rocks

Grace complained today about her back pack. One of the "had to haves" for Kindergarten was a blanket or mat for them to rest on since it is full day. I made her a princess blanket, you know the kind you tie off, easy to make. I found some princess material and went from there. I thought she was complaining about carrying that big thing in her back pack.

When I went to check her folder in her back pack, I found it to be abnormally heavy myself. I went on a search and to my surprise I found rocks. Not just one but three pretty good sized rocks. No wonder it was weighing her down. My little rock collector doesn't think through the idea of carrying those rocks on top of the blanket and anything else in her back pack. I had to snicker. She loves rocks and collects them everywhere we go. She can tell you where she got them from too. I'm sure they're from the playground on a recess exploration. I put them out with the rest of the collection. She'll probably be upset I took them out, but it's better than her looking like a hunch backed Kindergartner. What must the teachers think :-)?!?!?!?!

share day

Grace has the share bag tomorrow at school {show and tell}. She came home with it Friday and as soon as she got in the house she had it filled to the brim. This picture is one of the items in the bag since she can't take her sunflower to school. She is very proud of this.

Contents of the share bag:

this photo

her clown nose

her smiley face necklace that holds bubbles

a starfish

her ball from Ms. Mel and boys

Sofia, her build a bear stuffed penguin complete with pink tutu {she takes up most of the room in the bag}

her baby penguin, Sofia's that is

So fun to see her treasures. I can hear her now, going through the bag, telling what each one means to her...

Love it!

patch update

Sarah's pumpkin patch, we have four starting to turn orange.
Grace's sunflowers, we have four of these flowering or ready to.

The girls are thrilled.

i can see it

Art says our girls are all Mom. While they do both look like me I have to speak up and let it be said! Sarah takes after her Dad in a lot of ways. Such as....

Curls.

I don't have them, never have unless I had a perm.

Art has them, keeps his short but they are there.
Face shape.

How can he not see it?

Especially in this recent picture.

She has his nose too.

Let's talk personality.
She is loud, boisterous, silly, humorous, and yes stubborn at times.
All characteristics of her father.
So to say they are both "totally my" kids is not true. I see it, can you? :0)

bubbles

We have a new bubble blower in our house.

Grace brought it home from school. Pretty content to sit, blow and pop.
I warned her not to suck in.
I can't help but snicker at this one.
Lesson learned the hard way.
It didn't stop her from enjoying her new toy.
Keep trying.

finally...

Today was Sarah's first day of preschool and we were ready. She's been ready for quite awhile now, upset that Sissy was going but she wasn't. She got her wish today.Sooooo bursting at the seams to go.
Twirling to show off the new back pack.
Finally her turn to have the picture taken with her backpack and sister! With Daddy, with Mommy
at school she went right to her spot.

I didn't shed a tear with this one, maybe it's because I knew deep inside that this was going to be easy for her and it was. It was so different with Grace, even though she was ready, she still clung to me and with her being my quiet one it was just harder to leave her not knowing if she was going to speak up for herself or ask for help. My worries here are that Ms. Kim will get a word in :0).

Sarah did great and was so proud to show me what she had done, the visor she had made etc...

She wants to go back tomorrow but will have to wait until Wednesday.

Her finally has come.

dining room {phase 2}

If you remember we started our dining room redo back in March of this year, a week later I fell and broke my foot. Fast forward 6 months and we are finally back on track, putting some fun touches into it.

Here are some of the areas we touched on this weekend.

Paint was done back in March {phase 1}. Phase 2 added pictures and decorative touches.

I based the room around my family. My girls are each in two different sized frames with recent pictures I had taken of them in a sepia tone. I love how it looks with the gold paint. The largest frame on the left is waiting for a full family picture, hopefully our MOPS fundraiser will take care of that soon enough. The "plate" artwork I purchased at Bed, Bath and Beyond with my 20% off coupon, love those things. The "S" was purchased at Home Goods, fun store, you never know what you will find there. This was a huge empty wall with 10 foot ceilings so I needed alot to fill the space. I think I succeeded even though Art was skeptical in the beginning. He loves the outcome.

This is a lamp shade I got for practically nothing. I added the pretty glimmer to it.

My girls think this is the best part of the redo. :0)


My china hutch decked out and yes another "S". We are proud of our last name around here. Although Sarah thinks they are for her, we'll let her keep thinking it.


Now onto phase 3, curtains! I have them, just need a little help from my talented mother and her sewing abilities. That will have to wait for now. We start a new week here, a busy, fun one.

Thoughts so far.... I'm happy with it.

two milestones...one day...

Milestone #1 - My baby starts preschool tomorrow.
She is so excited for it to finally be here, it's been a long wait with sister starting mid-July.

Then {9 weeks}

Now {3 years}

Back pack she chose, hanging next to sisters, all ready to go.


Milestone #2 - Mommy {me} going back into the work force after being home for 5 years. I'm looking forward to it, working at Sarah's preschool with a great bunch of ladies.

{Sarah's bag is much cuter}


Big day for us tomorrow in this household. Praying all goes well. God is so good to us.

fundraising

Can I get a big UGGGHHHH....

I hate fundraising, always have. Even as a kid I dreaded these events at school. My parents dreaded them too. Go around to all your parents friends and neighbors begging for money for things like cheap trinkets that get broken out of the box or huge buckets of cookie dough that are frozen.

{Who thought of the idea of a bucket of frozen dough? I mean once you do get it thawed enough to break the dough, are you supposed to use it all at once? Do they really expect you to make that many cookies in one sitting? Are we baking for an army? Makes no sense to me.... Aggravating.}

Okay back to my original blog.....

This one came from Grace's school. It was called Math Mania and the idea behind it is better than cookie dough although you have to get sponsors. Each grade level goes through a math test appropriate for its age group. You ask for sponsors to give a set amount for each correct answer you get right on the test.

This is Grace's test. 19 out of 20 correct, I was super proud of my girl. {We went over the missed one, she got it right for me. :o)}

As far as this fundraiser goes, it's not so bad I guess.

What did I do for this fundraiser? I sent them a lump sum check, just like my parents did. Works for me and no selling :-).

lunch with a bunch

of Kindergartners that is. Sarah and I had lunch with big sis in the school cafeteria today. 80 some kindergartners and boy was it loud in there. But not for long, the lunch ladies helped out in quieting things down.

It was fun to see her in her element. This is her coming down the hall as she spotted us.

Great smile. Sarah and I, picture taken by Grace.

She loved showing her friends how she could take a picture.

She also enjoyed showing them how she can become a walrus with two carrot sticks.

Oh to be a kindergartner!

My girl drinking her water.

She was so excited we were there, so glad I did this.

The new lunch bag for Sarah.
Tinkerbell :0).
I knew I had to get her one eventually, she's wanted one since last year when Grace got hers.
She loved carrying it in and the attention she got with it, very proud to show it off.
Fun lunch.
Made me realize how much I've missed having lunch with peanut.
I will do this again for sure.

look alike

Went to Grace's school yesterday to have a conference with her teacher. Upon signing in at the front desk, I was asked what my daughter's name was so they could keep her from going with the pick up kids. Before I could answer, the other woman standing there said, "Grace, right?" I was a little put back, I had never seen this woman before. She said, "You look so much alike." I smiled and headed down the hallway to her class with my other look alike holding my hand.

We do look alike. I see it. I am proud of it.

3:30 everyday

This is the scene at our home at 3:30 every weekday.

This is what Sarah looks like when I pull her out of bed to go and get big sis.

She usually protests by giving me the one half open evil eye.

Just shows that Kindergarten is hard on all of us for different reasons :0).

it's the little things

It's the little things that show me how much my hubby loves me. Like his shoes, sitting by the door, ready to go when he leaves for work in the wee hours of the morning.

There is a story here.

When Art took a new job recently it meant he had a long commute. He leaves the house around 6:00 or 6:30, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before his slumbering wife and kids wake up. There was one morning the click from this work shoes against our hardwood floors woke up me and most importantly Sarah. And when Sarah is up, she's up. So after politely asking Art to keep it down with his shoes, he started keeping them by the door and grabbing them as he exited. One morning he got all the way to work and realized he hadn't even put them on yet. :0)

There they are, every night, waiting.

He's so good to me, to my rest :-).

He shows me he loves me by being considerate.

Love that man.

That's why this is my PoTD.

it needs to be said.....

In follow up for my last post regarding my breakfast dilemna I should clarify that my kids don't eat cereal. At least not with milk and not the way most kids do. They eat it like it's trail mix for a snack.

So there lies the dilemna for two kids who won't do an "american" way of life breakfast food :0).

breakfast

This is part of my afternoon. Making up three batches of the powered up pancakes for my freezer. These are quick and easy on a busy morning. They are also a favorite of Grace's.

I don't know about most Mom's but lately the meal dilemna I've had is not what I make for dinner but breakfast. Trying to keep it healthy while not repetitive is a problem. Grace will say, "not again!?" in her sweet whining voice.

Growing up my parents left early each morning and drove 45 minutes to and from their teaching jobs each day. They made breakfast simple. Each day was assigned a breakfast food, we stuck to it, it was predictable, my Mom and Dad knew what to buy for or make, we knew what we were getting. Maybe I should worry less about my kids being bored and more about the ease of a morning routine for us all.

I should also remind my kids that they are blessed to have food on their table when there are many who don't. Ahhhh... another teaching moment.

So, I think I'm going to try something like this -

Monday - eggs, toast, fruit
Tuesday - Pancakes, yogurt, fruit
Wednesday - Turkey Sausage, toast, apple sauce, fruit
Thursday - PB on toast, yogurt, fruit
Friday - eggs, toast, fruit

It worked for my parents so hopefully it will work for me.

blur

Last week was one of those weeks that is all a blur to me now. I had to look back at my calendar to even recall all that had gone on.

I vowed Thursday that the weekend would be different. We would slow down to enjoy our girls and put things keeping us from them on the back burner. I shared this with Art hoping his list of to do's could fit into my plan. We came to a compromise. Play, have fun Saturday morning, work after they went to bed that night.

This is part of the fun portion of our Saturday. Awhile back Art and I were able to try out a new restaurant at breakfast. We had pancakes that were bigger than our heads. Anyway, we did this on a weekend my kids were with my sister. We showed the pictures of the pancakes to Grace. Grace LOVES pancakes so she wanted to go ASAP!

Little did we know that the kids version was so much fun. What does this look like to you? At first glance I thought it was a hippo, Art thought it was a pig but the waitress told us it was actually a stegosaurus. Okay, I guess I see it. Very cute and fun.

Grace had this down quickly. She was hungry and loved her dino.

Here she is, all sticky loving on her Dad. She was so happy and hyper to be there. I thought we were going to have to peel her off the ceiling. Of course the sugar in the syrup might have had something to do with it.

She is excited in this picture, party in her tummy and in the arms of her favorite guy.

Me and my coloring buddy enjoying tic-tac-toe before our food came. This one couldn't wait to eat the dinosaur's head first.

Special treat, just what we needed.