Crazy Love Gamble-Style

 Here are our two loves on their first day of school.  They were both excited and a little nervous.  Ava was thrilled that she ended up with Ms. Riley, the teacher she was hoping for.  She was also happy to learn that all the first graders from her first/second split last year were placed in her class with her.   Ava is so sweet and eager to learn, I love her passion for school!  She even woke up excited to get up and go to school that whole first week!  She is still doing pretty well, but a little harder to get out of bed.  Norah was much more nervous than Ava, which is funny because it basically the same preschool she went to last year.  Valerie did move locations but many of the same friends were there to welcome her to her first day.  A little closer up, love her sweet smile!  She is doing great this year.  Ava came home from school not feeling well at all  We knew she wa...

The highlight of Norah's life is Sunday school, has been since she started going about a year ago.  She tells anyone who will listen about it.  She is super thrilled to add preschool to her new list of favorite things.  She only goes on Thursdays but she is super stoked about the whole thing.  Yesterday was her very first day.  I love how they are matching!  And Ava looks so cute in this one!  Teacher Valerie, who is also one of our very good friends, was Ava's preschool teacher as well.    Norah is quite familiar with the school and everything she always longed to be a part of.    She's like "OK bye mom!"  She had a great day, I think the only issue was she was a bit disruptive during nap time.  But she did end up falling asleep eventually.  Hopefully that part will get easier as she gets more used to it.   Our baby girl is growing up!! So very proud of her!

 Our little first grader started school today. (Tuesday)  Her & Malia walked together, they were both bummed they ended up with different teachers this year.  Malia was a little nervous about her first day, whereas Ava said she wasn't nervous at all, just excited.  Both John & I agreed that she did look pretty nervous as we were leaving, a little deer in the headlights-ish.  Ava is excited though that her teacher's name is Mrs. Nelson, we love the book "Mrs. Nelson is Missing", which is about a class full of kids that won't listen to their sweet, nice teacher, so she goes missing and has a mean witchy sub that gets the class in line.  Turns out Mrs. Nelson was just wearing a costume and tricked the kids into being good.  So of course I warned Ava that she better be good so Mrs. Nelson doesn't end up going missing.  : )  As we were taking all our standard "first day" photos, Liliana, from last year, showed up.  She ...

Since it all starts today for us, our two day extravaganza, I can say Merry Christmas now.   Plus it's pretty certain I won't have time later. Last night we got it all caught up and ready for today, yes there was one major snag. I had got Ava her main Christmas present off of Craig's List, a purple princess starter bike. We just needed to put the training wheels on it,  clean it up a little & it would be good to go. So last night at 10pm we discovered the lady  gave me the wrong training wheels! They didn't fit!! John went out to find her (hopefully) a new purple bike but it turns out everyone else got there first. Thankfully he found some new training wheels  that fit just fine.  Crisis adverted.  Daddy to the rescue! We had a wonderful Christmas morning just the four of us.  It was perfect.  We let Norah sleep in a little and soaked all the fun up with Ava first.  We took it ...