Last day of preschool

At least for this year. Gerard and I discussed it at length and Anna being promoted to kindergarten and we have decided to place her into preschool for one more year. In this past year we have seen Anna grow in terms of her learning but we feel that being a 4 year old in a class full of 5 and 6 year olds is not in Anna's best interest.
I will say that Anna is really starting to try to read and write. The walls in my home happen to be one of her favorite practice spots for her penmanship. This past year her school had a reading program where I committed to reading her 100 books and logging them into her register. I logged in 86 but read even more than that to her. How is it that I still feel like a failure?
I have decided that I will log in 100 new books this summer. So this being the last week of school and I was off I decided a trip to the library was in order. We gathered a number of books that looked interesting. Some I knew, some she knew and some I picked because of the cover. I know you can not judge a book by its cover and I fell victim to that last night. We came home sat down to read one of the books. By about the second page I could tell where it was going. It was a book about LICE! Yikes, my worst fear. I plan on looking at the books a little closer next time.
Today I dropped Anna off at school. It was a show and tell day. Big surprise Anna bought in a horse. Not just any horse, a horse costume from Halloween that I got a number of years ago. His name is Spirit the horse, named after the movie Spirit the horse. I have really started to lay the plan out for Anna so that she knows what to expect and what is next. I find that she really thrives when I do this.

Step One: Get in the car
Step Two: Drive to school
Step Three: Get your picture by the tree
Step Four: Get your gear and go into school

She loves counting out the steps. I discovered this when I was making mac n cheese one day for her. She calls out which step is next and which one we have completed.

Now I am off to do my homework before I have to pick Anna up from school. Hopefully I will get the bulk of it done. Wish me luck.

Here are Anna's pictures from her last day of school for 2011-2012. Yes she is wearing the same outfit. She is holding a picture of herself from the first day of school.

Summer has officially begun!