ABC and 123

Isabelle had a wonderful first experience this academic year at Stone Oak Presbyterian Preschool. She loved each and every one of her classmates and felt a real closeness to her two teachers, Ms. Pat and Ms. Ashley. She learned all sorts of fun songs and skills and looked forward to going...most days. She learned all about getting married on the playground and Ben and I learned too that she is going to hear ALL SORTS of stuff at school! She still looked forward to Wednesday each week when she could stay home and play with mom and Olivia and some school days I had to seriously encourage her to get her out the door by 9:00am, but the majority of the days we arrived close to on time! It was a good "safe" place for little Jelly to get her feet wet being gone for a good part of the day, eating her own packed lunch and navigating through the daily hustle and she grew so much over the year. On her preschool report card her teachers wrote that Isabelle had grown from a quiet and shy student to a class leader who would certainly thrive in Kindergarten.

To celebrate the end of the school year, the kids enjoyed a field day full of fun, sun and friends. There was a bounce house, bubbles, face painting, etc. They ate pizza for lunch and watched a movie in the afternoon. We also were thrilled to be invited to a "graduation" program where the PreK class sang 5 different songs and were presented with year-end awards. Isabelle was so pleased when she was chosen as the Mentor Student of The Year!

Even though it was just preschool and not even every single day, we are thankful that now it is time to enjoy the sun and pool for a few months and pretend that little Jelly will not be starting Kindergarten so soon. I know for certain that she will be exhausted going to school every day and all day and know that a whole new set of challenges will come our way, but I am also excited for all the knowledge that Belle will gain and the many many ways that she will continue to grow and bloom. She is definitely prepared for Kindergarten, it's just her parents who are not quite ready.

Soccer Sharks

Although it is called "Spring Soccer" in most places this is called "Summer weather." Although it was smoking hot for the last few games of the season and the kids were pouring water bottles on their heads rather than drinking them, Isabelle thoroughly enjoyed another round of sports at the YMCA. Ben agreed to coach once again and this time found his roster filled with 10 of Isabelle's buddies. The Sharks had so much fun together that most of the time they didn't care if they won or lost, they just wanted to run around and chase each other. Mid season Ben feared that we may have a totally "defeated" season, but every once in a while the group decided to really play soccer and then they were great! The last game was so much fun that we stomped the other team with goal after goal all the while laughing and tagging each other as we ran. Isabelle was thrilled to play with a few of her best friends from preschool and looked forward to each and every practice and game. Our proudest moment as parents was after a game where Isabelle had luckily scored a super goal and when we asked her what the best part of the game was, much to our surprise she excitedly proclaimed When I kicked it away from that big tough girl! She was proud of all of her hard work all season and we were too!

Of course with such a friendly team we had to end the year with a huge soccer party at the park. We had pizza and balloons and each member of the team was given a special award and medal. Lucky for us, we had the son of a fabulous cake baker on the team so we concluded the year and night with a cake that could have won awards on it's own.

Ben did a great job coaching the kids, learning lots of patience and mostly looked forward to his weekly dates with Isabelle. What great exercise and memories for the two of them!