Busy Bees

I wanted to give you a sneak peek into Emily's personal style. My friends with younger girls be warned. (I was warned). She has her OWN sense of style including headbands for everything. Don't you love the red headband with her purple/black outfit. She will still only wear skirts or dresses. I can get her into a shirt if it looks like a dress at the bottom (example above). She may have on a pink/white outfit and want to wear her witch shoes aka black shoes. She wore her black shoes with her witch costume at Halloween...so they are known as the witch shoes.


We took a trip to the USS Alabama battleship. Emily and I tried out the beds. We do not recommend!

We have been super busy in Florida. It seems like between work, Emily's speech therapy, and dance classes that I have little time for any thing else....not to mention the sad commute. BOO to commute.

Emily's speech is much better, but not like the majority of three year olds. She has mastered the f and g sound!!! Now, we are working on K, L, and R. Her speech therapist is also going to have Emily take a stuttering test. I have never really noticed Emily stuttering, but we will see. I still worry about her speech A LOT. I can't tell you how excited I was about Emily learning her letter sounds and writing her name. I really try not to compare Emily to any other child. But, it is hard when you hear these other three year olds having fluent conversations with their parents. So, I felt some serious pride when Emily was the first in her class to learn her letter sounds and write her name. She is still the only one in her class writing her name or knows her letter sounds. She can also read or recognize all the names of her school friends....sorry...I just had to brag. On a different note, it took Emily one year to learn to do a summer sault when other kids in her gymnastic class did it in about two weeks to a month.

My mom has moved in with us. I thought it would be a very stressful transition for us especially Jason. It has actually been very smooth, calm, and peaceful. My mom has had a very rough 10 years and is trying to get her life back on track. It is really nice to have her around and giving Emily the opportunity to really make a connection with her grandma. She still asks to go to Oklahoma to see Jason's parents.

School only has 3 more months!!! YEAH! I will be moving from kindergarten to first grade. I could not be more excited about summer and hitting the beach! This white girl hopes to get a tan.

Movies

I LOVE movies. Everything about movies. I love them in the theater or at home with popcorn. I love all genres like sci-fi (crazy...I know), fantasy, action, drama, comedies, or romantic comedies. I watched Eclipse this morning...at like 6:30 in the morning. (give me the mother of the year award right now). I was so excited to watch the movie, but Jason was watching some ridiculous one last night...so this morning it was. I was so disappointed. I have actually been disappointed with all three movies. I am a big twilight fan, so I wanted the movie to be at least relatively good...with good acting. It made me think about all the best-selling novels made into movies that are dissappointing. I started to think about which movies actually turn out good or great. I could not think of a lot. The only one I could personally think of was The Notebook. The Notebook is one of my most favorite novels. I read it long before it was made into a movie when I was a freshman in college. The movie is so good. It has all the charm, heart break, and love of the novel. What are some movies that you think did the novel justice?

Busy Bee

We are still going about 100 mph here in Florida. School is going a 1,000 better. I am so glad. I have heard from tons of teachers over the years that sometimes you have classes more challenging than others. I think this is my year. However, it keeps getting better each day.

Emily went to a base pediatrician to receive a referral for speech. Jason was less than impressed by the doctor. He did even try to talk to Emily...weird?!?!? The doctor basically said Emily's development was moving along fine. Her content is good, but her clarity is the issue. He didn't think that she needed a speech referral...odd considering he didn't even attempt to talk to her. He told Jason that he could write a referral if it made us feel better. So, Jason said yes. We got the referral today in the mail. So, we are excited to set something up for her soon. I know that it will help her big time. Emily's speech has been improving greatly since moving to FL. She is finally calling herself Emily now instead of baby. Yes, she has called herself baby for over a year now. Honestly, it was super cute. But, deep down I was afraid she would be calling herself baby forever. Emily is making lots of friends at school and still enjoys going. They are having a special program this month, which I am so excited to see.

Emily is now all into fashion. She only wants to wear dresses even at night. Yesterday, I made her wear shorts and a Barbie shirt which caused a meltdown and timeout before 7:00am. She also likes picking out her own shoes and hair accessories. So, I think this fall and winter Emily will be wearing dresses and tights.

Speech

This past week Emily had a early childhood services woman come assess her speech. It turns out that Emily is very delayed in her speech. We have a appointment with her doctor to try and arrange a full speech and language evaluation. Hopefully, she will be able to see a speech therapist. I keep thinking what did I do wrong? Did I not read enough to her? Did I not sing enough songs? Did I not talk to her enough? Did she watch too many Barney shows?

I have always thought that she had a speech delay, but it was hard for me to tell. She wasn't really around a bunch of kids her age in England. I started the process of getting her speech evaluated in England, but stopped after a friend who worked for EDIS told me that EDIS doesn't check for clarity until age 30 months. By the time Emily was at 30 months, we were leaving for Texas. I keep thinking I should have, I should have, I should have.

Now, I just need to research on some ways to help her at home.

Loving Daycare

Emily showing off.


I think she may need to become a model. HA!




Can Vogue handle her?....I am not sure.




Our sweet girl. You can tell we had a photo shoot.

Emily is LOVING daycare! Yeah...this is a huge relief for me. She started a smaller daycare about two weeks ago. Not one day has she started crying when either Jason or I drop her off. She seems to love it so much! It makes me so happy! She is eating a lot throughout the day (she had basically stopped at the other place) and being very social with all the kids and parents. Just like the old Emily that we know and love.

School has been a serious challenge!!!! SERIOUS! I have one child with MAJOR behavior issues and another with severe ADHD. Plus, a trash talking parent. Great, huh? Each day is getting better. But, I cried the first weekend just about nonstop. I have had my principal and vice-principal in my classroom a lot...mainly viewing the child with the major behavior issues. But, it stresses me out having them in my classroom all the time. Other than that, I am really enjoying being back in the classroom. It has been a great diet for me as well. I am so busy that I forget almost everyday to eat until 5pm. The other Kindergarten teachers are really nice and helpful.

I know that soon (hopefully) I will feel as stressed out. Teaching seems to be totally different with having a child than with not. Jason and I joke that I put in more hours than him. HA!

Above are a few pictures of Emily. I have been horrible uploading anything.

Daycare Problems

If you have been checking Facebook, then you know that Emily has been having problems with daycare. She cries when I mention "school" to her, when we pull up to the building, and when we drop her off in the room. It has been getting gradually better, but it totally ripes my heart out each time. In her classroom, she has only two other girls (tom-boys at that). There are 12-15 boys in her class. Emily is by NO MEANS a tom-boy...at all. She loves dresses, necklaces, painted fingernails, baby dolls, and anything girlie. At first the daycare seemed pretty good, but then Jason and I started to have our doubts. There seemed to be hardly any toys in the room, which seemed crazy with so many two-year-olds. It seems more like a child factory then welcoming/loving place for kids.

When, we first moved here I wanted to put her in a smaller daycare that is about a 45 minute drive from our house. I LOVED it. Everyone was super nice and all the kids seemed to get a lot of attention. The class only has ten students compared to the 22 now. Yes, I said 22! I just hated the idea of the drive.

Well after a couple of weeks of crying (this daycare thing has been super emotional for both me and Emily...poor Jason). I have enrolled her in the daycare that I loved. I know that Emily will love it. I am super excited that she is going, and I am just going to suck up the drive. The daycare is only about 10 minutes from my work, so I just plan on picking her up at around 3:45 and going back to the school if I need to finish anything. Emily loves my classroom so far. I feel 100% better.

I plan on posting some pictures of my classroom once it is all finished and the house too! We are painting Emily's bedroom purple this weekend. I can't tell you how excited I am about school starting! I can't wait for all those cute faces to come through the door.

Did we disappear?

***Warning: Long Post***


We are finally getting settled in Florida. We have moved into our house, received our household goods, and Emily has started daycare. We pick up our second car tonight...HOORAY! We really love our house and everything about it. We plan on painting Emily's gray room purple soon. One weird thing about our neighborhood is that no one has sidewalks...really?!? That seems so odd to me. Luckily, we live in a culd-de-sac (sp?) so Emily can ride her tricycle.

Jason and I totally felt slapped in the face with the heat. I am so thankful to have sunshine, but the heat can be overwhelming. Is it much to ask for beautiful skies, sunshine, and 80 degree weather all the time. ;) The area is fantastic! There are so many shops and things to do. So many choices compared to the base. We have gone to the beach two times and have not seen any oil. YEAH! We hope to go again this weekend.

Jason is getting adjust to his new job. His responsibility has increased big time. He is in charge of about 450 people right now. In England, it was about 100. Needless to say, he is a little overwhelmed. I know that he will do great though.

If you have been checking FB, then you know Emily is having a hard time adjusting to daycare. Well, so am I. Today was 1,000 times better. We have just been saying lots of words of encouragement, telling her it is okay to be sad, mommy and daddy love her, and so on. They say it takes about 4-6 weeks for a new child to adjust. The only thing I don't like is that her classroom has all boys except one other girl. If you know Emily, then you know that she is the girliest of girly-girls. She likes boys okay (really she is only fond of two boys Colin and Jett), but she LOVES girls. Girls of all ages. Boys are loud, roar all the time, and move really fast. Emily likes more quiet activities and attention. So, she will start having to like boys more.

My school is awesome so far. All the kindergarten teachers are super nice and fun. I can already tell that we will all get along great. They are really helpful. The school painted my classroom a pretty sky blue, and I get $1,000 to start up my classroom. The $1,000 is HUGE. It is a charter school located in an old Wal-Mart building. Funny, huh? Once you walk inside, it looks awesome and you never think Wal-Mart. I am so excited about going back to work but nervous and stressed at the same time. Not to mention, I finish my four last courses for my Master's starting mid August. I will have to become a pro at time management skills.

Well, I will post again soon with some fun pictures. Hope you all come to visit in FL!
Missy