Preschool Graduation

I LOVE that Abby's diploma is up-side-down!

My sweet graduates!

Today Haley and Abby graduated from Rocking Horse Ranch, which is really bittersweet for all of us.  The girls are going to miss their incredible, wonderful teachers, and all of the FUN things they get to do at preschool.  I am really going to miss it as well.  I adore each of the teachers and will miss seeing them four mornings a week.  When I drop off at preschool, we all go in and all three kids play while I chat and laugh (and sometimes get much needed fashion advice) from the teachers.  It's always a bright part of my day:)

Graduation was adorable.  All the teachers were dressed up, and they came walking out into the play-yard with the kiddos in their graduation caps.  They played that classic graduation song (maybe if I paid more attention to Little Einsteins I would know the name of it), and I got a little teared up.  All the kids sat around in sort of a circle, and Teacher Nancy (the director and most amazing woman) talked to the kids about how she knows that they are ready to be in kindergarten.  It was precious.  Then, they handed out diplomas and lollipops, sang a song, and it was over.  There was a potluck afterward, and we had so much fun watching the kids play and chatting with other parents and the teachers.  We will miss Rocking Horse so much, but only for the summer, because Seth will be there in the fall!

I thought it would be appropriate to end this blog entry with a list of things I love about Rocking Horse Ranch:

• they have animal time, where the kids get to go into the goats corral and pet and play with them, then collect any eggs that the chickens, ducks, or geese laid.  Then they do eenie-meenie-minie-mo to see who gets to take an egg home.
• they get to play in the mud.  They even get to use the hose to make mud.  One time when I got there to pick Abby up she was "surfing" (aka lying on a boogie board) in a huge mud puddle.
• the teachers absolutely LOVE and adore the kids.  Teacher Nancy, Megan, Johnny, Tara, Su, Kelly, Alyssa and Terri, we LOVE and ADORE you!
• if you are going to miss days because of vacation or whatever, you put a note up on a bulletin board and other parents can buy the days from you.  Also works out when you want to send your kid on a day that's not normally theirs, because you can almost always find a day for sale:)
• there are trees that the kids can climb
• I know I already said it, but I have to say it again...the teachers.  They are INCREDIBLE.
• One morning I dropped Abby off and there were a bunch of logs, nails, hammers, and even an electric sander for the kids to use.  Kids were just happily hammering away!
• They do things like set out bowls of flour, oats, and pasta with shakers full of cinnamon, some spoons and some glitter and just let the kids create and explore.
• The outside play-yard is SO big and the kids have so much freedom (supervised freedom, of course) to just explore, make up games, etc.
• It's mixed ages, so the 3-5 year-olds are all together.  It's really neat to see how the older ones know they are the older ones, and they really do look out for and help the younger ones.

Basically, I love everything about it.  I really don't think I could think of one possible complaint.  And now, we are on to bigger things...KINDERGARTEN!  Look out Mainstreet Elementary, here we come!

Family picture in front of the preschool (Seth was too busy with his juice box to look up)