Give Thanks

So today was our school Thanksgiving Feast. I know, I've been a terrible blogger lately and haven't even posted pictures from A#1's birthday or Halloween. But after much talk today with some fellow bloggers and the urging of another teacher (not mentioning any names...JULIE) Ha! I decided to add a post today because today was a special day at our school.
You see every year we have a big Thanksgiving feast. All the kids bring a dish to share and the families of these children come and eat at the school in the sanctuary.
Here is A#1 enjoying her ice cream after the feast and after eating 3 desserts already. That was ok though because it was her good friend's birthday. Like I said it was a really special day.
And here is A#2 with her good boy friend and school. We'll call him W (no there is no relation to George W., but that would be nice). Anyway, notice the glimmer in her eye as she poses for the camera standing next to W.
And finally A#1 singing her thanksgiving song with some of her classmates. She has a Indian band on. It was a very festive day to say the least. Lots of reasons to be thankful. Thankful that we have a building to celebrate in and thankful for friends to share special occasions like these.

Back To The Grind

"Back to the grind!" as my mother used to say when we would start a new school year. That's exactly what we've been doing. This is why I haven't posted in a while. We are getting used to transitioning from kindergarten to first grade for A#1. I do remember first grade being hard, but not this hard. I think A#1 will be just fine once she gets the hang of it. We go to school only 3 days a week. The other 2 days I "teach" her.... which has been quite a challenge. The teacher gives me the work I'm supposed to work with her on the days we are off. Today we worked really hard off and on. I had to give her breaks because sitting there continuously is hard not only for her, but for me as well. We will survive though. And she is doing great! So I'm really proud of her.
And again this year I was told how different my two girls are. A#2's teacher was amazed. I was told she raised her hand answering questions the first week of school and even spelled apple for a friend in her class. A#2 is also very social so she had to be separated into another group. Oh boy! Here we go. Trouble. Ha! Just kidding. She's a pretty good kid..just might be a little talker this year.
Anyway, all in all it was a good first few weeks! I'll keep you posted on how it's going.

The First Day

So you are probably wondering if the school opened right? Or maybe the thought hasn't even crossed your mind. Well..we did open just in time. There are still a lot of things to do, but they are things that can be worked on while the kids aren't there or some of it can be done while they are in school. We do lack one big thing...the playground. No we do not have a playground yet, but there's lots of room to run and play. The playground will be installed September 27th. That's not too long to wait. Here is A#1 above posing for the camera. It's her first day of first grade. I can't believe I have a first grader.
And after some coaxing, I finally did get A#2 to be in the picture. Notice they are wearing the same thing. I did this on purpose cause these 2 dresses were the only dresses clean at the time being that I had not had time to do their laundry. The only way A#2 would wear the dress is if she could wear a bow in her hair. She informed me that morning she was not walking out the door looking just like her sister. Thanks to my husband, he came up with the bow idea and she was fine with the dress. She said at least there would be some difference.I didn't tell her that I was asked at school by one lady if they were twins. I get asked that all the time when they dress alike. A#2 looks thrilled in this picture. Doesn't she? She did not want to have her picture made and certainly not by herself.
Here is A#1 trying to get A#2 to smile for the camera.
And here is A#1's first grade teacher. Ashlyn already loves her. The last day of the week she gave Mrs. Gale a hug. I think it will be a good year. :)
And here is A#2 with her teachers...Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Ruby. A#1 had Mrs. Ford last year and Mrs. Ruby's oldest daughter was in A#1's class for a little while last year. They are going to be an awesome team! I'm looking forward to a great year. We are off to a good start so far.

Movin' In

It's moving day! We finally got to move the furniture in on Thursday, August 28th! Yeah! It went well. Although we had a little trouble finding some of the teachers things, we did manage to locate most of it. Here is Ms. Julie above. She taught A#2 when she was in the 3's. I love her. She was a wonderful teacher and according to A#2 Ms. Julie taught her everything she needed to know.
This is one of A#1 and A#2's teachers from past years. Her name is Ms. Holly. She was always good about getting down on the kids level and greeting each and every kid that walked in her door. She taught A#2 last year with Ms. Wallace. A#1 and A#2 misses both of these ladies. They both talk about them all the time. We love you Ms. Wallace and Ms. Holly!!!
And here is Mrs. Ford. Love Mrs. Ford. She had A#1 in her classroom last year. This year A#2 has her for kindergarten. Ms. Ford is amazing. She taught A#1 a lot! She is also a friend of mine. She was very helpful with A#1 and gave me some great advice.
I'll post more later about our first day! Stay tuned!

Meet The Teacher

Today was Meet The Teacher. I think it went smoothly even though the 3's through 3rd grade could not see their rooms finished. Most of the teachers gathered in the church sanctuary and we set up tables and Cindy made cool display boards with the samples of the colors in their room, who their classmates would be and of course the teachers were there to greet and meet the children. Above in this picture is A#2's classmate (Cindy's little boy). A#2 always talks about him. When we drive through his neighborhood she always wants me to point out his house. They are buddies.
Here are the 2 A's standing outside after meeting their teacher.
And Stacy had a great idea to serve snow cones to all the kiddos after they met their teacher. My kids loved it.
The 2 A's were excited about the snow cones. Couldn't wait to get one after meeting their teacher.
And here is A#1 in her classroom. A#2 would not let me take her picture in her room. Love the purple and red! We are going to have a great year!

Panic Time

So here's our verse. The verse I found that day while having my quiet time and finding the church to take our school in. It's Hebrews 11: 39-40. I love this verse. We wrote different verses on each door frame of each classroom to remind us this is all worth it. We were feeling a little down and discouraged so we thought doing this would cheer us up and it did. You see at about 3pm we found out the painters that were going to paint all the rooms in the modular building did not want to use our paint, but they would paint if we used Sherwin Williams paint. However, we had already purchased $500 worth of Behr paint. Now I'm not a professional painter, but I know I've used Behr paint in my house and it looked great! What were we going to do? We had so many other things to get done and so little time. So we talked and talked about what to do and decided at 4pm we would paint it ourselves using our paint. I jumped on the phone and called everyone I knew...teachers and parents. And people started showing up around 6pm I think. There were at least 20 people there helping. They got most of it done at dusk. I couldn't believe it! God answered our prayer. Another sign that what we are doing is all worth it! What a blessing!
Here is A#1's room. Purple and red. Love purple and read. A#2 might be trying to spend a lot of time in this room cause purple is her favorite color.
Here is A#2's room. Blue and yellow. So bright and cheery!
Here is one of our parents working hard trying to get A#2's room ready before the sun goes down.
Here are two of A#1's classmates. They are twins! Hope you love the new room girls!
Tomorrow is Meet The Teacher. Although parents of the 3 year olds-3rd grade will not be able to really see the rooms set up, they will get to see the rooms painted and visit with their teacher. So tomorrow is the big day before the big day next week. We officially have a week till school starts from today. Keep praying!

Still Working

So we didn't take Sunday off, but we did wait until church was over to get back to work. Here is Cindy redoing the labels. She's been great organizing the kitchen. :)
Here is Mr. Ricky and Steve. Mr. Ricky takes care of all the maintenance at our old church. He is awesome! He can do just about anything. We call him Mr. Ricky because that's what the kids called him when they would walk by and see him working. He is leading the project of building the ramp and stairs for the modular buildings. ADA requires you to have a ramp so people in wheelchairs can get into the building. Steve is the one standing next to him. Boy has he been a trooper. He recruited most of his small group to come and help Saturday. Thank you Steve and Mr. Ricky!
Here they are working away. I think Mr. Ricky noticed I was taking pictures and decided to hide behind the post. Why does everyone hide from the camera? However, you can't tell, but Steve is smiling for the camera. Till next time....

More Progress

So here's one of the rooms ready for texturing....the walls I mean. The walls have to be textured before they put a base coat on and then the colored paint can be put on. Here is Tasha and Cindy in one of the classrooms.
This was our big work day. We had 30 people show up! I was so excited and so thankful! It was so awesome to see all these guys working and in close to 100 degree heat and it was humid too. They are building a ramp and steps so we can get up into the portable...or sorry Loni ...modular building. I was reminded it is actually a modular building. And she is right...a portable sounds small. This has 6 classrooms in it that are pretty big. The modular building beside this big one will house the pastor's office and his admin's office. Plus it will have a room for Spanish.
And here is Wendy. She may kill me for putting this picture up. I like it though. She is putting up lovely shower curtains to divide the potties in the existing building that will house the one year olds and two's. So no real stalls in this bathroom. There is another bathroom that has actual doors. I think you look cute Wendy!
And here is the church's shed they let us share today. Our shed showed up, but the driver did not leave the shed. He tried to call one of us on our home numbers, but just left a message and then took off. They told us he would leave it, even if one of us wasn't there. We were supposed to have it by Saturday morning so we could store some things in there since the modular building was not ready yet. Our plan today was supposed to include moving all our stuff into the building. I'm praying the shed will show up on Monday. Please!!
And finally here is our playground. We even rented our own Bobcat. It moves dirt. A father of one of the teachers came and did this most of the day. He worked so hard! I know he had to be exhausted along with Mr. Ricky who lead the ramp and stairs project. Kudos to both of these guys! We couldn't make this possible without you!
So...now we are waiting for the work crew to finish texturing the walls and painting them. Then they will lay the carpet and finally the potties and sinks will be put into place. This will all happen next week.
Needless to say I'm running on adrenaline right now. I am very tired, but I am also excited about what God is doing at our school. Tomorrow it's back to work after church.

Crunch Time!!!

It's a week and a half before school starts. The portable building behind the existing building is still not finished. Yes, you heard me correctly. It's not done yet. It rained here for 3 days off and on this week and that really put the workers behind. We had our big work day on Saturday, but this is what we started with on Friday. We still had to do some work in the existing building....cleaning, getting rid of things, etc., etc. Cindy and I were assigned to the kitchen. We think we were assigned this area just so we would be out of everyone else's way. Ha! So here is one of our interesting finds in the kitchen. See above. I really thought these were potties to potty chairs. I mean after all the toddlers go to this building during the service and it only made sense. No, they were mixing bowls. To me, they will always look like potties. So we are keeping the bowls. They just needed a little cleaning.
So like I said we found lots of interesting things. Some of these cabinets have not been opened for a long time. We were told the place used to have mice, but the mice were gone. Great! Don't won't to run into any of those! So yeah...no mice. However, we did discover mice poop. So...I got my mini vac and cleaned up the poop and then Cindy and I wiped down the cabinets with Lysol wipes.
Here is Cindy above working on the cabinets....scrubbing. Notice I only have back shots of Cindy. She knows I'll put pics on my blog of her so she won't let me take her picture from the front. I'll get her in here some day so you can see her smiling face. :) Cindy is awesome. I think she could have gone all night last night. We did actually go home and sleep Friday night. It was midnight when we got home.
So all in all it was a productive Friday. It was an evening for mice poop and one of kind finds! Stay tuned for more!

Another Day Down...

We started our day unloading the shed. This is one of 2 sheds we have. We unloaded all the art stuff today and moved it over to the new church. This shed is full! You never know what you might find in the shed. Several of our staff and teachers have found various critters.There might be a nice big giant spider to welcome you or tons of mosquitoes. Besides the creatures and critters, this shed houses everything such as yarn, glue, paint, educational games, etc,etc. The list could go on.
We were going to try and haul off the shed to our new location. Problem is we are locked in. The church we are moving from has decided to keep the 2 portables (even after their new building is finished) in front of the shed so now we can't get it out. However, they have offered to buy this shed from us and then we can go buy a new shed. Yeah! Solves that problem.
So the director, another teacher and I packed up our cars with all the art supplies and headed to the new church to unload.
After an afternoon of unloading we decided to walk around and see what progress had been made. Pictured above is one of the classrooms. We actually have walls now!! Yeah!
Here is a better view of a classroom. There are 6 classrooms in this building, a couple of bathrooms and a nice long hallway.
Here is one of the bathrooms above. There will be a girls and boys.
Here's another exciting thing we are going to have....SPACE on the playground. This is where our playground is going to go. Behind this area, there is a huge soccer field. The church lets organizations such as Upwards and Odyssey use it. They see it as another bridge to reach the community.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing what's happened so far. We found someone to work on the walls that had the 2 lovely layers of wallpaper. A lady has been working on that room. She has textured it and will paint it eventually. Cindy, another fellow board member has been picking out paint colors for the portable . They are going to be so bright and beautiful. Can't wait to share more updates.

We Are Getting There...

I know it's been a while since I've posted, but it's been a busy, busy week with the school as you can see from these pictures. We started Sunday painting. Then Monday we continued with lots of help from parents on our PAC (Parent Advisory Committee). It was a crazy Monday as all of our children were finding ways to keep themselves "entertained" as you can imagine, but it had to be done and so kids had to come a long. It didn't bother me. I'm used to the chaos! Thanks everyone who came out and helped. It helped speed things along with the painting. Above you see our green and purple room. This will be the older 2's room. There will be a garden added to these walls. It is bright, but that's ok cause little ones need bright colors right?
Here is the younger 2's room. This will be the "Bee rejoiceful" room. There's a verse we are going to have painted on the walls in this room of course with bees and bugs painted on the wall. So cute!!! Can't wait to show you those pics after the verses and cute bug and flower additions are painted. Stacy, who is on staff at the school, is going to paint those. Yeah Stacy!
Like this? This is the yellow hallway. I'm not sure how many coats we ended up painting in this hallway. Quite a few I think. We actually decided to add orange around the far door at the end of this hallway to make it stand out. Like I said little ones need bright colors for stimulation. These rooms will definitely do the trick!
This room is the 1 year old room. Scott, the man you see in the back working, took out a wall. It used to be 2 tiny, tiny rooms so we decided to open it up to give those one year olds more room. There is a Jonah theme on one half of this room. Not sure what we are going to do with Jonah, but tomorrow we are meeting to decide how we are going to paint this room. The animals will stay. I think we should make it into a Noah's Ark theme, but who knows what we will decide.

So it was a week of painting, cleaning, discussing where to put the ramps and stairs on the portable, measuring for shelves, discussing themes for each room in the existing building, deciding where to get cabinets, etc. The list goes on. There should be sheet rock by next week in the portables. We are looking at 3 weeks to have all of this done! I know lots of you are ready for your kids to go back to school. I'm not. I want more time. Although, I know it will get done. It's just the stress and anxiety of it all. Ahhh!

Well yesterday it was back to work on the new school. This is the project Alonia and I worked on. Everyone had a different project to do. It worked out really well. We got a ton done in the smaller existing building. This building will house the 1's and 2's and Christy's office. And I think they may do some other things to in the main room of this building. As you can see the walls are a kind of avacado green color. I liked it. Others weren't so sure, but Christy was fine with it. Alonia found the paint at Lowes for free. It started out only being $5 but it had a $5 rebate. Way to go Alonia!
Here is the lovely wall paper we started taking off in one of the rooms. We discovered 2 layers. Aren't they lovely. I especially like the pink floral one. Is it me or does that scream 1980's.Ha! Anyway, Kelly and I tackled this project. These walls will be textured and painted I think.
See here is Kelly at work vaccuming. She looks really into her work doesn't she. She was the only one who would let me take her picture. Yeah Kellly! Everyone else wouldn't let me. I think everyone has figured out now when I bring my camera to watch out now that I'm blogging. However, I will say Kelly looked better than the rest of us since she showed up later. Kelly and I also got to take down posters and such off the walls in 3 rooms because the painter was coming the following morning to paint those 3 rooms. I'm so glad Kelly came to help! She helped me with the stuff we did the latter part of the day. I couldn't have done it without her. We also had others show up that are not on the board...Alexis, Holly and Todd also showed. And boy what a help they were! Todd came even though he didn't feel good and did some handyman work.
Here is the bigger building I showed you moved behind the small existing childrens building. The workers were there all day working when we were there. I'm sure they were toasty in that building. I even saw the owner of the company out there working with everyone else. This guy has been awesome!


And here is the smaller building. It finally arrived. These are the 2 pieces that make up the one smaller portable building.
Anyway, that's about it. I hope you enjoyed getting the update. I'll have more later.

One Building Arrives!

So the fun begins! This is just the beginning of many days and maybe many nights we will be spending at our new location getting ready for the new school year. We had the opportunity to to go to the new church where our school is going to be a do a little cleaning. Thursday we cleaned the childrens building out a bit and our children got to entertain themselves. As you can see all the other children are sitting nicely watching a movie while A #2 (that would be my youngest) puts a toy saw in her mouth. I'm not quite sure what she was doing with the saw, but I'm glad it was a toy one. Anyway, we were able to clean out a couple of closets and give some things away.

We even found a Christmas tree in one of the closets the church said we could give away. Here is my friend and fellow board member Cindy taking the tree to her car. Thank goodness she came. We couldn't have loaded it without her. Plus, her car was the only car it would fit in. Way to go Cindy! We didn't have a dolly so we just did the best we could and put it on the "Bye Bye Buggy". For those of you who do not know what this is.... it is a 6 seater stroller for small children. You see when the little ones get upset or cry you just pop them in the buggy, strap them in and take them for a stroll. It seems to calm them down. I'm not sure why. But this day it helped us carry a Christmas tree in a box to her car! Cindy and I then traveled a short distance to the local community storehouse and unloaded the tree and some other items there.
Friday, to our director's surprise, we had a building on the property! Yeah! This building came in 3 pieces. It is the larger of the 2 our school purchased. It amazes me sometimes how they transport these buildings. The picture you see above is a side view. You can't tell in this picture, but it is still on wheels.
Here is another view. Here you see the building in 3 pieces. Eventually this will all be put together to make one building. Cool huh? You see how the middle piece has tarp on either side? Of course this is not exactly where the buildings will be located on the property, but they will move them behind the childrens building where they poured the foundation. We are still waiting on a smaller building that will arrive probably next week. I'll keep you posted! Stay tuned...