Young Party of Four

As of the end of today, we will have a first grader! There is a number in her elementary school placement! No longer just a letter ("K"). That is insane. Kenzie has seriously rocked her year in kindergarten this year. She is a learning superstar, for sure. She continues to love school. From the very first day we dropped her off, she went right into her classroom and made herself at home. She still lacks any sort of social anxiety. She is also still quite a rule follower (which teachers seem to really appreciate LOL) so she gets along well in a structured setting. When she is told to do something, she does it. Now, if we could just figure out how to get her to do the same thing all the time for us... that would be great. She made a ton of new friends this year and is so looking forward to next year. She knows a lot of her friends probably won't be in her class, but she has met a ton of kids in other ways, like Girl Scouts, dance, or outside on the playground or in PE ...

I haven't done a Friday Favorites post in a few weeks. We have been super busy with the end of school rolling around which is also the end of Girl Scouts (sort of - as the main things coincide with the school year) and dance is wrapping up here in the next month so other things have gotten in the way of this weekly post. BUT, I wanted to do a quick post about some teacher gifts that we put together this year because I have been asked about them. This won't be a long one but may be a fun idea for a teacher gift if you need one. This is something I first saw a few years ago. Probably even before we had kids and I have since seen a few variations of it. We tend to go with the "Bucket of Sunshine" option, though I have seen boxes and bags as an option. We like buckets because sand buckets are super common around here. Especially in the summer. The idea is basically this... grab a yellow bucket. Fill it with yellow items. Write a personalized thank you note. Give te...

And just like that... Will has officially finished his first year of school. This year he attended the same school that Kenzie attended for 3-year-olds and VPK. He was enrolled in the 2-year-old class. He started school a year earlier than Kenzie but at almost the same age. His birthday is in October so he misses the cut off for the year and consequently ends up being one of the oldest kids in his class. This year he may have even been the oldest. As a boy, we don't mind that necessarily and we think it was definitely beneficial for him this year. (Side note: Kenzie is typically one of the youngest so it is the opposite with her and we definitely see the "typical" girls being younger and boys being older argument playing out.) Will's end of the year picture sort of cracked me up. He looks so very sure of himself. This is such a change from the beginning of the year when he wasn't sure of what school would be like and although he knew he wanted to go, he was ...

This week's Friday Favorites is all about one of our favorite places: the beach! Summer is upon us. Technically, it feels like it is already here in Florida. Our favorite time of the year is actually summer. All of us would take summer over everything else because it means more visits to the beach. We wanted to share a few of our favorite items to use on the beach as well as a few of our favorite beaches in Florida in case we may have one you haven't tried yet and might like. Let's start with a few of our favorite things and our most common routine in case we have some tips for anyone that may like them. We have been perfecting our family beach routine for the last five years or so. We used to go a ton BC (Before Children), but once Kenzie came along it was a lot more difficult so we didn't go often. Then we increased our beach trips as she got older... and Will came along. We had more trouble going with babies, but we decided to not let it stop us. We have changed...