First grade valentine's party

Today was Briana's valentine's day party for school. Very fun! She has been home sick all this week, but she was determined to go today so she wouldn't miss the party. Luckily, she was feeling better this morning anyways, so she was all set to go. I found out when I got to school that the first graders went on a field trip to Petco today. Briana said it was really fun and she got to pet a turtle, a guinnea pig and a rabbit. Then this afternoon was the big party.

Briana and her friend, Emma Geiger playing a game with balloons.

Briana, Emma and Tye (the back of his head, anyway)

Briana and Ranni Leahy

Eating down a super long licorice to a strawberry marshmallow at the end.

Elaine Whetstine and Garret Johnson

She made it to the marshmallow!

Briana was very sweet to Sydney during the party and she tried to share with her and include her in all the fun. So nice!!!

Briana and Brittney Betluer

Josie being creative with her licorice.

She made it!

Briana and Brittney

Briana pulled a chair over for Sydney so she could sit with all the kids at their desks. Nice!

Briana pretending to pout after she got a bingo.

Briana, Sydney and Ranni at their desks.

Briana had a very fun time at the party and she came home with a bag stuffed full of candy. What could be better!

The night before last, Sydney came into my bedroom in the middle of the night. She stood at the foot of my bed and said "Mommy, I have to go potty." I immediately jumped out of bed so I could rush her to the bathroom as quickly as possibe to avoid an accident. Sydney said to me "NO!! I need my privacy!" She turned around and walked right into my doorknob. I was so tired and I comforted her as best I could, but I could not even keep my eyes open. I got her into the bathroom and settled down. Then I put her back in her bed. She woke up Sunday morning and asked me if her eye had a boo boo because it was sore. Yep, it sure did have a boo boo. She's got a black eye! Poor girl.

Yesterday, we had to do a bunch of running around, and Sydney wanted to know if she could get a hermit crab while we were out. I would have let her get one, but she didn't want hers to be in the same tank as Briana's. She wanted her own tank for her room. Briana's tank, crab, and all the accessories cost $50!! And I just couldn't spend that again. So when we got to the pet store, I told her if she wanted to, we could get her two fish instead and they could have their own tank and everything. So she picked out these pretty yellow guppies. She decided to name them Tigerlily and Lemon Drop. So cute! We got the tank all set up and put the fish in.

Such a proud fish-y mama!

Here are the girls with all of our pets lined up on the kitchen table.

We now have five pets. Five. Two betas, one hermit crab and two guppies.

We went to Mamaw and Papaw's house last night for dinner and to celebrate Brian's birthday. Briana took Tacky with and totally grossed out Mamaw. Ha ha! Unfortunately, when we got home, Sydney's new fish were sleeping. Upside down. We told her that they maybe would wake up today after preschool. I thought I would just run to the petstore, get some new fish, switch them out and no one would be any the wiser. But, Briana is sick today, so she had to go with me to pick out the new fish, and I had to tell her that the original fish died. Which meant that I had to tell Sydney too, because I know Briana wouldn't be able to keep that a secret for very long. When Sydney came home after preschool, she wanted to know if her fish had woken up yet. I told her to go up to her room and check on them. I followed her up there, and told her that those were new fish because the other ones had died. She took the news pretty well. I had kept the old fish carcasses in the kitchen sink in a baggie (so disgusting), and we had a fish funeral in the bathroom this afternoon. Sydney cried, and I flushed. I did say a few words for the fish before I flushed them. She got over it quickly, and has been up to her room several times to make sure the new fish are still swimming. I have a feeling even the new fish aren't going to last that long.

Oh, something I forgot about is Briana held Tacky in her hands for the very first time yesterday.

Note the protective barrier between her skin and the crab.

And here's a photo of the new fish.

Tacky The Hermit Crab

We have a new member of the family! His name is Tacky and he is a Hermit Crab. He is going to be living in his tank in Briana's room. He's very active and likes to come out of his shell and climb around a lot. He is also kind of gross. Briana won't admit that he is kind of gross, but I think she thinks he is. Just by the way she won't really touch him all that much.

Here she is holding Tacky away from her, with only two fingers.

Tacky the Penguin

Today we got to go to Briana's school for her first grade program, called Tacky The Penguin. It was awesome!!!! The children all wore black and white, like penguins, and they also wore bow ties. Super cute. When they walked into the gym, they waddled like penguins. That was my favorite part of the entire program! So, so great! They sang lots of really great songs, and acted out the story of Tacky The Penguin. Briana stood in the second row between Ryan and Brian, and she got to play the xylophone. She rocked!!!! I am so proud of her for doing such an amazing job in the program! Love her!!!

Also, we had Briana's parent teacher conference tonight, and Briana is a genious! She is doing really well in first grade and her teacher just loves her!

We had Sydney's preschool parent/teacher conference on Friday. We took Sydney with us since we didn't have a babysitter (Mamaw was working). We went into the red room there, and sat at one of the rectangular tables with Miss Marguerite on one end, Mike and I sitting together on one side of the table and Sydney sitting across from us. Miss Marguerite had only nice things to say about Sydney. What can I say, she rocks! Anyway, Miss Marguerite had a list of things about Sydney:

Miss Marguerite went through the list with us, telling us how great Sydney is. Every time she would move to a new point on the list, she would say something like "Oh yes, Sydney is doing GREAT with that too" and I would look over at Sydney, who was just beaming from ear to ear with pride. It was so super cute. Anyway, as you can see from the list, she is clearly the best student in preschool and she will surely excel in kindergarten as well. So proud of her!

Purplicious and the 100th day of school

After reading the book Purplicious last night, Sydney decided to dress up as Purplicious for school today. Oh so cute! She wore her purple dress, white tights, 2 braids in her hair, with pink bows at the bottom, and after consulting the book, black shoes. She was adorable.

Today was also Briana's 100th day of school. Briana took in 100 rubber bands and 100 gummi bears to make a snack mix with. She was so excited about this day! She woke up at 6:30 this morning (sigh..) because she was too excited to sleep anymore. And I got to go in and help on the 100th day, which she was very very excited about.