Emmaline's First Day of Preschool

Today was a very special day for my little girl. It was her first day of preschool. Not only that, but it was her very first day of school ever. She's been waiting for this day for a long time and she just couldn't wait to get to school. She was excited about everything from picking out an outfit to her backpack, to seeing her buddy Chloe at school and meeting new friends. I loved her enthusiasm for school. I think I told you we decided on a different preschool from where Evan went. We wanted a school that was pretty much on the same schedule as Evan as far as breaks (Winter break/ Spring break). We decided to go with this lady who teaches out of her home. She's been doing it for 20+ years and it's where Em's friend Chloe has gone for a couple of years. Em goes four days a week in the afternoon for three hours. Miss Shirley is her teacher, and Miss Sallie and Miss Gail are the assistant teachers. I think Emmaline is going to have a great school year. Here's some pics from her first day!

My little preschool girl
She couldn't wait to get out the door with her backpack!
Emme and her best friend Chloe when they got to Miss Shirley's!
Checking things out at school.
Too much fun at school today makes for a tired little girl!

Sporties For Shorties

Recently I was looking through the East Lansing Community Activity Guide and ran across a sports camp this fall I thought would be good for Emme. The camp is for 3-5 year olds and focuses on learning various sports. I mentioned it to my friend Wesley on Saturday to see if she would be interested in enrolling Chloe. The class was to start this past Tuesday. She thought she probably would and said she'd look into it and let me know. She had mentioned that Chloe had done a similar class last year. Then on Monday she emailed me some info about "Sporties for Shorties" which is the class that Chloe was in last year. It's through Meridian Township Parks and Rec instead of E. Lansing. It was fairly similar in that the kids learn to play various sports. I think one of the sports was different, but no big deal. She said the coach was really awesome and Chloe had a lot of fun in the class. She wanted to know if I'd be willing to sign Emme up for that one instead of the E. Lansing class. I was fine with it, no big deal. Emme and Chloe could be in the same class. So Monday afternoon I went and signed her up and the class started on Tuesday. It's a four week class, that's once a week, and each week they focus on learning a different sport.

Emme was so excited to start the class, and kept asking me over and over if it was time to go to "Sporties for Shorties." The class is Tuesday mornings for an hour. The first class went well, and Emme had a blast. She loved every minute of it, and she participated the whole time. The kids learned to play soccer. It was so cute seeing the 3-5 year olds running around kicking the balls. Em had a lot of fun with Chloe too. Here's a few photos from her morning at "Sporties for Shorties"

All set and ready to start "Sporties for Shorties"

Listening to Coach Mike explain the rules

Practicing kicking and stopping the ball

Practicing kicking a goal!

It was a great class, and I'm so glad I signed Emme up for it. She had a blast and can't wait to go back next week!

A Spartan Day For A Spartan Family

Last week was a short week with the holiday, but seemed to drag on and take forever. We made it through the first week of 1st grade with Evan, and on Wednesday Emmaline started ballet again. By the time Saturday rolled around, I was definitely ready for some Spartan football. I signed the kids up again this year for the Junior Spartan Club. It's really a great deal for the kids, especially if you want to take your family to a football game sometime during the season. We did this last year, and I probably told you about it, but here's a little recap. Each membership is $25, and each child gets a ticket to a Spartan football game along with tickets for their parents. So for $50 all four of us got to go to the football game on Saturday. One ticket is usually $49 so all four of us went for the price of one! Plus there is a tailgate for families at Munn Arena before the game. My friend Jess signed her kids up too so we all went together. The membership also includes various sporting events throughout the MSU "school" year that the kids get in free. It's really a great program for Spartan families. Here's some pictures from our Spartan Day on campus.

Emme couldn't wait to get her picture!

Evan playing a little bean bag toss at the tailgate festivities.

Ready for some Spartan football!!!

We had a great afternoon as a Spartan family! It was a little hot at the game, but much better than sitting in rain. Both the tailgate and game were fun. The Spartans won so that was great! Now this weekend the Spartans are on the road at Notre Dame, and Greg and I are going to the game! Looking forward to it.

9/11- A Day To Remember

Ten years ago today the world changed forever. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I'm sure you all remember where you were and more than likely what you were doing on that horrific day. Greg and I were newly married, almost three months. He was off to work which he had recently began at Michigan State. I was sitting in our apartment watching the Today Show like any other day. It was a beautiful day. The Today Show was about over, and I would soon be going about my day, and then it happened and Matt Lauer said, "We wanna go live and show you a picture of the World Trade Center." I sat staring at the t.v. in disbelief. I was all alone in our apartment, and I remember saying to myself, "What the hell is going on?" I was crying, I felt helpless, I wanted my family with me, and after the second plane hit, and it was certain that it was far worse than "we" knew, I was angry. A little while later the Pentagon was hit, and the plane in Shanksville, PA went down. That beautiful day quickly became very "dark." Flights were grounded soon after and the world seemed so "quiet." Once planes began to fly again, I remember looking cautiously at every plane that passed overhead for days. From that day on, our world would never be the same....

I did not personally know anyone who was lost or injured in 9/11, but as an American I feel like I lost "family." My kids are too little to understand the magnitude of what happened, but as we sat this morning watching some of the tribute on t.v. and the CBS special tonight, I think they understood a little of it. I hope they never have to tell their kids about such a horrific day happening in their lifetime.

So today we remember the victims of that tragedy as well as the heroes. Take a moment to say a prayer for the families who lost loved ones. Cherish the moments with your loved ones. Be proud to be an American, and God Bless this great country of ours.

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Evan's First Day Of First Grade

Well, summer is really over. School started today and that means, it's first grade, full days for Evan. This is going to be a big switch for the both of us! I'm so used to picking him up after a half day of school. Today actually went by fast, but I really missed having my little guy at home. Emme doesn't start school until the 19th though so at least I still had her home. Here's a few pictures I wanted to share from Evan's first day as a first grader.

I love this pic. Emmaline told Evan she was going to miss him while he was at school.

She wanted a kiss, but he was trying to get out of it. Em won! :)

How is my little boy in first grade already?

This is when I started getting a little emotional...

First Trip To The Detroit Zoo

About a month ago, my friend Ann who also has a blog had written about her visit to the Detroit Zoo with her family. This was about the same time we were talking about going to Chicago and going to Brookfield Zoo. Then I won the Legoland tickets and our Chicago plans changed. We decided to go to Legoland, the Aquarium, and Navy Pier when visiting Chicago instead of the zoo. So in the back of my mind, I often thought about Ann's blog post about the Detroit Zoo. Since we didn't do the zoo in Chicago, I thought maybe we could head to the Detroit Zoo before summer ended if we got a free day on the weekend. You see, we've never been to the Detroit Zoo, but when I read Ann's blog and saw pictures of a Dinosaur exhibit there, I just knew it would be something Evan would love to see. Yes, there's always next summer to go to the zoo, but the Dinosauria exhibit was only at the zoo until today, September 6th, and then it was going to be extinct. That was even more incentive to get there. From the time we got back from Chicago until school starting we had two weekends to get to the zoo. However Greg had to work all last weekend so that left us with Labor Day weekend. We had also talked about taking the kids to a Tigers game, and when Greg looked into it we found out Sunday is kids day at Comerica Park. So with one weekend left of the summer we had pretty much decided to do the Tigers game until we found out that the game yesterday didn't start until 8pm. On kids day, the kids get to run the bases after the game. So if we were to go to the game we'd definitely have to stay until the end so the kids could run the bases. With that said, and knowing how long baseball can go we vetoed the Tigers game because it was just going to be too late of a night with the kids and driving back from Detroit. So the zoo it was for us yesterday.

The weather was a little iffy in the morning so we kind of waited around a little to see if it was going to rain or not. The zoo was open late for the holiday weekend until 8pm so we figured we had plenty of time. Greg's mom went with us so we went to breakfast before we hit the road and finally left around 11am. It was still overcast, but the radar looked good and didn't look like any rain until later at night. The zoo was pretty busy when we got there, but the crowd was spread out for the most part so it wasn't too bad. When we got our tickets the lady informed us that there were a couple things closed due to the storms the night before. We couldn't feed the giraffes, the Otters weren't out, and the Simulator was closed. As we started to walk through the zoo we couldn't believe how many trees were down. There was a lot of storm damage and there was clean up crew everywhere trying to rapidly clean up the mess. We also found out that there was a power outage and they had to bring in a bunch of generators. Of all days we pick to go to the zoo! I wasn't aware until be walked on this trail that on the other side of the fence is a neighborhood. We heard all this noise and went to check it out and there were trees uprooted everywhere.

Despite all the damages, and a couple closed exhibits, we had a fun time. The kids loved the Dinosauria exhibit! It was neat to see all the life-like dinosaurs. There were 30+ animatronic dinosaurs that roared and moved, as well as a few that spit water. The DinoTrail recreates prehistoric life and the life-like dinosaurs really were amazing! Here's a couple of the dinosaurs (I'll post all our pics on Facebook).


We made our way through the whole zoo and the weather was pretty overcast most of the day, but it was a little muggy and we had a few sprinkles, but nothing major. We saw everything from lions and tigers to zebras and giraffes to kangaroos and rhinos. We also saw the polar bear which took some time because he was hiding the whole time we walked around the Arctic exhibit until we got to the end and we spotted him. There was also prairie dogs, elk, bears, bison, the butterfly garden, vultures, camels, a gorilla, and chimps to name a few. There was a momma chimp with a baby that was only five weeks old. She was cuddling that little chimp so tight and wouldn't budge for anything to show it off so visitors could get a picture. Here's a few of our pics from the day at the zoo!

This gorilla was cool!

We loved the giraffes. This is the baby giraffe. She turned two in June.

Ready to go see the polar bear.

Sunday was this chimps birthday. He turned three!

We left the zoo about 5pm and wanted to grab some dinner on the way home. We ended up going to On The Border in Northville which is right by Trader Joe's. So we made an impromptu stop at TJ's after dinner before we headed home to stock up on a few things. Thanks to Greg's mom for the zoo and dinner! We all had a great time and I'm glad we got to the zoo before summer vacation was over. Now it's Monday night on Labor Day which means tomorrow is the first day of school! My little guy is going to be in school all day for the first time! This mom is a little sad about that.... *sniff sniff*

Fill The Bus

Early on I've made it a point to teach my kids that it's important to help those in need when we can. While we're not millionaires by any means, we have a pretty good lifestyle. We have a roof over our head, food on the table, vehicles to drive, clothes to wear, and my kids have a surplus of toys to play with. While they are always wanting new toys (what kid doesn't), I make it a point to let them know that they have it pretty good. Of course we'd all like to make more money and have some of those luxury items, but at the end of the day, especially in this economy I'm happy that my husband has a job and can provide for us. I remind my kids that there are kids/adults/families that aren't so lucky and really can't afford some of the basic things in life. I want them to know what it means to help out those in need, as well as how it feels when donating items to those in need. I try to give donations to various causes when we can. While I'd like to do it all the time, it's just not possible. I still have a family to take care of, but we try to do what we can when possible. Especially when it comes to giving back in the MSU community. Not because it's MSU, but because it's the community we live in.

I ran across a video of Kid Rock today (I posted it on my Facebook) in which the timing couldn't have been more fitting as the kids and I "Filled The Bus" (more on that in a minute) yesterday. You might not be familiar with all that Kid Rock has been working on to help revive Detroit. There's lots of various things he's been working on and one is his new beer Badass. It's made at the Michigan Brewery. He chose to have it brewed there to help bring jobs to the state. In the video he talks about why he's so adamant about helping out Detroit (It's where he's from if you didn't know). He says, "We all need to work together as "neighbors" and address the real problems. Help your "neighbors" out first before you can help anybody else out . There's people hurting all over the world, but there's a lot of my neighbors hurting. It's important to start there." Of course I'd love to help out in bigger ways like donate millions to help find a cure for cancer, but I just don't have that kind of money. However if I can start by helping out on a smaller scale, like in my own community... well then I can feel good about myself. Knowing that I've helped in some way even if it's just a little, feels better than not helping at all.

So with all that said, I heard about "Fill The Bus" on Monday and told the kids about it. "Fill The Bus" is an annual service project that asks for the help of the MSU community to donate school supplies that will be delivered to Lansing area organizations. I asked the kids what we could do to help, and Evan said, "buy some school supplies to give to kids that can't afford them." Then he said, "Let's go to Meijer mom!" At only six years old, he already has such a joy when we do these kinds of things. As a mom, it makes me feel good. I love his enthusiasm to help others in need.

We went to Meijer Tuesday night so the kids could pick out the school supplies. Here they are getting the goods! They each got to pick out the same thing.

All set to check out!

This is what we ended up with to donate!

After we were done shopping, we took the kids to MSU for the Spartan Spectacular fireworks they have to kick off the new school year. I thought they would enjoy it, and they deserved it for helping out. They had fun watching the fireworks and listening to the Spartan Marching Band.

The next day on Wednesday, we headed to the MSU Union to drop off the "Fill The Bus" items. Both kids told me that, "now some kids will be able to have some school supplies when they start school next week." Then they were asking when we could drop off the food for the food drive. They were talking about the food drive we always donate to in November. Em remembered where they have the buckets for the food drive. It puts a smile on my face that they're already excited to help out again! Here they are dropping off their donated items!

You can learn more about "Fill The Bus" by clicking here.