End of an era

I'm a wreck.

It really hit me now that Jack started Kindergarten camp.

My babies are officially no longer babies.

sob.

gasp.

sob. sob. sob

After 5 1/2 years we've officially left our lovely preschool family.
sob

We adore Union Bridge Early Learning Center and Ms. Martha!

Sarah started at age 3 in Jan '07 and went through til she was 5 1/2

I thought she was ready at 2 1/2 and wanted her to be accepted in the fall...

Wise Ms. Martha said uh uh.

You can't argue with Ms Martha. She has THIRTY YEARS experience!

She's a legend in this corner of the world.

A very quiet, humble, generous, comforting and wise woman.

Her assistant Ms. Heidi is awesome as well!

 Ms. Heidi's own darling boy was in class there with Jack this year.

Jack started at age 3, but because we held him back from Kindergarten due to a late birthday, attended three years. That was one of my smartest mommy moves. ever.

Last year, we considered moving him to a new preschool with all day classes 5 days/week...

Then I thought, why mess with a great thing?!
(And I wasn't quite ready to give up my baby boy time.)

Preschool is just down the street from the elementary so we drove them both.

I hated Sarah's 1 hour school bus rides home with bigger kids so choose to drive back n forth.

M,W,F that's three trips 15+ minutes each way/day = 1 1/2 hrs.

But as I've mentioned in this post, it's a gorgeous and relaxing drive.
Lately we've been belting out Adele together the whole way.  :-)

Life on the (horse) farm means that often dinner time and schedules vary.
Taking the kids to school and tucking them in are two of The Farmer and my favorite family times.

The preschool is in the church and the "basement" is set up with trikes n all sorts of fun toys n games. Almost every morning before preschool we'd arrive early(cause Sarah's school starts earlier) and play basketball etc with Jack.

Good times never to be forgotten.

We'll still make the same drive. We'll just never pull up here again for school.
(sob)

Thank the Lord they offer the best VBS  and a kids club in winter!

I'm not ready to let go of Ms. Martha's hand just yet.

We  gave farm themed goodies, gift cards and loaves of our family poppy seed cake.
Ms. Martha had said she'd miss that annual Christmas gift (almost as much as my kids).
(I used these lovely tags by Good Gravy Designs and also cute recipe cards from sweet Janette, )
So just to share the love, here's a copy of the recipe for you!

Leslie's Poppy Seed Cake Recipe

Preheat oven to 350

3 cups flour

2 ¼ cups sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ cups milk

1 ½ cups oil

1 ½ Tablespoon poppy seeds

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp almond extract

1 ½ tsp butter flavor

Mix all together 1-2 minutes with mixer

Pour into 3 small greased loaf pans or 2 large
This is a heavy cake and doesn't rise a lot.

Bake 1 hour at 350

GLAZE

¼ cup orange juice

¾ cup sugar

½ tsp butter flavor

½ tsp almond extract

½ tsp vanilla

Mix and drizzle over warm loaves while in pans. Cool in pans

 (I poke holes in loaves first with a toothpick to help glaze penetrate)