged that I really forgot to take any good classroom or teacher pics... shame on me! But Dillyn was having a very hard time leaving big brother in class and was nearly impossible to hold her and the camera... so here is what I got:

Greeting Mrs. Zentell. I promise he was excited... just a little overwhelmed right here I think :) She gave him a big ol hug and walked him over to hang up his back pack. We love her already.

Then his best buddy spotted him and gave him a note and shared a giggle or two. They are seriously too cute. Then Ethan showed Jaxon where they put their lunch boxes every day.

I love how much they love and take care of each other! They are just too sweet and I am so glad that they have each other!

After we got his gear all set up he made his way to his desk and got right to work.

He blew us a little kiss and sent us on our way.

Baby D and I headed to the boohoo breakfast that the school hosts every year for the moms (and sisters) like us that aren't quite ready to see them grow up... and boo-hoo I did. Not as much because I am sad, but more because I am so proud of the awesome little man that he is becoming. I literally feel like he has the whole world at his fingertips and he is just going to conquer it all. He amazes me every day. I cannot believe that he is 6 already! Or that he is in 1st grade! Time flies by a little faster every day.

I eventually made my way home and managed to get quite a bit done today even though we missed him every second. I even baked some cookies so I can surprise him with cookies and milk this afternoon when he gets home. I have always wanted to do that :)

Have a great first week of school y'all! I'm off to pick up my lil man!

xoxoxo

*Jen*

Backyard Story Time

This is it... the LAST Saturday before school starts. The last day of no deadlines or alarm clocks... the last play day before its time to get down to business. We started out our day at Jaxon's best buddy's birthday party at the jump house. Both kids had a blast and it was so much fun to see all of our school friends. It actually made me *almost* excited to get back to school... although I'd really rather keep Jaxon at home with me forever :) We spent the rest of the day doing boring prep work to get ready for the big week ahead... laundry, errands, chores etc... It was really rather boring and I couldn't let our last Saturday from the summer of '11 go out like that so we brainstormed and came up with what we thought was the perfect way to wind our summer up. So we rounded up some supplies and and set out to make one more mini adventure.

First we grabbed some glow sticks and ball jars to make firefly lanterns. The kids had a lot of fun snapping and shaking and giggling as they filled their jars.

We decided that it was too hot to start a fire in the fire pit, but no backyard story time could be complete without s'mores, so we made "S'mores on a stick."  Almost as yummy and not nearly as sticky :)

Then we picked out a few of our favorite books, grabbed pillows and blankets and headed outside.

I could listen to him read for hours. Seriously. I love listening to him. I love that he loves to read to his sister. I love that he really gets lost in a good story.  

Jaxon treated us to a couple of stories and then he was off to play in his playset.

Little sister was right behind him, giggling and making up stories about their lanterns the whole time. They pretended that they were everything from fireflies to fairies. Dillyn was pretty sure the green one was tinkerbell herself.

We read the rest of our books, gazed at the stars and thanked God for this beautiful night and our wonderful summer.



Rainy Day Play

What? Do my eyes deceive me? Could it actually be raining? What a  blessing to wake up to a beautiful rainy Saturday morning! We couldn't wait to grab our rain gear and head out to play.

She loved to feel the drops pouring off of the rooftop drizzle over her hands

She soon decided that we had to go on a walk... there was surely adventure waiting for us beneath this little raincloud!

"Come on Momma! This way! hurry hurry!"

Of course we found a puddle or two to splash in along the way!

She decided to sit and "watcha rain" for a little bit.

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.  ~Author Unknown

By the time we got home we were soaking wet! She thought it was hilarious to feel the rain hit her head. I thought it was hilarious when she would try to see the drops rolling down her nose.  We sat on the front porch and watched the drops fall and just soaked each other up.



The one and only time.

Today I was going through Dillyn's Closet and stumbled upon this beautiful little dress that she has practically outgrown. It's a size 12-18 months and she is now 20 months.

She has never worn it. NOT ONCE.

I promptly put it on her and headed to the empty field at the end of the neighborhood to take her picture in it, just so I could prove that she did wear it... if only the one time :)

She wasn't exactly in the mood to model. It may have been the dry itchy grass....

or the 102* at 7:00pm... or the lack of a nap... or just simply because I wanted to take her picture...

But she still looked beautiful.

I love everything about this sweet dress! Especially the flouncy little skirt! It kind of reminds me of a flapper dress in a way.

She simply was not going to let me take her picture so we decided to walk down to a neighborhood park.

She loves to walk this particular path because of the little bridge where we stop and look at the water. This summer the water is long gone, but she still had fun climbing the railing and calling for the water. "Yoohoo water? where are you water?"

We finally made it to the park where she headed straight for her favorite slide... up and down up and down up and down about a hundred times!

She loves to play and climb and crawl and giggle! This is much more fun than modeling

her cute dress for me apparently.

She spilled her entire water down the front of her dress, filled her shoes with mulch, sat in the dirt and crawled through the leaves, but she was still the prettiest princess at the park <3

She had so much fun and so did I... these simple little everyday adventures are what I live for.

Her dress now  has a memory attached to it even if this was the one and only time she got to wear it.

Welcome to The Zoo LaRue

Well I finally decided to do it.... start a blog! I am probably the last mom on the planet to go ahead and get one of these up and going and I decided I just couldn't drag my feet any longer... so here we go.
My one and only goal for this blog is to keep in touch with all of you! These kids grow so fast and stay so busy that I often get caught up in the hustle bustle of life and manage to disconnect a little from anything outside our daily routine,or update you all on what the kids have going on,  so my hope is that this will help me keep in touch and reconnect.
Welcome to your own little window into our world.