Kindergarten Registration

I cannot believe it's here.  The first step in the process has come.  That means it's real.  She's old enough.  It's time.  Kindergarten registration was today.  It's early this year.  I wasn't expecting it until April but Chris' mom said everything is earlier this year because the district is 'reorganizing.'  Chris is out of town so I had to go this one alone, which was ok.  This one was simple.  Easy.  I told Sara Kate about it last night.  She's been looking forward to kindergarten since she saw her cousin Hannah graduate from kindergarten last May.  So last night I made a big deal about what was going to happen and she was so excited this morning.  She kept saying, 'we're going to kindergarten maration.'  Haha.  She didn't have to come, but by taking her with me it saved me a trip across town and back to take her to daycare.  Plus I wanted to make it special for her.  We had to go to the bank to the safety deposit box to get her birth certificate and social security card first and then we headed to registration.

It was anti-climatic, in that the office staff made copies and I filled out the enrollment form on the computer, they printed it, and I signed it.  But the office ladies were so nice and were making a big deal to Sara Kate about starting kindergarten.  She kept wanting to write her name on the sign in form with their cute little flower pen.  They said, 'oh she looks ready!'  Yes, she is!  And just like that, my baby is registered for kindergarten.

 

After we left the school, we went back by the safety deposit box then to the grocery store to pick out a special treat.  She picked 'little white donut,' which she loves.  It's fine with me because it gives her some breakfast the next few days!

When I got to work I took a look at the packet of information they gave us.  It included a calendar, what's expected as far as vaccinations, and things she should know.  Shapes...done.  Numbers...done.  Alphabet...done.  Lower case and upper case letters...done.  Comfortable using a pencil, markers, scissors, glue, paint...done.  Comfortable writing their name...done.

So that was our big day.  She's ready.  And she's excited.  And I'll be excited for her, once I get my emotions in check after each step in the process, ha!!  My baby's growing up!

A Look Back at December & January

Happy February!  Cannot believe we're already into the 2nd month of 2015!  Another 2 months have passed with no blogging.  Life is so dang busy, ya'll!  One thing I've been wondering is is blogging dying out?  I find that alot of the blogs I've followed over the past 5-6 years, no one is writing much anymore.  I don't want my blog to die, but finding time to upload pictures, do any editing, etc. is time consuming (even though I put alot of iPhone pictures on here).  And it never fails, as soon as I sit down to start writing, Sara Kate wants me to play with her or do something with her.  But I started this to document our lives and I want to continue to do it as time allows.

So in the past 2 months, the main thing that happened was Christmas.  And we had a great Christmas!  

Our tree on Christmas morning, when all was still quiet.

But then a certain someone woke up and had to check things out! 

 

 She looks so tall here!

 She said, 'Oh my goodness, Frozen panties!  I asked for these and wanted these!' 

After her stocking, she had a few presents to open.  We don't stress 'Santa' but we don't discount him when she talks about him either.  We don't want her to be good only for Santa, she needs to be good all the time.

 

She asked for 2 main things, a Frozen castle (which every place was sold out except Amazon and they were majorly price gouging) and princess magic clip dolls.  Those we were able to find.  We found a 7 pack of the princesses and got Elsa and Anna clip dolls separately.  She was SO happy!

 

She got a few other things too, like Ariel dress up stuff, Frozen lip gloss, and a new coat, hat and gloves! 

After Christmas I made breakfast.  I made Cinnamon Roll Bites.  So good and super easy.  Here's the recipe. 

After breakfast we headed to Bentonville to have Christmas with Chris' family.  A good time was had by all.

The whole crew, including some new faces from Texas.  Think the kids love having lots of cousins around.

 Merry Christmas from the Michaels family!

 Present time!

 It was a Frozen/Princess Christmas for this little girl!

A couple days after Christmas my parents came up for Christmas.  We waited until they were here to go to the Lights of the Ozarks on the Fayetteville square.  I love this about our town.

 Love this picture of me, Sara Kate, and my mom.

 She was so excited for a pony ride and did so great.

Of course we had to climb on top of the rocks and get a picture with the Razorback!

And last but not least, our little family.

2014 ended with something that reflected the last 6 months of my life.  I had a colonoscopy on New Years Eve, it was my 3rd in 6 months, and this one was awful.  It was supposed to be at 7 am but it got moved to 1 pm, so I had no food from the night of December 29 until the evening of December 31.  I also threw up half my prep, which might just be the most disgusting thing any person will ever have to drink.  

But I got good news in the end.  The pathology definitely shows Crohn's (which we knew) but there was no inflammation which means there is no active disease right now.  So that's a blessing.  Unfortunately when I had my appointment with my GI doctor in January I found out I was going to have to get on medicine I don't want to get on to keep me in remission.  Maybe you've seen commercials for Remicade or Humira on TV, but one is an infusion and the other is a shot I would give myself.  It's a decision I'll have to make in the next few months.

In other January news, Chris and I went to Tulsa the second weekend of January to see Garth Brooks in concert.  We couldn't get tickets the day they went on sale because they sold out so fast but thankfully we were able to find them on StubHub.  It was beyond amazing!!  It was a total bucket list concert for me and totally worth getting home at 1:30 am on a Monday morning!! 

A week after Garth, Chris and I went to George's Magestic Lounge on Dickson Street to see Pat Green, who is one of my all time favorites.  My buddy Matt took me to my first Pat Green concert probably 12 years ago and I got hooked.  He puts on a great show and I was glad we were able to go!

The week after Pat Green I had my annual girls weekend in Memphis with my girlfriends from college.  We had so much fun in college and it's so great to still get together and have just as much fun...maybe just a different kind of fun, ha!!  But these girls are a blessing and I'm so glad we're still super close!

 

The other thing I want to say about January is I'm training for a half marathon!!  A group from church started running together back in the fall, thinking about a half marathon in March.  In January we officially started training, and I registered today so it's definitely official.  AHHHH!!!  Scary!  We run 3 times during the week on our own and get together on Saturday's for the long runs as a group.  Having a group really helps with the long runs.  Yesterday we ran 7 miles...and yes, we RAN 7 MILES!!  Before this started, I was running 3 miles 2 or 3 or times a week.  This has become a huge goal and I'm determined to make it happen!  Thankfully we have a great trail system in Fayetteville that makes it easy to get many miles in!  

This little guy is sitting on a bench along one of the trails...any day is a good day for a Razorback sighting!

So that's whats been going on the last 2 months.  Once again, I'm going to try really hard to get back into blogging to document our lives.  2015 has big things in store and I want to remember everything!