Ella started school!

And I feel SO old!  I can't believe that I have a child old enough to be in school!   She started Pre-K last Monday and has LOVED it!  She goes from 7:45 to 10:40 Monday-Friday so it is the perfect amount of time for me to run errands and have some one-on-one time with Kaleb!  The first day was kind of a meet and greet with the teacher and we only were there for about 45 minutes so it was a little anti-climatic.  The teacher had assessments to do the rest of Monday and Tuesday so Wednesday was her first real day of school.  I actually left her there for the first time alone!  I have never done that before with strangers.  I mean, sure she goes to Lifekids at church but Martin and I are always there in the building and my family has watched her a lot when I am gone but never strangers!  It was tough for me to let go and trust that she would be ok.  The what-ifs kept running through my mind- What if she falls and really hurts herself and I'm not there?  What if other kids are mean to her?  What if the teacher doesn't like her?  What if she can't find the bathroom?
It was just a cluster of worry but I tired to remind myself that kids do this everyday and this is totally normal.  It was just weird and hard to be away from her.  When I left her I could see the worry in her eyes- she didn't want to be there alone but when I picked her up she said that she had an awesome time!    I had to hold back the tears when I dropped her off but I knew that if I lost it she would have lost it too and that would not have been a good situation.  Wednesday went great, she made a new friend named Lily (how cute is that?!) and she said that they already promised to be best friends everyday.  I so wish I could just be a fly on the wall and watch her in school.  I bet she is so funny.   Thursday went well too- she was the class leader!  (That is a BIG deal to a 4 year old!) She got to lead the class when they went outside to play, came back inside, and went outside when school was over.  I'm not really surprised that the teacher had her be the leader, she has quite the assertive personality and is very responsible (and *ahem* bossy!) but I couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride when she told me.  When we were walking to the car after class on Thursday, all of these little kids kept calling out Bye Ella! Bye Ella!  It was so adorable and Ella was just as sweet as ever saying goodbye to every one of them.  We even had a little girl jump into our car to say goodbye to her!  This helped ease my worries about her as she must be well-liked by all.  She was the class leader again (!) on Friday and said that she enjoyed it but felt like it should be Lily's turn to be the leader as that was only fair to take turns.  She amazes me.   We go back to class again tomorrow so I hope this week goes as well as last week did!

happy to be in school!

here's where she was starting to get a little but worried about me leaving bless her heart!

We've had some BIG changes this summer!

Finally getting around to posting again!  We have been busy to say the least!  Ella stated Pre-K, we moved, and just being pregnant and having a 4 year old and a 2 year old keeps me busy enough!

First I will talk about the house :)
We closed on our first house 3 weeks ago (yay!) and have been in crazy busy unpacking/painting/organizing/trying-to-get-our-life-on-order mode since then!   We have painted the laundry room, the playroom, Kaleb's room, and the guest bedroom!  The only rooms left to paint are Ella's room and the master bedroom!  The colors on the walls in our house were outrageous to say the least so we had to paint before we did anything else.  I will be posting before and after pics as we get the projects finished and the rooms all set up!  Kaleb's room is my favorite so far but I am really pleased with how much better the rooms look after the paint!  (You couldn't really get must worse than what they were!)  I feel like my life has revolved around paint color, roller, drop cloths, and tray liners for weeks.  I'm always making sure we have enough of everything.  Martin has some of his awesome friends helping with the painting which is a HUGE help to me and Brianna has also helped me out a lot with the painting!  (We were even considering opening a painting business after this is done because we are going to be PROS at this haha!)  Just kidding, we won't really do that, I pretty much hate painting actually....

We went back and forth on whether or not we should buy this house because of all of the painting that needed to be done (and the kitchen needs some updating) but we decided to sacrifice granite counters and perfect paint for LOTS of space (4 bedrooms AND a nursery off of the master? Yes please!) and a home that we can see ourselves in for a long time.  It is perfect for our family and it really has been fun to "make it our own".  I see know that it will always be a work in progress and I will never feel like it is complete but that is the joy of home ownership, right?  So far, we love love love living here and actually having our own home.  I still have to pinch myself when I drive up to it and press the garage door opener (MY garage door opener!) and drive into my garage!  Obviously I have wanted to buy a home for a long time and I feel quite proud that we were able to do so when our kids are so young and won't ever remember living in an apartment!  Martin had zero credit 5 years ago when he first came to America and he has worked his tail off building it so that we can have this amazing home, it is a huge accomplishment for us! The kids have a backyard to play in now and run around in- it feels like Heaven!  Life is great! Here are some pics of some of the rooms!

Play room before

Playroom after!

Kaleb's room before 

Not good at all!

Kaleb's room after!

I'm pretty much obsessed with the stripes- they came out SO good!  More furniture and decorations will be added of course but I was thrilled with the paint job- it was so hard to cover that awful black paint!

Guest room before- walking in there gave me a headache.  I avoided that room! 

Guest room after- much more welcoming!  I can't wait to get it all set up!

We have much more to do of course but so far I am really happy with the progress we've made!    The next post will be about Ella's school!  I will try to get to that tomorrow!