First Week of School

  School started last week and both Abby and Kate loved every day.  Their teachers are wonderful.  Kate is lucky enough to have two teachers AND she has her best friend from church in her class too.  Abby's teacher just happens to be her swim instructor from summer swim lessons, who all of our girls have favored over the other instructors.  She is extra sweet and patient with the children and so I was very relieved when finding out Abby was going to be her student this year in Kindergarten. 
  Don't mind the foggy picture.  We live in Florida and it is 99% humidity.  I didn't realize the humidity had fogged up my camera lens until it was too late.  

 Ellie was excited for Kate and Abby's first day of school and wished she could have gone to school with them.  

 We saw plenty of sad kiddos saying bye to their parents.  Not this one.  She was happy to be there even if she didn't know anyone, yet.

 Ellie and Becca have played out in the back yard a lot since school began.  I no longer have my little helpers around so I get to spend a lot more time out in the back yard too.  

 The hose is almost always brought out to play with.  Between the heat and the sand, the hose is hard to keep put away.

 Don't let Becca's face fool you, she LOVES playing in the water.  If she is sad inside, all I have to do is let her out back and 9.5/10 times she is happy immediately. 

 And then this happens.  

 First day of school pick up always takes forever.  Becca convinced me that she needed to be out of her car seat while we waited for her sisters. 

 Kate past her testing and earned her yellow belt last week.  I am so proud of her!  She did everything so well and all while the parents and other students were watching.  I know that was nerve wrecking for her but she pushed through and did an awesome job!

 The students were told to toss their old belt up in the air on the count of three.  Kate had the biggest grin on her face after tossing hers!

 Ellie, Becca, and I spent Friday morning at Grammy's pool.  Ellie is getting a little more clingy at the pool but Becca just jumps in without me.  When I hold onto her for too long she gets mad and lets me know she can float on her own. 

 Kate and Abby were thrilled to find not one, but two toads once they got home from school on Friday.  All four girls had fun playing with their amphibian friends. 

 And after 5 days of being at school, Kate is our first kid to get sick.  Didn't take long.  Saturday morning, Kate and Dad went to the doctor and Kate tested positive for strep throat.  Not the worse sickness to have.  She felt crummy for 24 hour and then was up and running around the house Sunday morning.  And then back to school today.  

  One week down, lots to go.

Lice

  All of last week Kate had been complaining about itchy scalp. Every time she complained about it I searched her head and found nothing. I chalked it up to dry scalp and even got her some new shampoo to help with the dryness.  Until Sunday. She was scratching her head again, I looked at her hair, and there they were. Eggs. Everywhere.
  Andrew had just left for his meeting at church so I called him immediately in hopes of catching him before his meeting started.  Mostly I wanted to have someone to talk everything out to; what needed to be done and all that.  First was to deal with Kate's hair.
  The only thing we had at home that could help her out at all was mayonnaise.  Some Google reviews said it works great, others said it won't kill the bugs. At this point I didn't care about killing the lice, I just need them to not fall out of her head and spread everywhere. So mayo it was.

Kate and I had fun getting the mayo spread onto her head.  I was the one putting it on but we were both laughing the whole time because I was so grossed out about it.  Talk about sensory overload.  Get a hand full of cold mayo and massage it through someone's hair. 

  Once Andrew was done with his meeting he went to Walgreens to get real lice treatment. The rest of the day was filled with shampooing, combing, laundry, more laundry, more shampooing, and more combing.  It was a long day.  Ellie and I did get an hour break to go to church, which we both enjoyed.   

Abby started scratching her head later in the afternoon so I treated her hair just in case.  I didn't find a single bug in her hair, which was a relief. 

  I have combed through Kate's hair each day since Sunday.  Each day I find fewer and fewer bugs.  I'm hoping to be done with them by the start of next week.  As with everything in life, I have learned a lot experiencing this for the first time.  I thought it was the end of the world Sunday morning and didn't want Kate to touch anything or anyone.  I was contemplating total isolation for her, but, I'm happy to say I have relaxed from that viewpoint. This hasn't been an enjoyable experience but there are definitely worse things to deal with.  

Third Week of Summer Break

  The past couple of weeks have been quite busy.  Kate's first week off of school had minimal obligations but it has since picked up a lot.  She has swim lessons MWF, Taekwondo MWF, and piano on Tuesdays.  This week we ended up going to our friend's house to swim on Tuesday and Thursday as well.  All and all, it doesn't seem like much when I type it all out, but man, our days were so busy!  The time flies and before I know it I'm wondering what's for dinner.  

This week Kate, Abby, and Ellie had a lot of fun catching toads, frogs, lizards, and various kinds of bugs.

 Abby LOVES making Becca laugh.  She started pushing Becca around in the laundry basket and it transformed Becca into a basket of giggles.  I love watching my girls take care of each other and play nicely together.

 Tuesday was a birthday party for Abby's friend, Jack.  The theme was science!

 The kids were given lab coats and protective eye-where. They all looked so cute!

 The first experiment was getting a boiled egg sucked into a bottle whose neck was smaller than the egg. 

Ellie thought it was super funny!

 The next experiment was filling up a balloon from the gases put off from the combination of vinegar and baking soda.

 The kids loved it and giggled about the stinky smell of vinegar.

  Sadly, Kate, Ellie, Becca, and myself had to leave early to take Kate to piano lessons.  Abby stayed and enjoyed herself.  More experiments were created; cake and ice cream was enjoyed; and presents were opened. 

Every day this week after swim lessons we would come home and have lunch "quickly" so that Ellie could take her nap.  The girls are always silly but they seemed extra silly on Wednesday.  I love looking at these pictures because they show the sweet relationship the girls have with each other.  

 Becca was the first one to try out the new sit-and-spin toy that came in the mail.  

 Corn has been $0.25 a cob and is so yummy that we've been eating it often.  Becca loves going to town on her corn.  Makes her feel like a big girl.  

 Gerald finally got a hair cut this week.  I had to stop mid cut to take care of the girls so he chilled like this for a while.  

 Becca fell asleep on her daddy while watching our favorite show ever, The Office.

 The only picture I have of swimming at our friend's house this week.  Ellie loved walking on the diving board but only jumped off of it a few times, and usually with help.

 Getting a back rub from Daddy.  Becca had been crawling around and then saw Andrew and quickly crawled over to his lap.  She adores him so much.

 Thursday after dinner, Kate treated us all to fro-yo at Sweet Frog.  She had been given a gift card for her birthday and was more than happy to use it all on us.  

Sweet Ellie Mae shared hers with Becca.

 And here is my dark chocolate, copper bottomed baby after another morning at the pool.

 Abby was happy to help keep Becca happy for me while I took pizza out of the oven for dinner.  And Becca was happy to keep chilling with Abby even after the pizza was out.  I loved hearing Abby tell Becca all about the animals in our latest issue of NatGeoKids.

 And as for today, the girls have all had fun playing in the water this morning. Ellie and Becca have learned to love water at a younger age than Kate and Abby.  They both played for a good hour outside in the water and sand this morning before I had to hose them off and bring them in for some lunch.  Oh, to be young.