Thursday, November 28, 2013

Halloween 2013

 Our Halloween 2013 was filled with lots of fun activities this year! I attended Matthew's preschool Halloween parade and trick-or-treating through the school, we went to our friends (the Dallases) annual Halloween party, the kids went trick-or-treating at Matt's office, we had dinner with community group at the Matthew's house then went trick-or-treating in the 'hood (and ran into lots of friends), and last but not least we attended Caroline's Kinder costume parade at school. Whew!
The kids dressed up as their favorite characters this year: Caroline was Sofia the First and Matthew was Woody
 
 
Caroline & Kate
 Comm Group Kiddos: Brendan and Blaine, Caroline and Matthew, Kate and Cole, Parker and Ally, and Riley and Cade:



  Caroline & Cannon
 The Krauss kids plus Riley, Lauren, and Jack
 Matthew & Jachin
 Caroline & Lucy
 Shannon & baby Mae (aka best Halloween costume ever)



 Caroline & Lane
 Cole, Caroline, and Parker...don't they look thrilled ;-)
 Precious Ally & Matthew
 Checking out their loot...the best part of Halloween!
 Costume Parade!

 They were so excited to see each other in the middle of a school day. Love their sweet relationship!

I love these two kiddos who make Halloween a lot more special, fun, and exciting!!


Sunday, November 3, 2013

Fabulous Fall Fun

We love Fall here in the Krauss house. And Fall 2013 has been jam-packed and full of fun. I thought I would share what we've been up to through an iphone picture dump.
First up...I took a wonderful trip at the beginning of October with 3 of my very closest friends in the whole world. Steph, Kelly, Shae, and I lived together at Baylor and their friendships are one-of-a-kind. These girls are more like my sisters, and I love them so! We had the best time visiting Stephanie in Palo Alto. It was so fun to see her before her first baby gets here (I was the only one NOT pregnant on this trip :-). We spent time in Palo Alto, explored San Fran, and saw BREATHTAKING Half Moon Bay. I'd like to go back tomorrow please!
Matt had fun with the kids while I was gone. One morning they visited our favorite neighborhood pumpkin patch and painted pumpkins:
  
We made our annual visit to the Texas State Fair a couple of weeks ago. A little rain didn't get in our way! Caroline remembered all of the fun things at the fair this year and was so excited to go back. She couldn't wait to ride the rides and the ferris wheel. She rode the wheel with daddy and wasn't scared at all. Mommy and Matthew stayed behind because we're not crazy ;) Matthew's favorite part of the fair was seeing/feeding the animals in the petting zoo. He was also so excited to sit on a "real" tractor and try out a couple of the kiddie rides (which he hated!!!) We can't wait to go back again next year!
 

I attended my first Kindergarten field trip on October 18. Matthew and I tagged along to the arboretum and it was completely crazy. Kids running everywhere. They had a great time and it was fun to watch Caroline with all of her classmates. I love any glimpse I get into her school life!!

My sweet friend, Lauren, and I completed our first duathlon (the Espirit de She in McKinney, TX) on October 26th. My mom brought the kids out to cheer us on since Matt was out-of-town. They kept me going :-)
Whew! It was a busy but fun October. That brings me to Halloween which is another post all together! Hopefully, I'll blog about it before Christmas, ha :-)

Matthew's First Day of School 2013

I thought I would blog about Matthew's first day of school since it's November ;-)
On Tuesday, September 10, Matthew started his FIRST day of preschool. Preschool 2s that is. We are so excited for his 3rd year at our wonderful preschool, and we know he is going to have a great year. He was so excited for his big first day after seeing Caroline start Kinder!!!
 
 
 

Matthew loved seeing his bff, Millie, when we got to school. We took some cute pics of these precious kiddos: 
 

We are thrilled Ms. Marci and Ms. Alison will be loving on our sweet boy this year!! Here's to another awesome school year! 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Kindergarten, Here She Comes!!!

Caroline is four weeks into Kindergarten and it's going GREAT!! We just love our little neighborhood school, and I feel like it's finally becoming our "new normal". Caroline is still struggling with some behaviors after school from being SO exhausted. However, they are getting better, and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel (everyone says give it a good 6 weeks!!) Time to back-track 4 1/2 weeks :-)
On Friday, August 23rd we anxiously awaited THE call to find out who Caroline's teacher would be. Luckily, I was at my good friend Julie's house while we were waiting for the phone call because I was a wreck. I wanted Caroline to be with some friends, and there was a lot of emotion built-up for this big moment as we had been praying for Caroline's FIRST elementary school teacher for over a year. The call came and it was from...Ms. Laura Schur!! The brand new Kinder teacher at our school. Fresh out of college :-) A lot of excitement and anxiety ensued. I had heard such wonderful things about Ms. Schur, however, I was apprehensive about having a young, new teacher for Caroline's first year of school. Our school community sets up a sign-up genius so all of the parents can see the names of the kids in each class. It was so hard to watch the sign-up genius as I saw Caroline's best friends all get different teachers. She has a sweet group of friends from church...they were all split up in different classes. She also has a wonderful group of friends from our neighborhood...they were all split up in different classes. We couldn't believe it!! What are the odds?!? However, I had a peace that Caroline was right where she needed to be, and I was excited about all of the new, sweet friends she would get to know in her class. Plus, I knew she would see all of her neighborhood and church friends at recess. Caroline was really sad her best friend, Lucy, wasn't in her class and that was really hard to watch. She was excited, however, about the new teacher and that her teacher's name was the same as her mommy's name :-)
Friday night, after all of that excitement, we headed up to the school for the Expo. We got to meet Caroline's teacher, pick up spirit wear and school supplies, and see Caroline's class. Matt, Caroline and I were ALL so excited. This was really happening, and Caroline thought everything was so fun. Especially meeting her teacher and seeing her classroom. She also found out she would have a locker which is just so cool ;-)
Saturday, August 24th, Caroline and I went on our annual back-to-school date. She picked roller skating. It was her first time to roller skate and was pretty comical. She kinda had it down by the end...I, on the other hand, looked ridiculous!

The rest of the weekend was very low-key. Sunday night, the night before the first day of school, we read a couple of books (The Night Before Kindergarten & Emily Goes To School), sprinkled her "Ready Confetti" (from Ms. Schur) under her pillow, prayed for her first day, and tucked in our preschooler for the very last time! Good morning!!
AUGUST 26, 2013=CAROLINE'S FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!! 
 

We all woke up so excited on Monday! We enjoyed a fun Back-to-School breakfast...Caroline's favorite of course, blueberry muffins and fruit. After our annual pics by the front door, we were off. We drove to my friend Wendy's house who lives across the street from the school. She was so sweet and watched Matthew for us while we walked Caroline to school.
Off we go:

It was so fun to get to school and see lots of our sweet, best friends!!
We joked that this picture would be in their senior yearbook one day :-)
(Riley, Eleanor, Blair, Caroline, Lainey, and Emerson)
Heading to class. Caroline didn't let go of Matt's hand the whole way. So sweet!

Caroline's locker!

Caroline grabbed her "owl" to indicate she was present. Fun fact about Ms. Schur...we're sorority sisters :-) She was a Chi O at SMU. Her classroom is filled with owls! 

How adorable is Caroline's teacher?!? She's so full of energy, very creative, and energetic. We just love her! And I think Caroline thinks she's a real-life Barbie doll, ha!
Caroline found her seat and table, put her name tag on, and got to work on the coloring activity: 

Caroline was so happy and there were no tears. Shocking!! (I think I got them all out on Sunday night :-) I didn't want to leave the room though. Matt literally had to drag me out of the school. It was VERY hard to leave. I went back to Wendy's house where she had breakfast and mimosas waiting for us (all of our comm group gals ended up over there). It was such a blessing to be with them on this morning. We ended up staying most of the morning and letting the littles swim. What a nice distraction!!
(Ally, Brendan, and Matthew) 
 

2:50 p.m. could NOT come fast enough and, before we knew it, it was time to go pick up sissy!! Caroline and Matthew were so excited to see each other!! We were all reunited and it felt so good!! We got an icee and headed home to re-hash the day.
Caroline had an exciting first day, and we heard all about the "rules" at school, lunch, recess, and new friends she met. We also heard all about how sweet Ms. Schur was. It was a very successful first day! In fact, every day of school has been fun for Caroline. What a blessing and answer to prayer! So far this school year is off to a great start, and we are so excited for our Kindergartner!
Spirit day Fridays are fun:
We can't wait to see what this year holds for our sweet girl!!