HALLOWEEN HAPPINESS!

A whole month to dress up!! What could be better???!?!?! October means... HALLOWEEN :-)

The Mosleys were in a serious Halloween Tailspin this year. I swear we kicked into Halloween gear October 1st. Even before we had the costumes, we pulled out new Halloween pajamas and decorated the house "Mosley style". We painted some signs and went to the pumpkin patch with friends. The kids had a great time using paint, ribbon, glitter, and felt decorating their pumpkins.

We then headed out to hit as many harvest festivals and parades as possible to get into the Halloween/Fall spirit. Khyri and Kielle both picked out their costumes this year; Khyri was Batman and Kielle was Minnie Mouse. *sidenote* I really wanted Kielle to be Strawberry Shortcake. Maybe next year.

One of our first trips was to the annual Smyrna Fall festival. We saw our favorite marionette guy Peter Hart and played on some of the jumpy houses and rides. We sprung for the kiddos to make sand crafts too.

Mid October I took Kielle to Barnes and Noble for their Halloween event. This was the first year I've gone so I didn't know what to expect. Free events are often touch and go. You never know if its going to be a good experience or not. 

The event started off with a "Scary" storytelling time. The reader was dressed as a character from the book "Where the Wild Things Are". She read four short books that required crowd participation which was good for Kielle - she's a fidgeter :-)

After story time, the costumed cuties colored in treat bags and prepared for trick or treating in the store.

There were different stations set up around the store like at the information desk, at the Starbucks counter, etc. This was Kielle's first time trick or treating so she was a little confused. After she got her first treat Kielle was ready to go. I had to convince her that we needed to keep in line so we could get more treats!

Out of 7 stations, Kielle only made it to 2. Yes two. When we got into the car Kielle had  a lollipop and a tootsie roll candy. This was still good prep for Halloween. I'm glad we had this dry run ahead of time.

The festivities at Little Apron Academy started off with a Halloween parade, and me and the hubby were front and center - of course :-) Its really a big deal. All of the teachers get dressed up and the kids don their best superhero, princess, and fireman costumes.

Following the parade, the school continued with a pumpkin decorating contest. Each classroom decorated a pumpkin and then each pumpkin was judged. I know as a parent I'm supposed to favor my childrens' pumpkins, but I gotta admit that I like the Papa Smurf pumpkin that was done by another class. Its just super cute :-)

Khyri's class designed their pumpkin after their favorite storybook character "Splat the Cat"

 

 I kept asking Kielle which pumpkin belonged to her class, but she kept pointing to each one saying "happy jack-o-lantern" hahahahahah BTW every pumpkin is a "happy jack-o-lantern" to Kielle.

The school continued the festivities with a fall festival where Kielle got her face painted and played in an area designated solely for throwing hay! How much fun is that!?!?

We had one more practice run two days before Halloween at the Kroger event. Now last year I was not impressed at all with Kroger or the mall in terms of trick or treating. The employees weren't dressed up, and they didn't have enough candy for the kids. This year!?! - this year Kroger came correct! We didn't wear our costumes, but instead opted for our favorite dress up hats. I even rocked everyone's favorite Dr. Seuss hat :-)

Khyri really rocked Kroger's "stack 'em high" game. He was able to stack 11 Oreo cookies in 10 seconds and won special treats. They also had a coloring station and an area where you had to guess how many plastic fangs were inside a bowl. Kroger had about 10 stations throughout the store. We practiced saying "trick or treat" at each station. We needed to gear up for the big day :-)

On October 31st as night set in, we headed down to Palmetto,GA to trick or treat with our friend Mikey. I have never been real trick or treating - although I had no idea what I was doing was bootleg... hahahaha. Growing up in Harlem, we trick or treated in the apartment building going from floor to floor, so this was whole going outside in the elements and walking along the street was new to me. I loved it all! It was just like the movies! You walk up to houses with lights on and the kiddos shout, "Trick or Treat". Just perfect. Of course, picky pal Khyri wants to start asking people, "What do you have?" huh!?!? I need for you not to be choosy about the type of candy you receive young man. hmph. I mean seriously, Khyri actually told one woman, "No I had Twix yesterday." Talk about embarrassed?!?! So clearly we still have some Trick or treating etiquette to review before next October.

Batman and his superhero crew!

The weather was perfect for trick or treating. The kids were allowed 5 pieces of candy and then I was a sugar junky sneaking treats every moment I had ;-) After statying out late with friends and retiring the costumes for the night *because surely they have been pulled out since* we settled into bed under the protection of...

SUPER DAD!

*yes my hubby photo shopped NYC in the background... hahahaha I don't think the Smyrna skyline would've looked half as good*

CLIMB TIME

The cold weather is starting to move in and the natives are getting restless. To burn some energy, the kiddos have started climbing on EVERYTHING. Instead of climbing on the furniture, we head out door. Khyri has decided that his "mountain" of choice is our neighbor's tree. 

He absolutely loves this thing!I told my neighbor that we may have to cut down the tree so Khyri will stay out of it :-)

Honestly though, I don't mind him climbing up there - if I'm watching him. My only issue is that Kielle wants to do everything Khyri does - and that I am not ok with!
  
Kielle can be super uncoordinated at times ahhahaha! She moves so fast trying to keep up with Khyri that she trips all the time. She does not need to be in anybody's tree! ahahahhah. I would never leave baby girl out, so we found a nice place for her to climb as well at a local playground.

It's fun to just hang your cares away :-)

PICTURE PERFECT?

I remember class picture day pretty vividly from my childhood. I remember getting to have my bangs curled and wearing may favorite sweater, dress, or skirt. I looked forward to picture day every year.

Kindergarten - See me on the right!?! My jeans are CRISP!

Khyri and Kielle both had class pictures last week. In preparation, we practiced smiling and posing for the whole week before. They also practiced sitting for the pictures in school. So I surely thought we were in the clear.

Khyri's photos went smoothly. I think he went a little overboard with the smile... which turend out borderline psycho-ish, but I'm still quite pleased :-)

He is such a big boy!

Although I can't really be surprised seeing as this was my smile when I got my graduate degree...






Things didn't go as smoothly for baby girl...

It started off quite nice. She looked super cute in her class picture. She's sitting cross legged, back straight, and a nice clear smile.

But then it was time to move to the individual pictures. I don't know if it was the props or the lights, or maybe the combination of both - but girlfriend was not having it! They were scheduled to take photos at 10:30am. I got a call at 12pm. "Ms. Mosley, Kielle is having difficulty taking photos. She is not happy at all and has been crying. Do you want to reschedule and have her take photos in the spring?" Nope. She looks picture perfect today. I'm on the way.

So I get there and she starts cheesing because she thinks we're just going home. I take her upstairs and as soon as I open the door to the photo room the tears start flowing. Mind you the photographers remembered her as soon as I walked in. I swear I peeped some rolling eyes, but I can't be mad I know she probably gave them the real "whatfor". I was like, "Dang Kielle you're making a not-so-nice name for yourself already." hahahahaha. I tried and tried ... and tried to get her to calm down, but nothing was working. I sang some songs. I pulled out her Doc McStuffins stethoscope. It was looking real bleak. But then she got tired and I saw my "in". I whispered to the photographer get ready and I finally got her to calm down for half a second. We got this:

*sigh* at least her hair looked cute. ahhahahahahhaha

SETTLING IN ... FINALLY

It's been a good 4 weeks now and I can confidently say that Kielle is fitting right in a Little Apron Academy :-) PHEW! It took a gooooooood minute for things to fall into place, but with help from her teachers, it only took about two weeks, to reach success! hhaahahah

Let's look at the progression from "What are you doing leaving me here?!?!" to "Bye Bye Mommy. See you later!"

Week 1:

I'll deem this - Loud Week. Pretty much Kielle cried the whole week. Her teachers said that she would have fun playing, sometimes, but then when she realized I wasn't around, she would break out into her high pitched wailing.

Notice how in the picture above there is a progression of her crying and then leaving "rug time". Here's the first picture blown up:

 

Look at the kiddos in the back are covering their ears!! Eeeeks. And then there's poor Ms. KaDonna trying to calm Kielle down. Lord have mercy! ahahaha I'm glad they put this picture on the daily report, because I'm sure some of the kids were going home mumbling something about a girl in class who cried ALLLL day. Now the parents can see there was NO exaggeration! A mess. At least she looks good in her little brown dress! hahahaahha

Week 2:
Now we move into Realization Week. It was finally starting to hit Kielle that this is her life now. hahahaha She was a preschooler and she didn't have a say in the matter. So, she started to enjoy the lessons more, but there were still bouts of crying from time to time.


Daddy said that every time he dropped her off in the morning, Kielle would walk straight to her cubby, put her book bag away and go sit down for breakfast. The whole time, though, she was muttering and whining under her breath. ahhahahahah. She will always have the last word whether we understand her or not!

 

You can see how puffy her face is in the photos, but at least she's sitting with the rest of the class. Progress! Kielle's favorite time, though, was still leaving at the end of the day hahahaha. She even walked with Ms. KaDonna to the elevator, albeit reluctantly.

Week 3:
Cruise Along Week :-) Kielle has started following directions, eating all her lunch, and willingly going to school each day. Now when Daddy goes out in the morning she jumps from the table to put on her socks. She says, "Wait Daddy, school time." She's completely over me. Every now and again Khyri will say, " Mommy can you come to school with us today?" but that Kielle?!? -  nope, she says nothing. I think she's forgotten me already! booooooo. I am really glad though that she has grown to love school, her friends, and her teachers. I think the curriculum is wonderful so I'm glad that now she can just relax and experience all that Little Apron has to offer :-)

 
While Kielle makes new friends and learns new things, I get to have mommy/son time with Khyri. Instead of making two trips to the school for pickups, Khyri and I hang out everyday while Kielle's class has playground time after their nap and snack time.

At first I would just bring Khyri along with me while I did different errands. I realized, though, that we were still wasting gas, so I wanted to do something closer to the school. We found a little table across the parking lot from the school building that is just perfect for us to do little activities each day. Khyri never knows what I am going to pull out of the "learning bag", so it's always a surprise. The very first surprise we did was putting together a dinosaur skeleton that I scooped from dollar tree. Side note *Dollar Tree is THE BEST! there are so many affordable activities there.*

   

    

 

One of my favorite activities is doing interactive drawing with Khyri. So I'll say let's draw a person and I'll draw the head. Then I'll say, "Wait, this person can't see. What's missing?" He'll say eyes. I'll say, "But, dust is getting into his eyes. How can we keep the dust out?" Eyelashes - and it just keeps going. He draws everything and then at the end we name the picture. (Shout out to Amy and Jennifer!)

We also play memory, which he is awesome at! This little boy's memory is a beast! I need some gingko biloba STAT. He's already beat me twice. Since we're outside, we also look for things in nature to play with. I like messing with the ant mounds. Yes, I know its dangerous, but to see them scatter is so interesting to me. Maybe we need to get an ant farm for the house.

We also do workbooks and practice our lettering - Thank you Mama Chin, Victor and Veronica :-)

    

Khyri's favorite activity is putting together puzzles. I grab all of these from Dollar Tree also. He'll do any type of puzzle - Mickey Mouse puzzles, The Avengers, Construction, whatever looks cool.

  

 Its shaping up to be a wonderful fall :-)

SCHOOL TIME! - HERE COMES KIELLE!

After a wonderful Labor Day weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina we geared up to send little miss Kielle to school. All week I had been prepping Kielle about going to school. I bought her a new book bag and explained that she would be going to school like Khyri. She just looked at me with a blank stare, so I had no clue whether she understood me or not. Life was good. Kielle was enjoying life and smelling the roses!

Life is Good!

On Tuesday September 3, 2013, Kielle was dressed to impress in her blue dress and pink leggings. She was sooooo cute. *cue happy go lucky music* The sun was shining. Kielle happily brushed her teeth. She smiled through breakfast and giggled as we put on shoes. I opened the door and handed her the book bag *scratch music*. Kielle starts crying... no, wailing. Apparently she understood everything I had said the previous week about this book bag and school. She knew full well that if she put on this book bag it meant that she would be going to school. She hadn't signed off on this. She liked the outfit and all, but carrying accessories?! not so much. hahahahaha. After repeated attempts to get her to put on her book bag failed, we gave up, loaded Kielle and Khyri into the car and headed to school.

As we walked in Kielle looked suspicious, but she calmed down when we dropped Khyri off at his Pre-Kindergarten class. I guess she was thinking "Oh we're just dropping him off, I'm all good." Nope. You're next buddy. As we round the corner and head to her classroom, the shock sets in.

We walk into the classroom and everyone says, "Hello Kielle". When I tell you I think I heard Kielle mumble, "Y'all not fittina fool me!" hahahahahahha. As we go to the center of the room and meet her teachers, Kielle's grip tightens and the wailing begins again. 

The crying started out loud, an expression of dissatisfaction. Then it softened and went more of a whimper with tears. That's when I knew she was sad :-( So then I got sad :-(  What about Daddy you ask!?! He's standing dry eyed steady snapping pictures talking 'bout "It's time to go she'll be ok." *sigh* no sympathy for the kid. none. One of Khyri's former teachers Mrs. Catherine came over to diffuse the situation. She told me to hand over Kielle, tell her I love her, wave, and say bye bye. I attempted to turn and walk out of the door and this happened...

She kept saying, "No mommy. You stay. Stay please." Then she pulled the sibling card and said, "Mommy, I can have Khyri? I can have Khyri?" I felt horrible. I said, "Not now Kielle, Khyri is in his classroom. You will stay here and have fun with Mrs. Catherine and your new friends." Kielle looked around like "What friends!?!? these people???" ahhahahaha. I finally handed her over to Mrs. Catherine and headed out the door after giving her no less than three kisses.

As we walked out of the school Daddy kept asking if I was ok. He said, "Its ok she's a big girl. She needs to be in school." I know already! Geesh I get it :-) I've been saying I wanted her to go to school since May when we put her on the waiting list, but now that the moment of truth is here... not so much. I miss my buddy! I watched as Daddy drove away and I sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes. Yes, 20. I just couldn't will myself to turn on the car and leave my baby.

I needed a distraction to get me through this first day. My first thought was to buy Kielle a puppy. Every child like puppies and surely this will make her love me again after putting her through this trauma right?!?.  The problem with this plan is that we would have a puppy but we'd be homeless cuz Daddy would not be happy! ahhaha.. so I needed a new plan. Retail therapy. Yeah that should work. Me being my extra frugal self, where do I "splurge"?? Dollar tree. I was in there BALLING. Do you hear me?!?! Cheap kiddie socks - sure. Random water bottles - sure. Unnecessary nicknacks and doodads - I'll take 4 of each!. hahahaha After 2 hours in the store I came out feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. All for around $22.00 :-)

Khyri gets out of pre-K at 3:00pm. I was at the school at 2:42pm picking up Kielle.I asked the teachers how she did and at first they didn't want to tell me. Everyone kinda looked around like, "hmmm should we tell her the truth?!?! or sugar coat it" hahahhaa. Then Mrs. Catherine peeked over and said, "she cried all day. but it will get better!" That was all I needed to hear. I knew it was gonna be rough; I mean seriously, she's trading in hanging with super cool mommy all day for a bunch of strangers. no contest!

Khyri and I grabbed Kielle and wouldn't you know it, she put on her book bag. Yup! progress was already being made - in one day!

As always we go outside and play with Plunger the dolphin school "guard". Doesn't the book bag look like its gonna swallow Kielle?!?!

Geesh, I'm whipped!

When we climbed into the car, I asked Kielle what she wanted to do. Since it was her first day of big girl school she got to choose our afternoon activity. She said she wanted to go to Petsmart, so off we went.

Doesn't Kielle look like she's whispering, "I too was caged for a whole day... but look at me now! You'll be free just hang in there." hahahahah we stayed in Petsmart for a few hours watching the birds, fish, and dogs. Afterwards, we went home and put together some puzzles that I had picked up from Dollar Tree earlier.

When the kiddos finished their puzzles, we waited for daddy to come home and headed out to Food Truck Tuesdays in Smyrna.

It was a trying day, but all of the anxiety and tears were necessary. Kielle is now a big girl and before long she will be learning a whole lot and making tons of friends!

Here's to the beginning of lifelong learning Kielle!

KHYRI IS IN PRE-K

Well its official - Khyri is a big boy. He officially started PreK on August 12th at Little Apron Academy. We had to get official health forms and everything. Wow.

Now let's be clear this is not a big step academic wise. Khyri is well prepared for Kindergarten thanks to his awesome preschool teachers. This year is more about learning how to focus, concentrate, and "study". Khyri's teacher Ms. Wakia said that there won't be real homework, but more like topics that she would like the parents to reinforce at home. I'm looking forward to watching Khyri blossom even more.

Watch out world, genius coming through!