School shenanigans

I'm so excited to be back to school! I'm having a blast in preschool most days, and we've even had two butterfly releases. The open one, above, had about three days of containment before we let him go, and of course, his neighbor had erected the chysalis right under the zipper of the container we needed to open to release the first one! And when we removed the remaining Very Hungry Caterpillar to use his container to corral the first butterfly until we could get him outside, said Caterpillar made a break for it. Fortunately, everyone ended up where they belong and it looks like our caterpillar is done gorging himself and is now upside down, contemplating his perfect spot on the roof of his container. Here's hoping the temps don't drop tremendously during the two weeks he's doing his thing out of sight before his release....

Here's me on my first day as a preschool aide. We've decided to take it month by month as there's a lot of moving parts like kids who need one on one attention now who may not later, thus shuffling personnel around. For now, I'm thrilled to be part of this team, loving on these kiddos, and having a ball singing songs, supervising lunch, lamenting that children don't always want to nap though adults usually do, helping with crafts, reminding that we go UP the ladder and DOWN the slide, and so on. It is a LONG day for small people. Don't forget to tell a teacher how much they are appreciated! There really are heroes without capes- I work with a bunch of them!

"First" day of preschool!

 

Nature wins again!

 Hi! i felt like something different today, so i'm using the permanent marker font. maybe it balances out the not-so-wispy mist that has befallen us, causing the second fog delay-turned-cancellation day of the year.

i love the drips on the ends of the fronds. remember, you can enlarge photos by clicking on them.

Spider web in the gooseberries

if you look really closely you might be able to see the spider webs dangling from the branches. 

we lived twenty minutes north of here for about 8 years, and during sketchy weather we'd always hear about this southern district on a delay or cancelling. i used to laugh, "those kids are never in school!" 

now i laugh that the northern kids are always in school. i'm amazed we made it an entire academic quarter without even a delay this year, but we're making up for it now. having driven in it yesterday, i can assure you that there is an almost physical line where the fog stops. it's amazing. once you hit it, you go, "oh, so that's why we're always delaying and they're always on time!" i dunno if it's the actual school district boundary or what, but it's as if a wizard has planted his staff to declare to the fog, "you shall not pass!" 

i love it, though. even though this fog had a decidedly icy-seeping-into-your-bones feel, it is beautiful to me. i think it was a good call on behalf of the kiddos and poor bus drivers. i have already heard sirens this morning and i'm glad we get to stay in out of the damp. be safe out there and have a positive energy thursday!

Adventures by car

 I promise I was only driving for one of these photos, and because the family of geese was crossing right in front of me I was all but stopped anyway:

That's a lotta kids.

At the corner of happy and healthy, haha:

My sharp eyed kiddos spotted the hitchhiker:

Only a month behind :P

I got to dress up for church on Mother's Day as it wasn't my turn to snuggle babies in the nursery for the first time in what felt like forever. I do enjoy seeing them come in wearing their Easter, Christmas, and Mother's Day best, hehe. Anyway, I finally got to wear the dress that Dada had made for me during his trip in China. This dress was based off one I'd bought in State College to wear to Cammie and Jody's wedding (which was twenty years ago, just sayin') and had seen better days. Dada took the old one I'd fallen in love with to China and picked out the silk for the seamstresses there to make the new one. 

Because we are so classy, this picture was taken after church and before I changed in Bass Pro, which surprisingly has amazingly large and comfy dressing rooms. We had planned to hike in the quarry after church and I couldn't exactly hike in the dress and the "new young attitude shoes" as Mary Alice called them when we bought them, also for the wedding 20 years ago. They are the same shoes I wore for our wedding, and let me tell you, they have seen better days, too. But that's a post for another day. And I'm sinking in the mulch, above.

Anyway, Mother's Day was peaceful! We had church and a hike in the sunshine and once we got home everyone kinda peeled off to do whatever they wanted, so I got peace and a book and sunshine and perfection!

Thank you to my super hubby and my crazy kiddos for having me be the Mama of this family!