I Need to Catch Up

Well, I figure that it's going to take me a little while to catch people up on the goings on in our life. I figure that August is as good a time as any, so we'll start with Allie's first day of school. Our local elementary school has always been good to us, as we've dealt with them before from when Zach and Daniel were living with us. The administration was always so nice about the situation, and worked with us through some issues. Well, now it was time to actually send one of our own children to their school. The principal actually remembered Rachel when she went in for the registration forms, and asked how the boys were doing. They held a kindergarten preview, where the kids rode the bus to school and met their teachers without all the "big" kids being in the halls and such. Allie was so proud of her little project, and took great joy in telling me about the rules she learned on how to behave. From the hand signals they were to use if they needed the bathroom, to the stoplight and clothes pins the teacher would use to help in keeping order among the children. Well, inevitably, time went by and it was time the weekend before school started. Rachel told Allie that they would go out together and pick Allie's first day of school outfit at Gymboree (shocker). Well, Rachel had a few outfits already in mind for Allie to choose from (double shocker). When Allie didn't even come close to picking them, Mom was a little annoyed. Well, I told Rachel that she promised Allie could pick out her own from whatever in the store she wanted as long as it was under a certain dollar amount. Well, Allie won out and got what she wanted to wear to school:

Rachel and I were very emotional over this, and I was thankful that work was understanding in letting me start late that day. Rachel waited with Allie at the bus stop, we took more pictures, and then once the bus came, I hightailed it to the school to try and get pictures of Allie getting off the bus. Silly, I know, but it's something we wanted to do for her. I was able to be in position to get a couple of pictures as Allie got off the bus. She was so excited, but also scared at the same time. I could see in her face that she was nervous. Anyhow, Congrats to Allie for making it through her first day in grand style and for continuing to do well up to this point.