Some Christmas Pics/December 2010

Kindergarten Conferences

Our little girl is now well underway in kindergarten! It is flying by. Tonight we had conferences with her teacher. Overall Kaya is doing awesome! I could not be more proud.

Among the things we were told:

She is very smart and is not afraid to push herself.

She recognizes all of her letters in both capital and lowercase, but occasionally messes up lowercase b's and d's still.

She is writing all of her letters. And lots of words.

She counts and writes over 110. Can count by 2's, and 5's, and 10's to 100.

She recognizes 16 of the 25 sight words she needs to know by the end of the year, and is writing them too. She has the other ones as her daily spelling words now, so will know them in no time!

She is past the pre-emergent level of reading, and is already in emergent which is where she should be at the end of this year. She does not doubt Kaya will be beyond this level soon.

They do daily topic books, which we got to look at tonight for the 1st time. I love that! :) Anyway, Kaya is doing awesome with it! One of the teachers, her main teacher, pushes her a little harder I think. A lot of the kids copy the example the teacher gives to write about everyday, but the one teacher encourages Kaya to make her own idea because she knows Kaya can do it.

She aced the tests on shapes, sizes, opposites, rhyming, etc. 100% on all of them.

We were told she is one of her highest assessing kindergartners right now in every subject and that she is working with the 1st graders daily.

So... moral of that is, academically Kaya is soaring! We are just thrilled about it too!

Now... the rest of the moral...

With her smarts, came her quirks too. As all of us have 'em right?!

We were told:

She interrupts constantly while the teacher is trying to give directions. She actually used the words: rude and disrespectful. She says that is what she tells Kaya when she interrupts. More power to her I guess!

She also said that Kaya is bossy to her friends. Not mean, but bossy.

On the same lines of interrupting, Kaya likes to talk. We all know that! It is all she does. Well, it's at school too! To the point where the teacher told us that kids tell her she talks too much and to be quiet. Poor girl gets yelled at from all directions, all day long, from the sounds of it! :(

So, I guess if that's the worst she can tell us I am thrilled! She might have a mouth on her, but she's got a head on her too. :) I am so proud to be her momma and would take her any way she came. We love her to pieces and could not imagine her any other way. We now have some things to re-talk about and work on, and we also know where to push her to keep soaring! And, I sure hope she figures out soon how to be a good friend and quit bossing people around. That really makes me sad. I want my girl to have some friends. :( I guess if not, I will certainly be her best friend for life! Amen to that!

And some of my favorite pics from her 5 year photo session:

My Kindergartner!!

Kaya had an awesome first day of kindergarten! She loved it, and her teachers said she did great! There were no tears at all. :)

Kaya and her friend Kaleb are in the same class this year.
My little ham ready to leave the house this morning!

Well, it is official... she will never have another first day of kindergarten EVER!

My baby is off to Kindergarten in the morning!

Oh how time flies...
I can hardly fathom that Kaya is off to kindergarten. The thought of it brings so much joy and excitement, but also a very heavy heart for me. She is my baby. I want her to always be my baby. I know that she will in her own ways, and throughout all stages of life, but this just makes it oh so real to me that my "little" baby girl is VERY grown up! It is incredible watching her grow, and learn, and become this absolutely amazing little girl. The joy she brings to me each and every day is unfathomable to me. I know love. I have an incredible husband, family, and group of friends whom I love with all of my heart! I know that I know love. I never knew the type of love that I feel for Kaya could even exist though. It is beyond the realms of the love I knew before. Being a mother is amazing! It is the absolute most special treasure I have ever been given a chance to hold in my hands. I love that girl immensely and am about to venture into a whole new phase of life with her. I am nervous, yet excited and together we are going to get through it all! She is not nervous at all. I am WAY more anxious about it all than she is. I am pretty sure the adjustment for her is just no big thing. She is always up for anything, and is not shy in the slightest bit, so I guess Miss Independent just thinks she can conquer anything. So... off she goes! Her lunch and backpack are ready to go. School is 8:10-3:15. I am dropping her off and picking her up tomorrow, but after that she will be at before and after school care right in the basement of her school. Big changes await, and we are as ready as we are going to be!
So, to all you fellow friends with school starting this week for your family also, best of luck to all of you! There is a quote from a book I recently read called "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin that reads... "The days are long, but the years are short!" Ain't that the truth my friends!

Update from crazy land!

Hello! Life has been crazy and hectic around here for us lately. We are trying to get our house on the market in the next couple weeks. I have been doing tons of organizing, selling, throwing away things, giving away things, fixing things, packing, and the list goes on. I have my handy man on his toes too! Painting, fixing, moving, hauling, listening to my bitch and complain, and his list goes on too. We are practically giving our house away and are actually going to be short atleast $10,000 plus the cost of the realtor on top of that. So, we will actually be paying for this house for a loooong time down the road even when we are not living here. Doesn't that sound awesome?! If you know anyone looking in the Wyoming area, please send them our way. Also, if you have a long lost distant relative with money can you send them our way too?? Kidding, but I am seriously super stressed about it all. We DO NOT want to be in this house for 10 more years, we are told Wyoming is at the bottom of the market. Worse than inner city GR, due to the fact that the taxes are so stinkin' high here. Waiting any longer here our house is just losing more and more value. If someone is willing to stay here for 10 years I am sure the value and market are going to turn around eventually, but we do not want to be here long enough to see that. Anyway... our house looks awesome! Better than it has the whole time we have lived here I think. :) Funny how that works isn't it!? There are a couple things on the list for this weekend to get finished up, but then hopefully it is what it is and we are not putting any more money into this house. Hopefully a sign will be in the yard very soon!
On a different note- My girl starts Kindergarten in 2 1/2 weeks! It is truly unfathomable to me. She is growing way too fast for me! And of course, as always, she is usually one step ahead of the game. She thinks she has it all figured out already. I am afraid she is in for a huge awakening. She does have to get shots next week too, in order to go to school, and she is NOT excited about them at all. Her friends have told her that they had to get 4 shots, and she is not okay with that number at all. So, soon enough, my little 4 year old is headed to full day kindergarten. :(
I had applied for a supervisor position at work, and unfortunately did not get the job. But, I did request my interview scores, and I actually scored awesome! They had some very nice things to say about me, and I hope that I am in line for a chance again real soon. There is talk of an early retirement going through this fall, which would clear a lot of our employees right on out of there. I do realize also, that I am quite young and have a looooong number of working years left in my life and I know my time will come to shine. Some day.
The place Jer has been working for most of the year is still providing him with work up until this point, so we continue to be happy with that getting us by. The lack of income on paper is not great for us trying to find a house in the near future, but fortunately I can qualify for a loan based on my income alone. So... if he keeps him busy, he keeps taking the hours.
Not much else really going on with us. We hope everyone is great! I pray once things settle down a little I can take some time to catch up on pics, and actually start taking more again too! So... praying things settle down for us soon, and that someone falls in love with our house and is willing to pay what we need for it.
Love From Us to You!
-Megan

Hi Friends!

We are alive and well. My computer has been broken for weeks, so I am way behind on pics! Sorry. We are all good though, nothing too exciting going on. We have been busy, and gone almost every weekend the past few weeks. Busy is good I guess, but it is hard keeping up on household chores, laundry, etc when you are not around. :)
We added a baby kitten to our family, and I am happy to say that the Sterk Family is now officially complete. He is black and his name is Midnight. kaya is in love with him!
Jer and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary this past weekend. The time has flown by! Kaya went up north to Big Star with Jer's parents for the whole weekend without us! That was the longest she has ever been away from us. She had an awesome time, and wants to leave us again! They said she did awesome, so i was a proud mama. We can't thank them enough for all they do for us! We had some down time, sleeping in, some chores got done, and we had a nice dinner together. We also went to good ole Johnson Park where we got married and took a walk. We were very thankful that 6 years ago the park did not look that crappy! It really, really looks bad. The upkeep is not being done unfortunately. We all had a great weekend!
Hope every one of my readers is doing well! I am very sorry my blog is slacking so much lately.
Love,
Megan

We are alive!

Okay, so I know that I am a total slacker. It's part of me, so most of you are used to it! Anyway, we are here, and things are going just fine with us. Nothing super exciting to update you on, just letting everyone know we are still kicking. Kaya is super excited for kindergarden in the fall. We are also excited, but nervous and in denial as well. Her school is a charter and has full day kindergarden. It also has combined grades, so K and 1st are in the same classroom, 2nd and 3rd, and then 4th and 5th. Therefore she will be there for hot lunch, etc, etc, etc... all the things I can not imagine my baby being old enough to do! It freaks me right out. She will be at before and after school care right at her school, so we are hoping that is going to be a perfect fit for our family. Changes coming our way very quickly in that department. Yikes!
Otherwise, my job is going well. I got a new position in February, and am finally getting settled into it. I enjoy it a lot. My whole caseload is now made up of only people who are casemanaged by a local mental health agency. All of my new applications are coming straight from inpatient mental health stays. It is definately interesting at times, but it is very gratifying advocating for and providing services and resources to these people who need my assistance. This population of clients is completely different than my previous caseload and I am enjoying the change a lot.
Jer is still working here and there, and making ends meet. He works quite regularly for a Custom Woodworking shop, but they have not officially hired him in yet. They are not quite steady enough to call him an official employee I guess. They are giving him quite a bit of work though which is nice. He also still has the job fixing fitness equipment and game tables. That is oncall status only though, but pays off at times. We frequently have a mower, motorcycle, jet ski, or some other random item in our garage being fixed too. Thank goodness we have friends who need his skills! :)
I guess that is us in a nutshell. I am going to Jimmy Buffet in 2 weeks, and Blissfest is in 4 weeks, so summer plans are coming up! yeah! Also, I bought myself a new camera! I love it, but have no idea still how to use it very well. I am learning, but wish I knew someone who was willing to work with me for not much money and teach me some things. I am looking into online classes, but unless we win the lottery there is no college in my future. So... If you win the lottery, keep me in mind! :) If you are reading this I love you to pieces and hope life is going great! I am going to try to do better at updating!

Goodbye preschool...

It is hard for me to believe that time has gone this fast. My girl graduated from preschool today, and starts kindergarden in 3 months. I am afraid these 3 months are going to go by way too fast! She is so excited to go to her "big girl" school in the fall. We got to visit there again this week, and we picked what teacher and room we want her in. So, it is official!

At her graduation they sang 6 songs for us. It was so cute! Kaya is a singer, and loves to be the star, so it was just her thing. She was right on cue, not missing a beat. These days are sure precious!

Her with her teachers, Ms. Perla and Ms. Nicole.
Kaya and mommy.
My girl in her room.
Kaya and her friend Charlie. So cute!

Here is one of the songs they sang for us on video. I love it, and hope you do too!

Happy 4th Birthday Kaya!

It is so hard to imagine that my baby is 4 today! It has gone way too fast. She had a fun filled day today. She asked everyone for a mermaid for the bathtub. This is what she wanted, and finally got! It was by far one of her favorite gifts.

So proud of her new Ariel.
Mommy and Kaya. Oh the memories of 4 years ago today...

Daddy and Kaya on the carousel at the mall.
My poor baby got her ears pierced for her birthday. Here is the fresh picture of the aftermath...
Grandma Sterk got 2nd holes put in her ears too, so the two of them are showing them off for us. They even got matching stickers. The crying honestly only lasted a minute. She was fine after the initial shock wore off.
After that ordeal we went to Build A Bear. It was her 1st time there. She had a good time.
She picked out a bear, and here she is making a wish on his heart before she stuffs it in him.The finished product, and now 2 stickers!
And here is one proud 4 year old showing off her earrings. Happy Birthday my beautiful Kaya Raine!

Field Trip to Robinette's

I got to go along with Kaya on her field trip to the apple orchard. I even got to ride the bus with them. It was so much fun! I got to be the chaperone for Kaya and Mackenzye. I loved this big apple even when I was a girl!

My girl in her blue hood listening to Mrs. Robinette talk about the apples.

Throwing her apple in the machine to make cider.

Mommy and Kaya on the bus on the way back to school.

Mommy-Daughter Day Out.

I took Kaya to her very first movie at the theatre today. We saw Aliens in the Attic. At first she was all excited about the movie, and especially the popcorn and slush, but then she said she was scared and wanted to leave. Eventhough we bailed out early we still had a fun day together.

The blue slush ended up getting poured down into my couch when we got home too..

First Day of Preschool.

Today is the first official day of preschool, although Kay moved up to this new room a couple weeks ago. She was so excited to bring her backpack to school! It is amazing how the small things bring such delight to children.

I think it is so funny how big her backpack is on her!
I am really having a hard time with the fact that she is already in preschool. I can not fathom where the time has gone. She is such a big girl now, and growing so fast still. She learns something new everyday, and just absolutely amazes me.

Friends.

Kaya loves playing with Ani. Ani is Jeremy's friend Mark's daughter. She is a year older than Kaya so Kaya thinks she is awesome!

Last weekend of the year at Big Star...

Our car rolled 50,000 miles on it on our way up to the lake.

The water was pretty cold for my liking, but Kaya was in it a lot this weekend.
She even swam out to the swim dock again with Auntie Karen.
Watching the sun set on the dock with Grandpa.
Shucking some corn for dinner with Grandma.
Napping with Daddy. So cute to me.

Awww.
Grandpa was doing his exercises and Kaya had to join in. Luckily I had my camera handy!

We had yet another great summer with the Sterk's up at Big Star. We just love getting away and spending some quality time together as a family. We appreciate that they allow us to come take over their place so often.

Time for the Hudsonville Fair!

Kaya absolutely loves going to the fair. It is one of those things that she brings up throughout the year asking when it is going to be. The Sutter's came again too, so she had someone to ride the rides with. Going on a helicopter ride. Last year she cried on the rides, this year she loved the rides!Her favorite ride has always been the carousel though. Watching the moto-cross races.