Artgarden Montessori Open House & After

Here are Leia Rose and Mrs. McDowell at the Artgarden Montessori Open House today! Her first accomplishment was to write "Leia Rose" on her name tag. (You can see it better in the later Panera picture.) And she was very proud of herself for writing the "s" in Rose (her hardest letter). Everyone was so happy to see Leia Rose today, . . . and she wasted no time telling Mrs. Schnell that she could finally read! Turns out that the slippers of choice this year are crocs, . . . so we'll see how long Leia's sparkly ballet shoes last.

And, of course, after visiting for a while, . . . Leia Rose sped right to the Animal Mammas and Babies work. (It's always been one of her favorites!) She sorted them all, and then listened while Mrs. McDowell explained the ones that were from Africa (where she spent the summer).

Another interesting thing about today was Leia's choice of picture. The children were supposed to bring in one picture of the family (the one I took a few days back) and one of themselves to put on a special laminated card to reserve works they were working on during circle time. I had a plethora of ones for her to choose from, but Leia immediately said, "I want my card from last year, please." Amazingly enough, I had saved it in her school folder, so we just got it out and brought it back to school, saving everyone a bit of work, I guess. I was surprised because I thought Leia would consider herself the "big kid" this year and want a "big kid" picture. But really she was so sentimental about her card last year that she just wanted it again. I wonder if it will be hard for Leia Rose to leave Artgarden for Saint Thomas More in the future. We'll see.

After the open house, we all went to Panera Bread together for lunch. You can see Leia's name tag really well here.

It was so nice for Daddy to take off work at lunch today just to attend Leia's open house!

Annie was with us at Panera too, of course. The great thing was, . . . I didn't bring anything for her at all! She just ate what I ate and drank what I drank! So adaptable! And I thought I would record this as well: Annie sitting in her special seat. We always look for a long booth with a wall at the side so that we can put Annie right on the table and so she can't push back with her feet. It works so well, and we always get compliments on the setup!

And after she finished her lunch (and my water), she had fun biting on the cup for a while (until she destroyed it, that is). : ) Can you believe Mrs. Schnell noticed that Annie was getting her molars?!? A very observant lady!