School Days for Verity

"Raspberry rabbits, brassberry band. Elephants skating on raspberry jam." One of our girls' favorite books is "Jamberry" by Bruce Degen. In the author's note, Degen talks about his childhood and how his "berries never came from a store. We found them in the fields." Well, for our girls in the States ... berries did come from a store in small-sized pints, ready to eat! When our friend alerted us that raspberries were only available here once a year, I asked David to buy a few bowls of them from a street vendor before they disappeared so that we can freeze them for year-round use (for fruit salads, smoothies, desserts, etc). When he brought them home, we still had to pull the stems off of each berry before we could eat or freeze them. BOTH Verity and Annalise did a GREAT job of stem-pulling ... they were great helpers!! And Moriah did a great job of poking holes through the plastic wrap.

But some of you may be thinking, "Enough about berries. How did Verity like preschool?" Well, here is a peek into her first day of school.

Backpack? Check. Lunchbox? Check. Ceremonial first day photos at our front door? Check. Before deciding on this preschool, we asked Verity many times, "Would you like to go to preschool?" Each time, she answered with a confident, "Yes!" She was very excited about finally going to school.

We made as big of a deal this morning (if not a bigger deal) about the fact that Annalise slept through the night in her "big girl bed" for the first time as we did about taking photos with Verity on her first day of preschool. However, that didn't prevent little sister Annalise from feeling a bit envious about the attention we were giving big sister Verity. So, she donned her backpack (notice the diaper & my house slippers) & wanted to take photos with me, too. Here's to equality!

This is Verity's preschool building. If any of you would be interested in donating much-needed supplies to her school, please let us know.

This is the front door to her preschool. It was a bittersweet day for our families. Our family and the family on the left were sending their first child to preschool ... the family on the right was sending their last child off to preschool! After her first day, we asked Verity if she liked her school. She said, "Yes" and added that she "liked her teachers!" Thanks for praying!