Update: the Bubbs

**THIS is the first of a series of updates I started but never posted... This one is actually from October, so I have much more I could share/say about the Bubbs since then. But if I wait to get everything perfect, I may never blog again.  Which really could happen anyway.  The whole never-blogging-again.  So enjoy it while you can! :)**

So here's the first of probably a few updates I will eventually share.  Hopefully.  There is no way I can catch everything so first I thought I would just give a blog post to each of the kids so you can see how they are growing and what they've been doing!

The Bubbs LOVED Kindergarten and did really well last year.  Socially, she was a little shy at the beginning (especially with the adults) but got more comfortable as the year went on.  As many know, I have been a little sad that her birthday was in September and she missed the cut-off for the year before.  I don't think she's the smartest kid in the world, but I think she would have been fine being in first grade last year.  But after watching just how happy she is to be in school and how she adjusted to her shyness, and how she doesn't care that she was one of the oldest ones in Kindergarten, I realized it didn't matter.

By the end of the year, she made two best friends (her BFFs as she calls them).  She loved her teacher.  We were able to go to the Kindergarten Graduation ceremony and watch her receive her "diploma" and four other awards - she earned a PE sportsmanship award, an art award (yay! her favorite!), a reading award, and the Kindergarten citizenship award.

Bubbs' artwork made it into the district art show!

Receiving her citizenship awards.

The Bubbs also spent the last year in a ballet class.  We chose a christian ballet studio because I loved the idea of traditional ballet and appropriate moves and music (my six-year-old doesn't need to shake what she doesn't even have!).  Their mission is to praise the Lord through dance and she really enjoyed the class and the year.  The only downside was the distance and the traffic - if traffic was really bad it was a 50 minute drive to and from the studio...  She danced in a recital in June and was so stinkin' cute :)  I will of course post a little video for your enjoyment.  Well, mostly for my enjoyment, but you are welcome to watch it too :)  Her class was so small - just three girls, and one of them got too scared at the recital to even go on stage, so it ended up just being E and her friend Juliet.  I was worried she would be scared, too, but after the dress rehearsal I asked her about it and she said, "I wasn't scared, Mom, it feels great to dance on the stage with people watching!"  Ah ha!  Maybe she has a few of her mom's genes after all...

E and her friend Juliet

So now THIS year - first grade.  Fabulous teacher, I am excited for the year!  She loves her class, and has made a few more "BFFs".  She has a little boy who was in her class last year and her class this year that she kinda has a little crush on.  He wants to sit by her a lot, too...  I like to tease her a bit about it.  Because I can.  And because I was like the most boy-craziest girl ever so I know what it is like.  The Bubbs still loves art, but she also loves writing stories and has started doing that more than drawing.  She loves reading and just recently learned to ride her bike without training wheels. (Yes, I know, she is 7.  Totally our fault because we didn't work on it with her at all until about two weeks ago.  And then she caught on pretty quickly.)  She is usually well-behaved but is definitely starting to have her own opinions about things (yikes!).  It is crazy to me that she is SEVEN years old now!  They do grow up too fast, but I love watching her grow up!

First Day of School 2011-12

Lost her first two teeth! (Well, they were pulled but she still
got money from the tooth fairy so that's what counts, right?)