Handy Hubby Strikes Again #3

So, I have a bit of a shoe fetish.  I come by it honestly however, as people tell me my mother was a lover of shoes as well.  What better way to carry on her legacy, right?

However, I seem to have received my father's organizational skills rather than hers and my footwear issues have taken over our closet. 


Examining his work

My new shoe shelf (minus the back he put on it later)

Handy Hubby stepped up to the plate and saved the day.  (Of course cleaning and sorting them out helped as well.  I have 20 plus pairs to take to our church and Salvation Army.)  I have had some of them since early in college so it has been a slowly growing process.


But, now, thanks to my amazingly handy husband (and his itch to use his new nail guns that he got for Christmas), I have a wonderful, very tall, shelf for my shoes in my closet.

In place and full already.  I even shared a few spots with the great guy who made it. :)

Anybody Want to Help?

Blech!  Have  I ever mentioned that laundry is my nemesis?  This is a pile that needs folding.  The worst part of laundry.  Wanna know what is even worse?  Probably not, but I am going to tell you anyway.  I have already folded 2 loads and have one more in the dryer and one in the washer. 

So, if you are bored or tired of wrapping Christmas presents please come join me.  I promise I'll do the underwear (of which I made sure none was visible for the picture).  :)

(Update:  While the picture uploaded I got about 1/4 of this folded....but if you are still interested in joining me there is lots more to do.  Did I mention I made Chocolate Caramels the other day and I will share some?)

State of the Family #46

Ack!  It has been almost a month since my last SOF.  How in the world am I ever going to remember everything that we have been doing?  Well, I guess I won't be able to bore you with quite so  much information, then.  (I don't have pics added yet, but will soon!)

I guess Thanksgiving was in there somewhere.  We had a great time with family and my girls got to don their cute turkey shirts my friend, Lacey made them.  I, of course, couldn't leave Noisy Man out and make him a more "boyish" turkey shirt to wear (it has feathers on the back).  These pics were taken at a family Christmas we had the Saturday after Thanksgiving, if you're wondering what the stockings/presents are for.

Mommy did her annual Black Friday shopping and tackled about 75% of the Christmas shopping list all before 1 pm, and I didn't even start until 7 am.

The red hair saga continued for me as well and we finally got an acceptable color for the Christmas Musical.  It is actually still the same color as I haven't had time to drive home and get it 'fixed' yet.  It is growing on me, but something will have to be done as my roots are growing as well.

The week following Thanksgiving is, of course, taken over by the Christmas Musical and the entire thing is a blur, except for what I blogged about it.

The next week we make pretty low-key since Mommy is usually exhausted and daddy would have a coronary if I left the house again.  To make up for some mommy time lost during production week, I took the kids to Lost In Fun for a day full of mommy play time.  We love that place!

We started our Advent activities a little bit late, but the kids are totally loving our little activities that we do with each lesson.  We get to make a little ornament thing each day.  This is a struggle for mommy as it creates a lot of clutter and I don't do well with clutter.  "Why does it not go on your tree?" you ask.  Well, I am one of those mean, terrible mothers who has a matchy, pretty tree and doesn't do well with homemade things mixing in.  Don't worry though, another Christmas tree for our basement for all the homemade ornaments is on my day after Christmas shopping list!

We also had two programs for Noisy Man.  One at our church and one for school.  He did smashing in both of them and was so well-behaved I won't have any stories to tell other than how cute he looked.  Of course, when he was done with the one at church he barely had time to say hello to his grandparents before he had to rush off to the bathroom and I was totally bummed that I couldn't see him very well in his one at school.

Nothing else too exciting.  Miss Thumb Sucker is finally sleeping in her bed past 5:30 am.  Although she still wakes up about this time, she knows she can't crawl in bed with Mommy and Daddy anymore and gets tucked back in her bed.  She usually does well and sleeps again until 7.  Can anyone please tell me why she is waking up this early when she clearly wants to sleep longer?

Miss Firecracker is still loving preschool and brings home at least 5 colored and cut pages every day.  Her hands are eternally covered in magic markers.  This girl is too smart for her own good though.  Should I be scared or impressed that she sat down with us the other night to do Noisy Man's homework and could answer the missing numbers and find the missing numbers just as easily as he could?

My other big news is my new camera!!  Yeah!!  Finally, after waiting for two years to save for other necessities first I finally got to save for my camera and got it a week and a half ago.  It am totally loving it and still have lots to learn. 

Well, lots of presents to wrap, Christmas cards to address (just got them back from the printer) and more ornaments to make and Christmas stories to teach.  I'm not sure I'll make it back on before Christmas Day, so just in case.....

Keep the Christ in Christmas this year and enjoy the peace He brings each day as you surround yourself with loved ones.  Merry Christmas!

Proud Mama

Check this out.  Noisy Man brought it home from school yesterday.  My kindergartner did this all on his own.  No help from a teacher at all.  I am pretty impressed!

Here is a translation of the story, although most of it is fairly 'readable'.

She has a cat and that cat has a socks an that cat has mouse.  She has 2 cat.  That cat is fat.  That fat cat has a fat mouse.  (he hasn't quite learned how to spell mouse yet! :)  Below is the picture that goes with the story.

And Thats a Wrap! (#2)

Another year wrapped up from our Church's Christmas Musical.  This year "Because of Grace".  A show centered on being who God created you to be.  Feeling important because of the grace God has granted you through the blessed gift of Jesus, not because of what you do, how much money you have, the people you have as friends or anything else. 

The "theme song" this year sang, "Because of grace I can be who I am.  I can stand in Him, not on what I do.  Because of grace, my future is crystal clear.  Nothing for me to fear.  My God is always near.  Because of grace."  A great message that I need to hear almost on a daily basis, and one I definitely need to pass on to my kids.

It is such a time commitment to be involved in this production.  We start practices immediately following Labor Day.  Every Sunday for an hour and a half and those with speaking/acting roles also come in almost every Thursday evening for at least 2 hours as well.  But it is so worth it.  We have such a great time figuring out our roles, our characters, and just plain goofing off! 

The entire cast

Many thanks go out to: Kevin and Tami Boesiger, the writers and creators of this awesome script and musical production.  Kevin also helps direct the play as well as leads the orchestra while Tami also plays in the orchestra.  Paul Whaley our main director.  He drives us crazy with his detailed ideas and over-used quotes and non-filtered comments, but he has an amazing gift from God to bring it all together and we love him anyway! Kim Rinne, our awesome stage manager who gets us whatever we need and makes sure it is always in the right place.  Heck she even helps us get dressed!  Bruce our fabulous sound booth guy.  The Ulrick family for managing our lights.  All the other actors and chorus members for their time commitments. Their families for giving them up for all that time.  The orchestra members for some amazing music.  Courtney York, who helped watch the kids for our Sunday afternoon practices. Kathryn Katz for letting me borrow her shoes.  Amber Koch for her supply of Silpada jewelry. And everyone who came to see us.  I hope you took something out of the message we tried to share. 

Most of all, I thank my amazing husband for letting me do this.  All that time away meant that he was in charge of the kids, a lot.  It is never easy to take over for mom, when the kids are used to having her around all of the time, but he hung in there quite well as usual.  As well as my kids for giving me up to enjoy some me time and being good for their daddy while I was gone.

Gracie, Max, Ned and Val (me)

Even more, I thank God for making this happen.  For bringing it all together and for the talents and love of all these people.  He has generously blessed them with giving hearts and selfless spirits.  I hope what we did was a small reflection of His grace and glory.

It is always a bittersweet ending.  Happy to have the calendar a little bit more open and more family time.  But so sad to not see many of my great friends but once a week with quick "Hello's" at church, and to have to wait until the next year for more great memories and inside jokes. 

You can read more about what I really learned from this year's musical here as well.

Harvest of Grace

I was so excited to see another Cindy Woodsmall Book on my list of options for my next Blogging for Books book!  I absolutely love everything I have read of hers.  And Harvest of Grace did not disappoint. 

Harvest of Grace is the final book in the Ada House series, which followed the Sisters of the Quilt series I blogged about earlier.  I read the first book in the Ada House Series earlier this summer and still have yet to read the 2nd one.  Thankfully, this series wasn't so tied together that you couldn't read out of order.  All of the characters are the same in the books, but the main characters change in each one, so the focus is different.

In Harvest of Grace a young woman, Sylvia, is betrayed by the man she loves and her sister and feels like she must get away from it all.  She is not your typical Amish woman and much prefers the 'man's' work of a diary farm than the 'woman's' job in the kitchen.  So, to get away from the situation at home she gets a job at a dairy farm far enough away from her family that she won't have to deal with the hurt.

The farm she goes to is owned by a couple with hurting hearts.  They lost their only surviving daughter to an accident and their only surviving son, Aaron,  became an alcoholic and left home.  T(hey had lost 7 other children through miscarriages or soon after birth.)  Thankfully, Aaron sought treatment at the Better Path (which is from the Sister of the Quilt Series and I loved the tie in), overcame his addiction and returned home to try to talk his parents into selling the farm and moving into town with him to run an appliance store he was hopeful to purchase.

Selling the farm meant Sylvia would lose her job and the farm she was coming to love, so she was very threatened by Aaron.  Aaron was threatened by Sylvia in the fact that she was trying to save the farm and give his parents hope of keeping it.  The big question throughout the book is whether they will save the farm and fall in love or go their separate ways.   It keeps you turning the pages.

A while series of events unfold involving other supporting character throughout the book who were also subjects of the first two books and they all tie together nicely.  Since this is the final book in the series, all character's stories are resolved and left for "happily ever after."

Another great Amish series of books by Cindy Woodsmall. 

I received this book for free from Waterbrook/Multnomah publishers for this review.

State of the Family #45

Oy Vey! Or however you spell that....  It has been crazy around here and doesn't look to slow down anytime soon!  Yowzers!
So, since the last post on here we have been to the pumpkin patch, had a few bouts with a tummy bug, celebrated a big birthday, deer season, had a scare with a box of hair dye, and so much more fun I can't even remember it all.

So, the pumpkin patch was a blast as usual.  We were terrible parents and pulled Miss Firecracker and Noisy Man out of school for the day to go.  That place is a nightmare on the weekends and it worked for everyone to go the day we chose, so we went.  I always have high hopes of getting a great family photo and pics of the kiddos there.  With all of their beautiful trees and mums and pumpkins they have great photo opp places.  Of course, Miss Thumb Sucker was in NO mood for any pictures and I was lucky to get anything.  Last year we got a great one, this year we'll have to deal with what we have and hope for a better one at Christmas maybe...

Miss Thumb Sucker turned the big number two the first week in November.  We had a fabulous rainbow birthday party for her complete with a layered rainbow cake and rainbow tutu!  She was spoiled with gifts from loved ones and dug into the cake before we even cut it.

Daddy and Noisy Man came down with a terrible case of the stomach flu the day following the party and mommy was afraid I gave everyone food poisoning.  Thankfully, there were no other reports of illness and we were able to chalk it up to a virus.  Poor daddy felt sick that entire week, but plowed through it.  Thankfully, again, no one else is our family got it. 

That day also happened to be Halloween, so poor Noisy Man did not feel well enough to participate.  He was heartbroken.  His loving sisters helped him out and took his candy bucket along with them and filled it up too. (Sadly, I evidently deleted our Halloween pictures before I uploaded them, so I am going to have to do some staged ones for their scrapbooks.)
Mommy had a terrible experience with a box of red hair dye for the Christmas play Halloween day as well.  It did go on very evenly and also washed out kind of pink.  Thankfully, our resident Christmas Musical hairdresser came to my rescue and fixed it.  Not so thankfully, it still isn't red enough and I have to go back for yet another round of hair dye later this week.  I keep telling people that God skipped a generation of red-heads for a very good reason. 

Daddy is out deer hunting as we speak.  It started last Saturday and he bagged a doe right away.  This year's rules say that you have to shoot an antler-less deer before you can shoot one with antlers.  So now he is holding out hope for one with a nice spread.  I am just ready for him to come home. 

Daddy took the kids to my dad's with him (he hunts on the section just caddywhompus from my dad's house) on Friday night since I had play practice all morning Saturday and had to sing at both church services Sunday morning.  So, mommy was at home ALL ALONE from Friday night at 5:30 until I went and picked the kids up at noon on Sunday.  Let me tell you, it was glorious!  Don't get me wrong, I love, love, love my family, but sometimes a girl just needs some time alone.  It was so great to be able to clean the house without having it get cluttered up as soon as I turned around. I even got the kids' rooms cleaned up. Even more so, it was great to be able to finish a complete task without having a, "Mommy!" yelled at me 20 times before I finished.  Actually, the house is still about 75% clean, it is amazing.
Well, I suppose that is about enough jabbering on for now.  More to come on our exciting lives....or something like that.

State of the Family #44

Well, things have definitely not slowed down around here.  It seems like the last two week we (mainly mommy) has had something going on every night of the week.

Our highlight of it all was combine rides with G'pa G., getting to see our friends from Alaska and making some monster pudding cups on the one Saturday morning we had free.

I sadly forgot to take my camera when we went to see the Buckbees, so I don't have any pictures of that fun.  But here is the fun of the other events.

Mommy got to go out with the girls!

Other than that it has been play practice, AWANA, Kings Kids, Bible Studies, Pampered Chef and all the daily life in between.  Miss Thumb Sucker has good and not-so-good days with her potty training still, so we are still working on that. 

Noisy Man had Red Ribbon Week at his school this week, so he has had fun dressing up for their various days.  Monday he just had to wear red, and came home looking like a ladybug.  Tuesday he got to dress up as what he wanted to be when he grew up and today was pirate day.  (Pic to come, since this is his Halloween costume too).  Friday is favorite book character day and he plans to go as Peter Pan.

Miss Firecracker has started back to dance class.  She plans on being a ballerina for Halloween this year.

I'll have much to blog on next time as we will have Miss Thumb Sucker's 2nd birthday party and are headed to the pumpkin patch tomorrow (rain delay from last planned date).

I DO IT!

Oh Miss Thumb Sucker.  She has become quite the independent jabberbox as of late.

A melt your heart moment:  We decided to say our bedtime prayers in the car on a late school night drive home the other night so as to be able to brush teeth and jump in bed once we arrived at home.  From the back seat I hear, "Dear God, thank you for Jesus, Aaaaamen.  Dear God, thank you for da Bible, Aaaaaamen."  Yes, both of these complete statements and signature drawn out Amens came from my not-quite-two-year-old.  It was one of those, "Thank you, Lord that you are helping me do something right" moments!

Her other current thing is wanting to dress herself.  I get her clothes out in the morning or jammies out at bedtime and she instantly says, "I do it!" Well, if I lay her pants and undies down on the floor in front of her the correct way she can get them pulled on just right.  I must say it is quite commical to watch her do it, too, but she gets it done.  When it comes to the shirt though, it is another story.  She isn't quite up to this task and it makes her so mad. 

This picture is the little independent jabberbox saying to me, "I button it, mommy." (there are little buttons and loops at the bottom of these pants.)  After about 2 minutes of trying, an A for patience in her book, she looks at me and says, "I can't button it.  You help, pease, mommy?"  Plain as day.  Seriously.  Where did my baby go?

A Great Read

I love a good book...I might have mentioned that a time or two on here.

My last blogging for books book was one of those.  It was Karen Kingsbury's (I was so psyched that I got to review one of her books, she is one of my favorite authors) Waiting for Morning.

This is a great read to put you in place with where your heart truly is with Jesus.  In this book, Hannah Ryan unexpectedly loses her husband and eldest daughter in a car accident with a drunk driver.  When the metal hits the road, Hannah finds her faith doesn't stand the test and she loses her trust in God.  But thankfully, God doesn't give up on her. 

In the pursuit of sweet revenge, Hannah becomes obsessed and totally pushes her remaining daughter away, to a point where she might lose her as well.  Hannah's pursuit involves an in-depth trial with a Christian lawyer, cop and counselor with MADD on her side, against the drunk driver that killed her family.  Thankfully, God's plan prevails with putting these three people in her life to remind her of His plan and love for us even when things don't turn out as we want them to.

This book is a great tribute to fully trusting in God through thick and thin, and even more so one of forgiveness.  It was so easy to judge Hannah Ryan in this book.  Thinking, "How can she turn from God?  Look what she is doing to her daughter?  Why can't she see what is going on?"  But when it really comes down to it not a single one of us knows what we would do if placed in a situation of the same caliber unless we have been there.  Preparing our hearts and abiding with Him daily are the only ways we can hope to make the right decision.

I am so glad to have gotten to read this book for free for this review from Waterbrook/Multnomah publishers.  It was a great read and I didn't want to put it down until it was done.

State of the Family #43

Things are a busy as ever around here as the Christmas musical practices are in full swing which takes Mommy away from home 2 nights a week.  Then you add in Wednesday night Bible Study and Kings Kids and the whole week feels shot!

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker are still loving school.  We had Parent/Teacher conferences for Noisy Man and got a great review.  His teacher reported that he is a very well behaved little boy and doing well with everything in school.  The only thing she had to report to us that wasn't completely positive, but not really negative either was that during reading time he seems to be self-distracting, making binoculars with his hands or playing with his chair.  But when she catches him and asks him a question about what she was just teaching, he still knows the answer.  Hmmm... the musings of a kindergartner.  Noisy Man also hit another milestone this past week with learning how to tie his shoes! 

The battle with Miss Firecracker and nap time seems to have subsided in the last week.  Thanks to an awesome MOPS mentor mom who discussed the 'special time' she and her husband used to do with their children before bed time, I decided to try and implement it with MF for nap time to see if the arguing would lessen.  Lo and behold, it worked!  She gets to pick out whatever book she wants and I lay down in her bed with her. Then we read the book together, just the two of us.  She loves the one on one time, which I think is essential for a middle child to get anyway, and I don't have to fight with her to get her to bed every afternoon!

We are diaper free at this house!  It is such a blessing!  Miss Thumb Sucker has figured out this potty stuff.  She still has a few accidents here and there and wears pull-ups whenever we are out of the house or she is in bed, but is even figuring out how to go on 'other' toilets as well!  I am so proud of her.  And she doesn't turn 2 for another month. 

Daddy has been quite the trooper over the past few weeks with mommy being gone quite a bit for practice, Pampered Chef shows and a few other things.  Get this, I even came home to some beautiful flowers from him the other day, and he had to take all three kids into the store to buy them!  He is still working on breaking some horses so the kids can ride a little bit more this summer, trying to get in a few last fishing trips (without much luck on catching anything) and started a men's Bible study as well. 

Last weekend we got to trek half way across the wonderful state of Nebraska to see some wonderful college friends of ours.  Julie and I have run many races together in Lincoln over the last few years, but then she moved out to beautiful Elsie.  The 5 hour car ride to see them was a bit 'iffy' at times with 3 kids in tow, but once we got there, it was nothing but fun.  Well, almost.  The trek was made so that Mommy and Julie could take part in the Autumn River Run 1/2 marathon in North Platte.  Did you know that North Platte and Eastern NE have almost 2,000 ft difference in elevation?  Did you know that this difference makes a huge difference on Mommy's ability to run well (notice I didn't say fast, just well, my running far from qualifies as fast no matter how well I do)?  More on the race in another post.

Our time with our friends was wonderful.  They have 2 kids ages 2 and 4.  You would never know that our kids had never played together before.  I don't think there was a fight all weekend and they all played like they had been best friends for life.  The parents had a great time as well, watching football and enjoying great conversation.  Learn more about their wonderful family here.  Julie and I lived in Love Memorial Hall together our first years of college and our hubbies were both Burr Hall boys those years as well!   They made a great cheering section for the race too!

Now onto more busy weeks, hopefully a trip to the pumpkin patch this weekend if the rain holds out, and tractor and combine rides with grandpa!

State of the Family #42

 Things have finally seemed to calm down a little bit around here!

We are getting into a groove and I am finally not forgetting everything because I am so out of whack.  Kind of sad that it took me a month to get to that point though.

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker got to start AWANA a couple of weeks ago.  It is a program at our church for leading kids to know, love and serve Christ.  So, every Sunday night they get to hang out at church, play games and memorize Bible verses.  It is such a great program. 

Mommy has play practice just before AWANA starts so I drop them at their classrooms and I have been using that time to go run!  I am absolutely loving this weather.  Miss Thumb Sucker and Daddy get to just hang out during that hour and a half, I think they have fun too.

We also went to Grandpa's house for the weekend and headed up to Nebraska City to pick apples!  We are so very bummed that our local place we usually pick tons of apples from had a bad year and doesn't have any apples to pick.  So, we opted for a smaller version of our annual apple picking fun.  The kids still loved it and we got to meet up with Grandma Susan and Cousin D to pick and ride the hay rack as well. We picked a peck of apples (10 lbs) which is probably just a 10th of what we picked last year.

That night mommy and daddy got to go to the Nebraska football game.  It was the first time we have been to a game since college.  We had a great time with our fabulous friends who invited us to come.  And best of all the Huskers (barely) pulled out a W.  It was a bit hairy at first.  :)  It was also very awesome to go to the game that commemorated the 10th anniversary of September 11th since daddy and I were at the game the Thursday following the attacks in 2001.  Very emotional.  The alumni band even played some of the same songs it played that very night.  I remember being in tears back then, and it, again, brought tears to my eyes this time. 

Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker's school had homecoming last weekend, on what seemed to be the coldest day of the season so far.  We went to the festivities, games and supper that the school holds before the game.  Mommy had to help out with the PTO booths.  The kids had fun playing games and winning silly prizes and best of all getting all sticky with the gourmet lollipops.  We opted to skip the actual football game and just went over to our friend's place to roast some smores and let the kids play.

This past week has been pretty uneventful, other than an awesome turnout at our first MOPS meeting and some potty training for Miss Thumb Sucker.  She did great the first week other than a few accidents, had a couple of rough days in the middle and is doing great again today. 

One rough moment that is quite memorable happened when I was expecting some MOPS moms over for some help assembling name tags and centerpieces.  Miss TS and I were in the basement to get some things out of the printer when I to run back upstairs to send another project to the printer via the laptop which had a dead battery (thus was plugged in upstairs).  Of course, it took me a bit longer than I planned and in the process of sending it one of the moms and her daughter came to the door.  Upon hearing people at the door Miss TS came to the bottom of the stairs which can be viewed from the entryway of our house.  Well, we see Miss TS at the bottom of the stairs, covered in poo.  Oh dear!  It was quite the ordeal.  There was no just cleaning this one up.  It was a throw the clothes in the wash, throw the toddler in the bath type of mess.  I am so thankful that the mom who came is also in the throws of potty training and flowed with the punches!  Oh the fun!

And I will end there.....

Corrupted

Time for another book blog.

My most recent read was "The Corruptible" by Mark Mynheir.  I am struggling with where to place my review on this one. 

I really liked the plot.  A cop, Ray Quinn, is forced to retire due to an on-the-job injury that ends his career.  He then starts up his own private investigation business.  He receives a case with a paycheck his new business desperately needs, but seems to be quite shady.  A high level investment company has lost some valuable information, expected to have left their building via a dirty ex-cop hired to work security.  Ray is hired to find the other ex-cop, one he had worked with when they were both on the force. 

Before Ray can really begin his investigation, the dirty ex-cop, Logan, ends up dead and the information completely vanished.  Thankfully, Ray still has great ties with old police force and works alongside them to solve Logan's murder and try to find the satchel which carries the drive containing the valuable information. 

In the midst of his digging, Ray discovers the company he is working for, isn't exactly straightforward with their dealings and the information that is missing is more valuable than just confidential client information. 

The thing that really bugged me about this book was the fact that the author had Ray chasing Logan's dirty past more than what was really going on with the company.  To me, it was quite obvious that the missing satchel wasn't taken by someone tied to Logan's history, but to the current company from which it was taken.  So, much of the run around in the middle of the book annoyed me.  However, I never saw the ending turning out the way that it did, so I give the author kudos for that creative twist.

Overall, I'd give the book about an 8 out of 10.  It kept me reading and wanting to find out the ending.  Plus, it had a great message through another character involved with Ray and his firm. 

I received this book for free from Waterbrook/Multnomah publishers for my review.

State of the Family #41

So much going on.  So little time.  Here is where I get myself into trouble.  I go too long in between my posts and then I totally forget about everything we did in that time span.

There was school starting, of course, and Noisy Man got his own special post on how mommy had such a hard time letting him go.  He is still loving it, thankfully.  And mommy is adjusting to having him gone everyday.  I said "adjusting" not "liking it".  He loves getting to take his own lunch every now and then, running on the track, and reading.  It drives mommy nuts that he never remembers the names of the kids he plays with during the day, so I am clueless as to who is getting to play with my boy while I can't.

Poor Miss Firecracker didn't get her own post for her first day of preschool... sorry about that.  Mommy, again, cried, but at least made it out of the building before starting the waterworks.  Well, I can't really say that.  I first shed the tears on the way to the school, but collected myself and then kept them in until I walked away.  She was so ready to go, when I picked her up to give her one last hug goodbye she yelled at me to put her down.  I also cried when I went to pick her up.  I dropped her off my baby girl and when she came running out of her classroom after a morning of preschool, she looked so big.  I shed a few quiet tears as she ran towards me and gave me a big hug.

I thought Miss Thumb Sucker would be lost without her two older siblings around for 4 mornings per week, but she has barely missed them.  I think she is loving having reign of the house and not having someone bossing her around all the time.  I was a little worried that she wouldn't play by herself very well if there were times I needed to be getting things done, but I was wrong once again.  She is probably the best of the 3 of them at playing by herself.  Probably because she never really gets to and loves not having someone take her toys!

Other than school busyness and adjusting to those schedules we really haven't been up to too much.  Daddy tried to go on another fishing trip, but the trouble maker he is, got kicked off the lake after 2 days.  Seriously.  This poor guy rarely ever takes time to himself and when he finally does and plans a nice 4 day fishing trip, he gets sent home.  OK, so it was really due to toxic blue green algae levels being so high that they closed the lake to all activities, something rarely ever done, but it sounds better if I say he got kicked out.  They were actually having good luck too. 

Mommy and Daddy have been having some great times without the kids lately, which is rare.  We got to go to the Casting Crowns concert in Lincoln with some good friends, and for a fun weekend away with some other good friends.  Both were a lot of fun. 

Our weekend away was to Kansas City where we 'scoped' out the new Schlitterbahn's water park with Daddy's childhood best friend and his wife.  We told the kiddos we were checking to see if it was a good place for them to go or not (thankfully, they bought it).  We had a blast even though it was a chilly 78 degrees with a cool north breeze.  And who knew you could burn to a crisp while you were freezing.  Most of us came home with pretty good sunburns. 

Daddy and I are convinced we are jinxed when it comes to hotels though.  After our catastrophes on our last hotel stays, we had another couple set backs this time too.  The hot tub was only lukewarm which was majorly disappointing after you'd been freezing cold all day and we didn't have any hot water in our shower in our room.  We had to go to another room to shower.  Seriously, if you ever go anywhere with us, don't let us book the hotel room.  Something is bound to go wrong. :)




We are looking forward to a fun weekend full of apple picking and Husker football!!

Kindergarten Crying

So, I survived the first day of Kindergarten and, so far, half way through the 2nd. 

As expected, Noisy Man was very excited to go and not hesitant in the least to enter into his Kindergarten classroom, even though mommy wanted to hold on to him just a bit longer.  I did great all morning.  We drove him to school the first day, so that allowed us to sleep in just a bit.  Got him up and ate a good breakfast, got dressed and then he sat and watched about 20 minutes of a cartoons while the rest of us got ready.  We headed down the road to Kindergarten (I totally just about typed preschool). 

Noisy Man and his teacher

Mommy made it all the way up to giving him a hug and a kiss goodbye until I started crying.  I tried so hard to hold it back so that he wouldn't see me, but I just couldn't do it.  He looked at me kinda funny, like "Why in the world are you crying, mother?"  But then just walked on into his classroom.

I stood at the door and watched, crying of course.   His classroom para came walking in and I asked her, "You said you would handle their tears if they cried, but who will handle mine?"  She gave me a sweet hug and stood and talked with us for a bit.  I was surprised daddy didn't out right laugh at me, although he did have a smirky little smile on his face, he just kept saying, "He'll be just fine, Mommy."  His teacher, Mrs. L, came over and chatted with us and reassured me for a short while as well until I figured I  had better move on and not blubber at his door all day.

Mommy and her big boy on his first day

Walking out of the school I got a few sympathetic looks from other teachers and such and his old preschool teacher saw us coming and said, "Most of the time I would give Miss Firecracker a hug hello, but it looks like Mommy could use a hug more today."  So, I got another sweet hug from Miss L. and a couple of tissues and finally made it out the door of the school, no longer weeping.  That lasted until daddy started telling me I would be OK and he would have fun and I cried all over again.

We were home all of 15 minutes before Miss Thumb Sucker is wandering the house saying, "Where Noisy Man?  Where he go?"  And the tears came again.

2nd day of Kindergarten, first day riding the bus there

I made it through, and was very thankful his day ended at 1:20.  We went and picked him up with a huge smile on every one's faces.  He had a very fun day, loved the lunch and everything they had done.  We sat and colored together while his sister's slept.

Today I sent him off on the bus and got all teary-eyed again as he waved good bye to me through his bus seat window.  He won't be home until after 4 today.  Man, I miss that kid!

Yesterday was also Mommy and Daddy's 8 year anniversary