OHHHHH-klahoma!

*Disclaimer: If you are not a fan of old musicals, that title won't be amusing and may seem slightly inappropriate. Sorry about that. ;-)

We spent last weekend in Broken Bow, OK with some of our best friends and had a wonderful time. The weekend had ups and downs (because we were surrounded by young children! HA!) but overall, it was absolutely wonderful and I can't wait to do it again! Colin loves his best friends so much and getting to spend a whole weekend with them was such a blessing. Colin is a very lucky little boy and I still pinch myself over the fact that I have such wonderful people in my life!

Things started out rather...well...disastrous. We were scheduled to leave our house at 10am on Friday morning so that we could make the 4 hour trip and also stop for lunch along the way. Jer and I woke up and started off with a bang, getting everything loaded and ready to go. However, the morning had an excited energy to it and we were clearly about to do something major...and upsetting Colin's routine never goes well. He started acting nervous, fidgeting and refusing to take his pj's off. Suddenly he didn't want breakfast, didn't want to get in the car and basically started shutting down. We tried everything to get him into the car, but by the end, he was completely naked (from me holding him down and stripping him) and screaming and flailing on the floor. He was yelling that he didn't want to go and wanted to stay home with Enzo. It was insane. We finally had to go back into the house and drop it all together. We were at our breaking points, so we all scattered and tried to regroup. After about 30 more minutes of watching TV and waiting, he calmed down enough to get his clothes on and get in the car. It was a brutal morning that had us on edge from the beginning. We had to stop about an hour in for lunch and Colin was hanging on by a thread at this point...we took him to McDonald's to eat and play and got back on the road as soon as possible. THEN, he started crying and chanting from the backseat that he wanted to go home. This continued on and off for the remaining 3 hours of the trip. It was just brutal. I was close to a panic attack but I knew that if we got him there, he would be happy....and he WAS! The second we pulled into the cabins and he saw his friends he started yelling out their names and I couldn't get him out of the car fast enough! THANK GOD! Jer and I opened beers immediately and started to feel better ourselves. Gracious! Anyway, the cabins were stunning and we had a set-up with 3 cabins together on 2 acres of land that shared a fire pit and playgrounds. Two of the cabins had big hot tubs and they were all BEAUTIFUL homes! My amazing friend Kimberly set this whole weekend up and she could not have done a better job. It was like a fall dream come true! I am so glad that we stayed the course and went on to the cabin, despite our rough trek out there. It ended up being awesome!


One of the families arrived very late after spending several hours on the road with a sick child. They thought it was car sickness, but the next morning another one of the boys woke up vomiting. They are in the same preschool class, so we all knew immediately that they picked up a virus at school. That part was so unfortunate!! Luckily nobody else got sick, but it put a damper on the fun for sure. I felt so badly for my friends! Despite the illness, the weekend was a major success. On both nights, we all put the kids to bed and gathered outside around the giant fire pit to share wine, laughs and great food. We spent the day time watching the kiddos play together. Colin was beside himself to wake up with all of his best friends right there with him. I hope this will end up being a yearly tradition!! FANTASTIC!

Here are some of the billions of pictures, though not in order at all!

Pierce, Colin and Kimberly on our first night. Such a beautiful setting!



Our little family on Saturday afternoon. We were at Beavers Bend State Park.
Ryan, Greyson and Colin on Sunday morning. The boys all had SO much fun!
My two handsome boys!
Jer took these two...I love it!

Colin playing in the water at Beavers Bend...he loved that the water was so clear and he could wade in it. I got so many sweet pictures! This was such a beautiful place!

A Wonderful Visit from Nana and Papa!

October has gone by just a little too fast for my taste! Here we are on October 19th and Halloween is right around the corner. We have been so incredibly busy and I feel like I looked up and the month was over! Jer's parents from PA were here for the first week of October and then last weekend we made a family trip to Broken Bow, Oklahoma with lots of our friends. Between visitors, trips and trip preparation, I have gotten extremely behind on the blog...even more so than usual!

The visit from Jer's parents was absolutely wonderful and we miss them so much already. It was a leisurely visit with nothing major planned and a lot of time spent just hanging out (which is my favorite kind of visit!). We all went to the State Fair of Texas while they were here and I managed to throw every pretense of a diet out the window while consuming fried Frito pie, fried Snickers, and corn dogs. Oh, how I love my wonderful state! :-) Colin played his first fair game and won a giant neon green stuffed dog. He was SO excited when he won and it was so adorable. His favorite parts were the same as last year, the petting zoo and the Little Hands Farm. He asked to ride one of the small rides for little ones and that ended up being a disaster of gigantic proportion! We strapped him in, but could not ride with him, so he started screaming when the ride started up. There was absolutely nothing we could do and had to watch helplessly while he cried and begged us to stop it. I actually laughed over it...talk about your bad mommy decisions! I knew better than that! ;-) He was fine once the ride was over, but I would imagine that I set us back a few years as far as getting him to ride other things! Oops! We also had a big afternoon trip to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, which was beautiful, and ate a ton of good food over the week. Brenda (Jer's step-mom) literally kicked us out of the house that Thursday night so that we could have a date night. I don't remember the last time that I actually went out with Jer after dark! It was great! We had a peaceful dinner together at Mi Cocina and then had drinks and dessert at The Cheesecake Factory. It was so wonderful!! Brenda and Dean (Jer's dad) spent a great night with Colin and were actually making fun of us for getting home so early! 10:00pm was plenty late for this old girl! ;-)

Here we are on date night...please note how classy we are while our son poses with us almost naked. ;-)
Loving some corn dogs at the fair with Nana and Papa!

Dean takes great pictures...I love this one that he caught of us at the gardens.

By the grace of God, we didn't fall in. ;-)

Dean, Jer, Brenda and Colin feeding the fish

My Little Trouper

*I just realized that I never published this post, despite the fact that I wrote it 10 days ago. So here it is!

Oh, hello October 10th! You certainly came out of nowhere! Once again, I am totally and utterly behind on my blog. I swore, SWORE, to myself that I would not post less than once a week at the absolute minimum...and here we are like 3 weeks later. I hate my "recap" style posts. I am going to be a better poster in 2011. New Years Resolution, baby! :-)

Let's talk preschool! Colin is doing AMAZING. It took exactly one month, but a couple of weeks ago, he turned the corner and started walking into his classroom on his own. Without crying. I felt like (and continue to feel like) a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and sunshine and joy rained down around me. Now, things are not perfect...he still tells me that he doesn't like school and still has a very hard time getting dressed and actually leaving the house. However, he adores Miss Gina and Miss Kelli and talks about them like they are saints. God knew what I needed this year and he truly blessed us with those teachers. When Colin sees them, the tears go away and he literally runs into their arms. After 5 weeks of twice weekly classes, Colin still has not gotten a bad report. Every day that I pick him up, they tell me how wonderful he was and what a joy he is to be around. I feel happy in the depths of my soul over this! Colin is working on learning that he can miss me and have fun at the same time. You can literally see him battling with this concept. He still does not like to share details with me about his days at school and the information that I do get, such as talk of his "best friend Clark" and the songs he sings, come at random times when I am not asking about it. He seems to think it is important that I know how sad it makes him to leave me and that sharing happy stories about school will somehow diminish that. He is only 3, but his thought processes sometimes make me think he is 40. :-) The bottom line is that Colin is making such amazing progress and I am thrilled beyond measure about it!

A Weekend with the Girls!

Let's talk about THE BEST WEEKEND in the whole world! My wonderful friend Eren invited a group of us to spend the weekend at her in-laws lake house. It was not quite 2 hours away and it ended up being a much needed respite from life! The husbands stayed home with the kids and we stayed there on Friday and Saturday night and came home on Sunday. This was my very first time away from home without Colin and while I missed him terribly, it felt amazing to be child-free with my girlfriends!

We all arrived on Friday night and proceeded to drink a few bottles of wine and gossip about everything under the sun, most of which was unsuitable for children. HA! We all went to bed after 2am, which is absolutely unthinkable! I still can't believe we did that! We woke up on Saturday morning and proceeded to do absolutely nothing. It was HEAVEN. We made coffee and took it out to the huge back deck overlooking the lake. We sat around in rocking chairs and talked and basked in the breeze through the trees. Kayrene made a delicious breakfast casserole (one of my favorite things in the world), which went a long way with soaking up the full bottle of wine in my stomach from the night before. ;-) We spent a couple of hours inside the house, and I had one of my own little internal moments that made me smile. At one point, Hannah was sitting on the floor with all of her nail polish supplies and began giving herself a manicure. The other girls were scattered on various couches and chairs and we were all still in our pj's. I was nursing my 3rd cup of coffee and we were cracking each other up with the most hysterical stories. It took me right back to high school and for an instant, I was 17 years old again. It reminded me of the days when we had no responsibilities and all of my time was spent holed up at a friends house, doing our nails and waiting to get ready for a night out. These were the days before careers and families and even husbands. That morning, I was just a girl sitting around with her friends with absolutely nowhere to be. It was beyond wonderful and I think it gave me back a little piece of myself.

Hannah brought AWESOME BBQ chicken sandwiches and pesto pasta salad for lunch and we continued our weekend of delicious food. I loved her pulled BBQ chicken so much that I just made it for dinner last night after stealing the recipe! :-) After lunch, we slipped into our bathing suits and headed back outside to sit in the sun. We all pulled our chairs around on the deck and turned a long chaise into a group footrest. Shelly brought a giant stack of magazines and we passed them around and began sharing more stories and pointing things out from our educational reading. HA! We took a few silly pictures with the timer set on my camera and then made a round of cocktails. Hannah brought a game that really just consisted of a deck of cards with all kinds of revealing questions that we all had to answer. I found out so much about my friends...in a good way! :-) We started to notice that the sun was beginning to set! We had spent all day together without even thinking about getting dressed! I can't explain how wonderful that was! We all took showers and primped for our dinner out at Jalapeno Tree and managed to make it there by around 8, although I can't be totally sure on the time, since I rarely looked at a watch! After a great dinner and margarita's, we came back home and took a series of quite possibly the funniest pictures of all time before changing back into pj's. It did not take long to settle back down in the middle of the living room with cocktails, birthday cake for Eren and an awesome game called "Apples to Apples". In this game, one person turns over a card with a word on it like "Adorable" and then the other players draw 7 cards. You have to play whatever card you think fits the word that was played. The person who is "it" turns over all the players cards and then decides which one they think best fits. It did not sound that exciting, but it ended up being HYSTERICAL and one of my favorite memories of the weekend! You would have to play a card, even if none of yours worked in the situation and it made for some sidesplitting moments! Eren was serious about winning, which had me in stitches from the very start and Shelly was killing me! Every time someone would get ready to judge the cards, she would say, "Okay, now before you turn those cards over, I want you to think about...." and then try to explain her choice, despite the fact that you are not supposed to know who played what card! Oh my lord, I was rolling with laughter. It didn't hurt that we were drinking wine again. ;-) At one point, the card was something like "Funny" and I think Shelly played "Custer's Last Stand". It was HI-larious! You probably had to be there. LOL!

We all drove home on Sunday morning, but made Eren promise that we could do it again ASAP! I am SO GLAD that I was invited and I definitely made memories that will last for a LONG time! What a perfect girls weekend with the best friends a girl could ask for!

Here we are after dinner...Shelly makes up the funniest poses ever and we try to reenact them...with mixed results. What the hell am I doing? Rachel and I are totally lost, clearly. And Shelly just cracks me up in this one!

Outside on the deck...looking super hot! ;-)



Is that a good day or what?!? :-)

Updates from a Busy Week!

Well, life is just moving right along in our little household. As of right now, Colin is at school and completing his second week. He is doing pretty darn good, all things considered. On Tuesday, we made it all the way to the classroom before he started screaming and crying, which was a big improvement. He still had to be pulled off me by the teachers and the same went for today. Today was a little worse, as he went back to refusing to walk into the building and burst into tears in the parking lot. This is so hard for me, as it would be for any mother. We are just not designed to ignore a child who is crying and begging you to comfort him. It is the worst feeling in the world! It should be noted, however, that in the time it took me to put his folder in the bin and sit his backpack and lunch box in their places, he was already over it. I was in the hall for 10 seconds before he stopped crying inside. (he can't see me in the hallway) That is good news...now, if he could just give his mommy a break and stop shattering my heart at every drop-off! ;-)


Colin did finally manage to share some details about school, which was adorable. He sang us a new song over dinner on Tuesday night, which started with "R-E-D red, R-E-D red, I can spell red" and went on about spelling and what objects are red. I was blown away and so proud! This week they are learning about grandparents, the color red, the letter A and the number 1. The teachers wrote in his folder that he is happy and fun all day and that he is a joy. YEA! When he got home, he had woodchips from the playground in his pull-up. I asked him about that and he launched into this story, word for word: "I was throwing woodchips on the playground. Miss Kelli said don't do that, but I did it again. She said Colin, that was the wrong choice. I felt bad, so I sang the clean up song and cleaned the woodchips so that Miss Kelli would not be mad at me. She said that was a good choice and she is not mad at me, either!" Now, how stinking cute is that?!? I just wish I could be a fly on the wall for all of this! He also informed me that he loves "Alexandra and Makenna" and that they let him rescue them on his pretend firetruck and like to play hide-n-seek. Also, Alexandra has "hair like a princess" and "they are my best girls". Good heavens!! I was not expecting two girlfriends by day 3 of preschool! ;-) It brings me so much joy hearing these happy things about school and I love that he is clearly learning a lot from this experience already.

I can't leave out the details from last weekend...my precious niece Pryce celebrated her 1st birthday! ALREADY! Colin and I went to Tyler for the weekend and had a wonderful time. The party was at Mert's house and it was just family. Meredith made THE. BEST. COOKIES. EVER. and I ate 94 of them. Diet be damned. Colin was overjoyed to be with his cousins and spent the whole time following Jackson around and hugging Pryce. On Saturday night, the whole family went to Bruno's (our favorite Italian place) and despite not having a nap and a huge day, Colin was great. This is because he got to sit next to Jackson and feed Pryce crackers. He was in heaven! We all went out for frozen yogurt afterwards and Uncle Cory alternated throwing Jackson and Colin in the air and over his shoulder until they were literally losing their minds with all the fun. It was a great time. After Colin went to bed, I stayed up WAY too late with my mom and sister Alieson watching fashion week on QVC. It was so much fun...we spent 2 hours talking about clothes. :-) Sunday was full of more food and fun and a Cowboys game that I will not even DISCUSS because I am scarred for life from it. On Monday, Colin and I headed for home, but not until we had lunch with my mom at The Potpourri House and stocked up on my favorite candles. It was the perfect trip home! HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best niece in the whole world! :-) Here are a few of the pictures...


The birthday girl, Miss Pryce Lucille! How cute is she?! That bow stayed on for 30 seconds. ;-)

Colin and Duke...he loves my daddy!!

Colin giving Pryce her 200th hug of the day...he LOVES HER SO MUCH!

Posing with my sisters...I am going to post about the story behind this silly pose very soon!

Sweet cousins!

Jackson and Colin getting ready to sing "Happy Birthday" to Pryce.

Last, but not least...Colin spent some time at my mom's office. He LOVED it because she had treats for her students...including that jump rope! :-)

Two Days Down...

Day two is over and we SURVIVED THE FIRST WEEK! WHEW!! I am so glad to have that under our belts now! I also want to thank all of you for your comments, both here and on facebook...it has helped SO MUCH to have such good friends that I can lean on!

I won't sugarcoat it, this morning was horrible. Colin started digging in his heels the minute he woke up. He wouldn't even get dressed. I finally had to physically restrain him to get clothes on and then he wouldn't get in the car. He even started arching his back and screaming so that I couldn't buckle his car seat. I was sweating bullets by this point! I had to drag him out of the car and into the school and then he literally attached himself to my body. When we rounded the corner to his classroom, he really started putting on the big show! He was screaming like you have never heard with tears and his nose pouring all over the place. I thought he would surely lose his voice. I tried to pluck him off of me, which ended with him pulling my shirt almost completely off. It was crazy! His teachers had to help me and they physically extracted him from my body, which is when I made a mad dash for the car. It was brutal, but I was prepared for it. Despite the horrible beginning, I still did not get a phone call from the school. I am already getting the picture...Colin pulls it together immediately after I leave. If there was any real problem, I know that they would call me.

While Colin was at school, I went to the dentist. For the first time since he was born, I actually made my appointment the first time without having to reschedule over and over. That is a beautiful thing! I also ran some errands, which felt like heaven on earth. It is amazing how much you appreciate going to Target without a child in tow...it was so great! I came home and even managed to pick up the house! I actually ran the vacuum without having to find Colin's noise blocking head phones first! It was great to be able to get some things done. At 2pm, I went back to get the little man and it went really good. Ms. Kelli said that he was "perfect" today and had absolutely no problems. He even brought home his very first piece of artwork for the fridge! I got a little teary over that one! :-) When I got there, she was weighing him for their stat sheet and before he saw me, Ms. Kelli was holding him in her arms and he was very happy to be there. That brought me more peace than you can imagine. Colin is not quick to let anyone touch him, so to see him that comfortable being loved on by her was a dream come true. She pulled me aside and told me that she loves that he already chants "Miss Kelli!!" over and over when he wants her. She said that he is the only child in the classroom already calling her by name. I am not really shocked by that. haha! She also said, "There is just something about him...I can already tell that he is going to be one of my most special favorites. He just melts me!" How great is that?!?!? I almost kissed her! Now, Colin still told me the whole way home that he does not like school and that they did nothing fun and that he did not have a favorite part of his day because he does not like school at all. That is a direct quote. BUT, there is no way that Colin's teacher is already being "melted" by him unless he is having fun and being his usual sweet self. So I don't believe a word he is saying. ;-) When we first left, I offered to take him for ice cream. He yelled "NO" and sulked in the backseat...but then when we started to pass Blue Cherry, he changed his tune and said he wanted to go. The next thing you know, we are having ice cream together and he is laughing and having fun. So, I consider today a success!

I am absolutely going to start keeping Colin on more of a schedule. That is a great idea (thanks, Shannon!) and I know it will help. He is going to start getting up and dressed every day first thing, even if we don't have anywhere to be. I should have been doing that for a long time, since he thrives on routines. I am also going to get a big calendar over the weekend for him so that I can label the days and what we are doing during the week. It will help him to have a visual of what is going to happen next and that way he knows what to expect. He will be able to see when he has school and when he is home with Mommy and hopefully that will help him with the transitions. We have a long road ahead of us, but I feel good about it. We are going to make it! :-)

The First Day!

Well, we did it. Colin went to preschool. I still cannot believe it. This whole day has felt like a strange dream! It has been a VERY BIZARRE DAY!

The morning started out crazy, of course. First of all, the first bands of the hurricane moved through and we had a torrential downpour. Second, Colin slept until almost 8:00am. Seriously. The child has NEVER ONCE slept that late. He wakes up between 6 and 6:30. ALWAYS. He could stay up until midnight and wake up at 6am. However, on the first day of school in his whole life, he decides to sleep in. I had to laugh. :-) I went ahead and got up and dressed and made his sandwich before he woke up. Everything was already packed and ready to go, but Colin is a slow mover, so I knew we were going to run behind. He ate a bite of yogurt and banana and then I managed to get him dressed, despite him telling me that he did not want to go. He knew the second he woke up that today was the day and he was nervous for sure. He refused to hold his backpack or even take a picture. He did pack up Peanut and Bear Bear inside his backpack to take with him, which I think helped him feel a bit better. We had promised him that we would have breakfast at the donut shop on the way to school, but it was POURING down rain...to the point that it was coming down sideways! I attempted to suggest that we wait on the donuts, but he immediately flipped out. I ended up running inside the shop and buying him a single chocolate donut to eat in the car. That was not exactly what he had in mind, but it appeased him and kept him calm on the way there. I was soaked down to my bra at this point...awesome. We got to school and went inside and while he was still refusing to be photographed, he did seem to get a little bit excited. Jer was able to go with us and we walked back to Colin's classroom together. When we got there, he ran right inside and seemed to be thrilled at first. That made me feel better; I am glad he really seems to like the room a lot. Everyone has to wash their hands when they first arrive and Colin started to head back with Ms. Gina, until he realized that we were then going to leave. He put up a serious fight at this point. I had to walk into the classroom to get him to wash his hands (which must be done for health code purposes) and he was getting really worked up at this point. As we washed hands he began begging me not to leave him there. I thought I was going to absolutely die. "Please, Mommy! PLEASE!"...it was just as horrible as I thought it would be. UGH! The teacher tried to get his attention with all kinds of cool things, but he just kept yelling "NO!" at her and asking me not to leave. I finally had to just make a run for it, so I said goodbye and walked out. Ms. Kelly had to shut the door to keep him from running after me. I almost ran to the car. There were parents everywhere in the hallways and I felt everything closing in on me. It was not my best moment. This whole scene took less than 5 minutes...I did take their advice and just left instead of lingering. The only way I could do it was to take off running for the car. I cried my eyes out, of course, but once we got home I started to slowly pull it together. I watched the phone for the first two hours just knowing they would have to call me, but nothing happened. I emptied the dishwasher, put up toys and cleaned the living room. I kept myself moving as much as possible...it was SO strange to be in an utterly silent house. I finally sat down on the couch and informed Jer that it was the strangest moment of all time. Once the first couple of hours passed, I finally started to calm down. I took a shower and got dressed. Jer and I went to lunch together, just the two of us! That part was wonderful. He even took me to look at the kittens at PetsMart afterwards. :-) I realized that the day was almost done and the teachers had never called me...Colin was going to make it!

We headed back to pick Colin up at 2pm. The rain is still falling in sheets, but this time I remembered my rain boots. ;-) I was a nervous wreck walking back to the classroom...I could barely hear over my own heartbeat! We rounded the corner and Ms. Kelly spotted us. She said, "Colin! Look who is here!" We peeked in the half-door and there was Colin, sitting with several boys and playing with a puzzle toy. He was clearly LOVING this toy, because he looked up at me and smiled...but KEPT PLAYING! He didn't even get up! I was close to hysterical laughing at this point, the kind of laughter that can only come from a woman about to lose her ever loving mind. ;-) He seriously would NOT leave. He even told me that he did not want to go! Unreal. This allowed me to talk to his teacher for a bit. I found out that he had been very good, but had also behaved very true to form. He did not want to sit in a circle with the other kids for "circle time" and also did not want to sit down with the other kids at the table for a snack or lunch. He apparently also had a pretty big meltdown when Ms. Gina asked if he wanted to use the potty. Yeah...potty training will be taking a back seat for just a bit, I think. He got upset a few times over where I was, but managed to shake it off. The other good news is that even though it took some time and energy, the teachers did manage to get Colin to do what he was supposed to. They got him to sit in the circle and also got him to sit down at the table during lunch. Now, I don't know how long he actually sat, but he did eventually do it. That is great news! I think it shows a lot of promise that he stayed all day long without completely freaking out. That was all I could hope for from his first day!

We finally managed to get him to leave the class and it was quickly evident that he was mad at me. I don't know why, but I had not thought of this turn of events ahead of time. It actually never crossed my mind, but Colin was furious with me. He would not hold my hand or touch me and was actually scowling during the entire walk to the car. We asked him all kinds of questions about his day, and his answers were:

I don't like school. I don't like my teachers. They didn't have
balls. They didn't have paint. They wouldn't let me use my nap mat.
(what the heck?) I don't want to go back there. I didn't have enough to eat. I wanted you to come back.

It was not great. I saw that he was playing peacefully when we arrived, but he would admit to nothing happy. Granted, he was not smiling and was not his normal self, but he was clearly fine. I know that he must have had fun at some point! He was just too mad at me to admit to any of it. I have never truly had anger directed at me from him and it was hard to handle. My emotions today have been so insane and all over the map. When I walked up to find him playing and not wanting to leave, I was giddy with happiness. Then to see that he was deeply angry with me and hurt...that had me almost in tears again by the time we got to the car. What a day!! We were home for more than an hour before he would even let me sit beside him. He would only let "Daddy" get his juice or snack for him. I have never seen him that way before. It surprised me that he was not mad at Jer, despite the fact that he was there for both drop-off and pick-up. In his mind, I am the one who abandoned him. That is tough! He finally shook things off just a little bit ago and even managed to admit over dinner that Ms. Gina told a Barney story that he liked. One positive thing! YES! I was very happy to hear it. I sure am glad that we went ahead and started this now instead of waiting any longer. Hopefully he will be an old pro by the time kindergarten comes around! Thursday is going to be BAD. I have heard from lots of people that the second day is harder...and I can see that he is going to put up one heck of a fight when he realizes that he really does have to go back. The teachers were so sweet and I really think that everything is going to be fine! We just have to tie a knot in our rope and hang on until this tough part is past us. I can do it! Here are the only pictures we got of the day. I hope we can do better on Thursday and maybe get a smile!

Colin just entering the school. This was the closest that I got to a grin. ;-)

Me trying to convince Colin to wash his hands. That is Ms. Gina. She is wonderful!

Not a happy moment. While we washed hands, he was begging me not to leave him!

What a difference a few hours makes! This was our view when we came to pick him up! Playing with friends!

Please note that face...no smiles for me today! However, I am so happy that he already made friends!

On the way to the car and not letting me touch him. YIKES! ;-)

Jer ran ahead and tried to get a picture. We were talking about him not having enough lunch! Goodness! He is not a happy camper...but he was a very brave boy and I am very proud of him!