Jack and Annie attended their first day of preschool last week. They’ve been pretty excited to get started, but that may be due in part to the fact that Mom is their teacher (which should really be a whole other post in itself). Due to a rather crazy set of events and the very nice recommendation of an in-law and long time family friend, Emily is now a pre-school teacher. She’s currently only teaching part time in the afternoons, but she’s enjoying it so far (when she’s not stressing out about it).

Anyway, Jack and Annie went to their first day of pre-school the other day and had tons of fun. They’re already making friends and having fun with the many activities that school has to offer. The other day Jack taught me all about “Stop, Drop & Roll” and Annie told me that I should always crawl under the smoke (they were learning about fire safety last week). They also told me all about dialing 911 so I’m waiting until they decide to try it for real. I didn’t get many pictures before dropping them off cause we were in a bit of a hurry, but here they are in their new school clothes with their backpacks on.

Granted this post is a few weeks late, but given how much I’ve blogged this summer, a few weeks is actually pretty darn timely.

Anyway, Jack and Annie are now 4 years old! It’s crazy to think that its already been 4 years, but they’re growing fast. They’ll even be starting preschool in the next week or so. It’s interesting to watch their personalities as they grow though. Under identical learning conditions, they’ve developed into their very own little people.

Jack has become the little jokester. He’s always trying to be funny and loves to tease his sisters. He’s also become quite addicted to playing the Wii. He loves Batman and Spiderman and enjoys playing with Owen and Cutwer (Cutler).

Annie is definitely the boss. She loves to have things her way and is quite vocal about it when things don’t go her way. She loves ponies and would happily own every single one if she could. She’s also becoming quite the artist and has developed her own unique style.

We celebrated in the back yard on the 21st and had family over for cake and ice cream. As you can see, Emily made them fun cakes. Jack got Batman with a sweet Bat symbol and cityscape on the side and Annie got a cool pony cake (and she got to keep the pony). They gots lots of fun presents from their cousins and grandparents and we all had a good time.

Happy birthday Jack & Annie!

Annie and Jack both got to try their hand at some extra-curricular activities this past month through the Kearns Rec program. Annie donned her tutu and got to dance to the theme song of Little Shop of Horrors. I wasn’t sure the music choice was going to be all that great, but they were cute dancing to it.

This being the first time that Annie has done dance, we weren’t sure what to expect with her. What we found out though is that dance isn’t as exciting past week 3 and she got tired of having to get ready to head to the school. She wasn’t always very attentive at class and she spent more time watching herself in the mirrors in the dance room than she did listening to her instructor, but she seemed to have fun when she was paying attention. The pictures below aren’t very good on account of my crappy camera, but you get the idea. Hopefully she’ll be more interested and excited in a year or two.

In an effort to improve communication and ensure that each of the kids get some alone time with Dad, we’ve decided to institute “Date Night”. Each week (when possible) I get to take one of the kids out on a date (or an adventure in Jack’s case) to a place of their choosing. This will hopefully give us a chance to chat and will allow me to “check in” with each of the kids on a monthly basis. So far I’ve had a chance to go out with Hailey, Mallory and this last week I got to take Annie out and although I didn’t think to take pictures until this past week, I also thought this would be an excellent chance to get a month by month picture log of each of the kids as well.

As you can see below, Annie and I went to Yogurtland down in Jordan Landing. I had the tart fruit mix with strawberries, raspberries and blueberries on top and Annie had the strawberry yogurt with mini gummy bears on top (disgusted shiver). We spent some time making faces and talking about dance class and primary but mostly Annie was distracted by activity going on around her. She commented on what everyone was getting and the strawberries in the water cooler and the colored spoons and everyone’s reflections in the glass and the fire pit outside Iggy’s. Basically I had a tough time retaining her attention, but we still had fun and she thoroughly enjoyed her gummy bear filled strawberry yogurt.

Annie’s new word lately is “Seriously!”. She uses it to add emphasis to pretty much everything she says of late and pronounces it without the “i” in the middle. For example:

“Serously! Jack put his trucks under the bed. Serously!”

or

“Serously! My pony’s hair is crazy! Serously!”

I’m sure this was a word that she picked up from me as I do tend to use it now and then when I’m exclaiming at the absurdity of some of the things that the older girls do. For example:

“Seriously?! Did you really just throw your whole dinner in the garbage? grumble, grumble…”

But now Annie has adopted it as her new favorite word. It’s awesome!

The most serious picture of Annie I could find: