Emily and Ana started school (preschool and first grade, respectively) last Wednesday. Jim and I somehow managed to refrain from skipping through the house singing, “free at last, free at last, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY WE’RE FREE AT LAST!!” but only barely.

The girls both did great on their first day back, although Ana feels that first grade has “too many rules.” Yeah, call me after your first day of full-time employment, kid.

They also both started their gymnastics class this year – it’s at a different place than we went last year because, frankly, if I’m going to pay $300 a semester then I want to make sure they actually learn something. A cartwheel. A split. Something. Ana went to the Little Gym for over a year and all she learned was how to scream and run for a full hour in a room full of other kindergarteners, and Im pretty sure she already knew how to do that.

Here’s Emily getting ready to do a forward roll at gymnastics. The teacher called her up to show the other little peanuts how to do it (Emily took the class over the summer). Isn’t her little leotard so CUTE?? Ana was wearing a matching one, but I couldn’t get any good pictures of her in it.

She scores the perfect forward roll! That’s my little prodigy.

This was later in the day and Emily was not happy about having her picture taken. Can you tell?

FirstGiving.com is hosting Emily’s fund raising page for the Forward Face Walk for Awareness which we’ll take place at the end of September.

I just pulled this fun little widget from FirstGiving.com’s Web site which shows our fundraising progress so far. To date, we have raised $978.00 – we’re almost there!

Help us reach our goal by donating what you can It’s for a great cause!

I splurged for a new hose nozel that has four different settings. The girls were so excited that they played in the driveway in their bathing suits for half the day. Who needs a pool? Not us!!!

Humor me while I share a cute Emilyism. Today I pointed to a picture of an octopus and asked Emily what it was. Since we haven’t watched Finding Nemo or The Little Mermaid in a while, she couldn’t quite remember. She thought about it for a second and then proclaimed it was an apple bush. An apple bush? After I stopped laughing I said, “Emily, sweetie, that’s an octopus.” She looked at me earnestly and said, “oh.”

But it will forever be an apple bush to me now.

Look!!! She finally let me put her hair up and I actually got a picture of it! Now that she’s letting me pull her hair back in clips, I’ve gone a little crazy and keep chasing her down and adding more crap to her head. She tolerates me…but only barely.