Kristy Dorminy

Here’s a quick funny story for your Saturday morning.  Ruby and Molly have been making up their beds for a couple of weeks now.  Molly does pretty good.  Ruby doesn’t do so great.  One day I went in and just had to do a little tweaking to help her bed out…I may or may not have totally re-made it up to meet my standards.  Anyway, I then walked into the closet to put away some of their clothes.  Ruby walked out of the closet a few minutes later from playing and said, “Hey, mom.  Did you see my bed?!  I am starting to get the hang of this.”

Evidently, the bed looked really good to her, too!  Hilarious.

All I could do was smile and say, “Yes, sweetie, you are getting the hang of it.”

Molly woke up bright and early on her 5th birthday.  That seems to be her pattern–birthday or not, first day of school or not.

We did our school work after opening presents and having a birthday breakfast.  Then, we waited on Josh to get home so we could go get the girls nails done and then eat some pizza and try a new ice cream place.  It was a fun night; Molly felt very special!

She played with Play-doh (thanks, Mrs. Mary!).

Mack took a nap while we waited on Josh–could he be any more relaxed?!

Molly was going to wear her new boots, wig and baby out until she realized she wouldn’t be able to get her toes done unless she wore some flip flops.

Ruby chose blue finger nail polish and pink toe nail polish.

Molly opted for green and red….Can you say “Merry Christmas” ?

A happy little 5 year old!

We all had a fun night celebrating Molly’s 5th birthday!  I asked her where my 4 year old Molly was, and she told me she was gone.  I guess I can only see my 4 year old Molly in pictures….like this one from her first day of school:

And my three year old Molly:

And my two year old Molly:

We wish you many more, Molly Moodle!

The girls got up at the crack of dawn to get ready for school.  So early, in fact, that I have time to post these pictures.  We took them outside where it was so humid one can hardly breathe!!!!

Somehow this pose gets worked into first day of school shots

Mack—the one NOT going to Kindergarten.

I will post more later on how the day goes!!!

We all five went to The King’s Academy for Open House Saturday night.  It was a lot of fun, in a very busy kind of way.  Mack was horrible from the beginning.  He fell asleep in the car and drooled vanilla wafer all over his clean shirt.  This is what he looked like when we got there:

I probably don’t need to tell you that he did not do well the entire time!  No doubt he would have stayed at the grandparents house just up the road, if indeed we had grandparents up the road, which we do not.  Moving on.

We went by Mrs. Honaker’s classroom first since it was on the way.  She picked right up with Ruby where they left off…lots of hugs.

While she did hug Molly, I appreciated that she also took more gentle measures with her.  She recognized that Molly was a bit reserved.  I am sure Molly will get more and more comfortable with Mrs. Honaker as the year goes by.

Molly did a scavenger hunt around the room and made a cute visor on which she put her name.  She liked being in the room and didn’t want to leave.  They iced a cookie and decorated it, too!

This is Ruby in her 1st grade class, also decorating a cookie!  She did a scavenger hunt around the room, too, to get familiar with where things are.  She seemed much more grown up and enjoyed seeing some of her friends from last year.  I won’t lie—this is the only picture I got of her because by this time Mack truly was being the devil.  He would grab a handful of M&Ms or a big juicy sugar thing every time he walked by the candy bin…and there were more kids that had to use that stuff!!  He is such a stinker.  I don’t know if he was just exhausted or if he knew that none of what we were doing had to do with him, but I am so very glad we let Molly pick Papa John’s take-out pizza instead of going in and sitting down at Waffle House.  I couldn’t have stood it.

So, there you have it.  We are getting closer and closer to our first day of school for the year.  I am nervous and have thought of a few things I need to do to get prepared.  I thought I was ready, but I am not.  Stay tuned for more pictures on Tuesday!!

Mack came downstairs with a hard hat on, gun in hand and “bible” under his arm.  He said, “I am her (pointing to Molly) Daddy.  I need a Bible if I am a Daddy.  A Daddy reads his Bible.”  It was so sweet.  He had been upstairs while Josh was reading his Bible and preparing for Sunday’s lesson.

This is what it comes to when you are the 3rd child!  This bag was Molly’s bag, so we had to put duct tape over Molly’s name and write Mack’s name.

But he couldn’t be prouder.

Nor could Molly…we were all so happy that he was so excited to be a Cubbie Bear!  He talked the entire way home with Josh about all the fun he had.  He also wanted to take his book and bag to his bed.  He is wearing his vest as we speak.

We are so proud of him starting Cubbies.  He has to start some memorizing this week.  That will be interesting.  I will keep you posted on how that goes.  I have a feeling I will need to go get a new bag of tootsie rolls for some bribing.

A special thanks to GG for sending Molly some birthday money…we all went to the movies today and had a ball.  Looks like the birthday festivities are already starting.

Yesterday I spent the majority of the day in my car.  It was part of preparation for school starting, I guess.  (Though I do have a husband who likes taking the kids to school a lot…I love that.)  Anyway, I picked up a sitter at 8:00am and then came home to leave her with the kids.  Then, I drove to school to meet Ruby’s 1st grade teacher, Mrs. O.  She was super!  The room is so cute.  All of us moms were sitting in kid chairs and at kid tables while she walked us through an assignment sheet.  It would be safe to say that 1st grade will be requiring a little more of me than Kindergarten.  🙂  Ruby will have spelling tests each Friday, if I remember correctly.  Handwriting will mostly be my responsibility!  I am really excited to see how Ruby does.  I was relieved that she is reading well because they major on that in first grade.

After that two hour meeting, I met Josh for lunch and got to talk with him for a little bit.  I ran in the Dollar Store and got Molly some cheap kitchen utensils and a few art things to put away for her birthday next week.  She is all the time stealing things from my kitchen drawers!

Then, I went back to the school for the Kindergarten meeting with Mrs. Honaker.  She was so sweet, of course.  I was much more relaxed in there this year than last year.  She read THE KISSING HAND, and I cried again.  I am so glad I am the middle child and that I have a middle child…as I was sitting there I had to fight thinking back on the first time I heard that book when I was there for Ruby AND I had to fight thinking about in two years when I will most likely be in there for Mack’s teacher meeting.  I kept saying to myself, “This is about Molly.”  That probably sounds horrible, but I think that is just kind of how it goes when you have three so close in age.  Or maybe I am just weird.

Anyway, I wrote a sweet note for Molly on a hand cut out that Mrs. Honaker will read to each of them on the first day after she reads them the story.  I made sure to let her know that Mack would miss her horribly and would be so excited to see her when she gets home from her first day of school.  Oh, and this was neat.  Ruby’s number last year was 4.  That was the number all her books had on them and the number cubby that she put her stuff in, etc, etc.  Molly said, “I hope my number is 4 like Ruby’s was!”  And it was!  Ruby and Molly both are number 4, actually.  Neat, huh?

And if I read the dates right, they are both the youngest in their grade.  Molly gets to have birthday cake at school on her first day…talk about an exciting day!

So after I drove home from that meeting, I took the sitter to church for her school meetings and then drove back home.  Then, I had a church meeting a couple of hours later, so I left and came back once again.  I was exhausted at the end of yesterday and so glad to be HOME.

I can’t wait to share pictures with you of Open House, which is this Saturday and of the first day of school this Tuesday.  Fun times around her, for sure.

This is our last full week before school starts.  I am very excited about getting started.  Sometimes I wonder how in the world I ever started on this path.  I never once thought about home schooling my kids before I had kids.  Then, once we had kids and they started growing up, it seems that Josh and I both just knew this was what we were going to do.  I don’t remember any debates or confusion at all, which is really nice.  (Josh is always up for a debate, so it really is an amazing thing….he still isn’t 100% sure about what “home school football” looks like….we shall see.)

Anyway, I have been getting the school room a little more organized, buying uniforms for school and TRYING to get the kids to learn some responsibility so that the whole year won’t be full of arguments and nagging.  We all get sick of hearing that!

These are the chore charts I found at Target.  Each kiddo has their own.

Ruby and Molly have similar lists

As you can see, we start simple with Mack.  Things like flushing the potty just don’t come easily for him.  He didn’t even take care of making sure the pillows were in the right place, but he said he would do it in the morning…and he whined and whined for me to leave the star in place.

I got some transparent plastic bins to help me see things we have.  This is the art bin.

This is one of our Math bins.  Lord knows we need all the help we can get when it comes to Math!

Pencils and scissors and glue and markers, oh my!

This is our uniform section in the closet.  Last year I managed with three shirts and a couple of pair of pants and one skirt for Ruby.  I just kept it simple.  This year, we are getting a little more complex, as each girl wanted to be able to wear jumpers to school.  They look so cute on them.  I have dresses/skirts/dress shirts/coats all hanging at the top.  The khaki bottoms are next, then the navy bottoms, and the socks and shoes are last.  The goal is to have the girls wake up, make up their bed, wash their face, brush their teeth and get dressed from head to toe all on their own.  I still reserve the right (and responsibility) to fix their hair.

I also reserve the right to “spruce up” their beds after they make them.  I just don’t know if I can leave them looking like this all day:

Let me leave you with Mack’s trucks all the bin.  We are so proud of anything he does since he usually tries to get out of everything “acuz I’m yo’ baby.”

If I have labored over 10 to 12 loads of laundry….gathering it all up into one place, separating it into piles, and moving it from washer to dryer, then folding and putting away….then you can count on Mack wetting his bed the very next day because it would just be too good to not have to go into the laundry room and wash clothes.  Just too good.

He better be glad he is so cute.  Otherwise, I may hang a hammock in the woods for him and call it his bedroom.

To say Molly is excited about school starting would be an understatement.  That little girl cannot wait to go to Kindergarten!  A friend from church gave some uniform skirts and a pair of pants and a jumper to us on Sunday.  What a blessing!  Molly tried it on last night and then wanted it back on this morning.

She looks so grown-up!

The kids don’t start school until August 17th.  Most public schools started today, so I thought that last night might be a good time to go get some school supplies since we didn’t have church and I would have Josh to help me.  I mean, my thought process was that most people are gonna be at home getting their kids ready for school the next day.  Boy, was I wrong!  Lots of last minute shoppers were at Target.  It wasn’t horrible, but is sure wasn’t pleasant.  My idea turned out to be bad.  Oh well.  I got almost everything we needed.  The other few things can be found at Schoolbox.

This morning I heard Mack making his way down the stairs, so I opened my door to greet him.  He, evidently, really wanted a certain amount of cars and trucks to come down with him this morning because both of his hands were full AND one was in his mouth!!  It was the cutest thing.  He is a quick thinker….”if I can’t fit this one in my hands, then I will just put it in my mouth.”  Cute.

This past Saturday we went to Augusta for Rennison’s 2nd birthday.  We got up at 5am and quickly got ready, then got on the road after we stopped in at Waffle House for some yummy breakfast.  We were in Augusta around 9:30am.

Rennison was so cute opening her gifts and eating her cake.  She really seems like a fun little girl!  Vance was her spokesperson.  When Marcy asked her, “Renn, what do you say when you open your gifts?,” VANCE said loudly, “Thank you!  I love it!!!!”  He is a hoot.  The kids all played and ate ice cream and cake and then we headed back home that evening.  It was so fun to take a quick trip over and see everybody.

Very soon I will be meeting with Ruby and Molly’s teachers about the new school year!  That should be exciting.  I am working against being overwhelmed.  I just have to take it moment by moment and see how homeschooling a Kindergartener and 1st grader will work….all the while keeping Mack entertained.  Should be an adventurous year.