Finally Home

It is 5:30 pm, the day Alice comes home from spending 4 days with her Grandparents.

Vacations are tiring!

Pumpkin Patch

Today I took Alice to the Pumpkin Patch.  There were thousands of pumpkins in all sizes and a petting zoo too. 

We walked around for about an hour and a half and Alice finally picked her pumpkin.  Alice liked the smaller pumpkins she was able to pick up.

 

She spent about 20 minutes lining up pumpkins and putting them back, lining up pumpkins and putting them back....

Toddler Monday at the Childrens Museum

Since today is Columbus Day and Alice's school was closed for a teacher work day, I took Alice to the Austin Childrens Museum for "Baby Bloomers".  From 9-12 they are open for kids 3 and under.  My friend Sylvia brought her daughter Maddie along too. 

We first stopped at Mom's office - to park since it is right across the street from the Museum.  I took her up to the office to show her off and attend a quick meeting.  Alice was charming ;-) and told everyone BYEBYE in an outdoor voice when we left.

During Toddler Time, the Museum volunteers had story time (which was not interesting to Alice) and Sing-a-long - which Alice loved and participated - in a way I had never seen before.  She laughed, clapped and joined in on the hand signals during the songs for "Wheels on the Bus", "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "If Your Happy and You Know it".

After we left the Museum, we headed back towards home. It was quickly approaching nap time. We stopped at Taco Cabanna for lunch. Alice and I shared chicken nachos. Then it was off to the the house for nap time.

It was a great morning.

Alice TV

Althought its not ALL Alice ALL the Time, its pretty darn great.  As mentioned in the top 5 reasons we picked Alice's new school, our new favorite past time is watching Alice play and sleep at school on the web cam.  Here is a sampling of Alice at school doing various things.

Alice Sleeping

Alice sleeping 1/2 off the mat

Alice Sliding

Alice reading a book

I don't know what she's doing, but look at how cute she is ;-)

I've been told I'm stalking my daughter, but until she's old enough to KNOW that I'm stalking her...I'm tuning in daily (along with other family members I know)

The Bluebonnet School

Alice started her new school this week. 

We decided on putting her in The Bluebonnet School of Cedar Park.  http://www.bluebonnetschool.com/index.html

There are several reasons we chose this school over others - including Montessori Schools.
1.  Each classroom has a degeed lead teacher and a teachers assistant.
2. The maximum teacher/student ratio is 2/10 at all times
3. Internet classroom viewing available free to parents and family.
4. They provide lunch (this was a big negative in the Montessori Schools)
5. It is close to home - not much further away than her previous school....so convenient!

Additional coolness factors were:
6. They have their own splash park for summer water fun twice a week (summer time only of course).
7. They have a windproof storm room to withstand strong winds and tornadoes.
8. The building is fully sprinklered (you'd be surprised, but this is not required by code!)
9. Quarterly parent conferences.
10. Spanish and Music class included in the curiculum.

From viewing the internet video, it is apparent that Alice is having fun at school. 
It makes us feel happy and confident that she is being well cared for when she cannot be with us ;-)

Alice Painting At School

Alice's new preschool has web camera access! I've really enjoyed my first day of being able to see her at school. This is a picture of her painting a picture with her teacher before lunch :-)