It's Almost Time

First of all, a big Happy Birthday to Candi. Looks like you're having a great one so far, so here's one more wish for a happy day.

Last night was meet the teacher night at my school. So I had to finally get my room all the way ready for the first day. I have pretty much been working every day and I felt like it was almost ready, but I still was there all day yesterday doing last minute touch-ups. It turned out great, and we had an awesome turnout of kids and parents, and grandparents. At one point I swear there were 50 people in my little room. It was overwhelming, but from the small amount of time I was able to spend with the kids, they all seem great. I now cannot wait for school to start. I have so many ideas for what we're going to do this year, and I feel like I'll have more freedom to do things my way after getting that first year out of the way. All I have left to do is make a couple phone calls to parents who haven't turned in physicals, make nametags, and add my two new students to my lists. (I am down to 2 openings, yay!)

Joey is doing better- no more teasing.

Ben seems to be just loving school. He is so independent.

Tomorrow my sister and I will be braving the Waterfront crowds to go see Montgomery Gentry. I'm looking forward to a night out before we get back into the day-to-day. I am also looking forward to getting back into that routine, though. I sooo need to work out again, and we've all been eating out way too much.

Sounds like a lot of people are going away for the weekend, so enjoy! I hope to be writing about us going away for a weekend very soon.

My Baby Got Picked On Today :(

Joey was telling me about his day in school today, and he quietly said "some boys laughed at me today."
"What happened?"
"They laughed because I pull my pants all the way down when I go potty." (Crying begins)
(Note here that Joey has always worried about drips in his underpants so he always pulls his clothes down so they're out of the way while he goes. He also waits a while to make sure all the drips are out before pulling his pants up. We know he's wierd. It's just one of his quirks. And Daddy warned me that he would get picked on, but we didn't think this soon.)
"Oh, honey"(insert breaking momma heart) "What did they say?"
"Nothing."
"Well how did you know they were laughing at you?"
"I just did."
"Did you you see who it was?"
"No, I was in the bathroom and heard them laughing."
A few minutes of this back and forth and I'm still not entirely convinced that they were laughing at him, but this evening we practiced going potty without pulling the pants down just in case. One of my biggest worries is seeing my babies not fit in or get picked on. Please, please, please let this be an isolated incident.

Ben's First Day

Ben got to have his first day/meet his teacher today. Teacher seems nice, kids seem ok for the most part (one buddy we're going to have to watch out for), transportation is a MESS. Last year when Joey was in kindergarten, the bus picked nim up and dropped him off at our driveway. This year they are apparently cutting back on something because all the preschoolers and kindergarteners are riding together and bus stops are on the corners. Fortunately the corner is only 3 houses down, but that is not nearly as convenient as it once was. Also, when I got the schedule in the mail (2 days before school started), it has him getting on the bus 45 minutes before school, and getting home 45 minutes after school. I'm sorry, but my 3 year old cannot be on the bus for over an hour a day. Seriously. We live 5 minutes away from the school. Well, we are not the only ones with a problem because that was all I heard about at school today, so hopefully somebody at transportation will realize that this will not work. Otherwise Ben is about to become a car rider, which he'd really rather not.

But other than that, I am looking forward to a great school year for both kids. I have realized that I am going to have 3 afternoons a week without kids. I get to grocery shop by myself, work out on my own, and make appointments without dragging them along. Yay me.

1st Grade is Way Harder than Kindergarten

Maybe it was dropping him off in the car instead of loading him on the bus, but I had a hard time leaving my baby at school today.He had to get out of the car and go to the playground by himself and then to his class by himself. I went to work for the 2 hours that he was at school but I was just sooo nervous for him that I couldn't get anything done. So we went back to pick him up half an hour early. Fortunately we weren't the only ones. There were several moms waiting for a while. When he finally came out at the end of the last line he looked so happy and proud. He was a big boy and handled all the independence just fine. I asked about his day and he said he was a little scared on the playground at first but then he found his buddies from kindergarten. He likes his teacher, can't wait to bring his lunch, learned that a penny is one cent, said the kids in his class were not too naughty (just one was a little crazy), and generally had a great first day.

Tonight I meet Ben's teacher and tomorrow he gets his first day. I'll update that tomorrow.

Some Things I Forgot Yesterday

The craziest part of this week: Hubby is in Canada for work. He left yesterday and will be back tomorrow after both orientations and Joey's first day is over. So I had to find a sitter for the boys for both evenings because Grandma also went on vacation this week. Somehow I get abandoned in my time of need. Good news- we were at a Birthday party for our old friends Andy and Amy's daughter Abby on Saturday and they agreed to watch Ben tonight and both boys tomorrow night. The kids actually got along and played together really well on Saturday so hopefully they will again.

On his way to the bus station yesterday, Daddy called in to the radio station and WON! We have reserved seat tickets to the Montgomery Gentry show next Friday night. It has been a long time since I have been to a concert so I am looking forward to it.

Is everyone as obsessed as I am with the Olympics? The boys have been getting quite frustrated with their lack of movies. Michael Phelps- awesome. I saw him get all of his gold medals. When we went to the pool Friday, Joey jumped in the same way Michael does. But he has decided that he wants to play Volleyball in the olympics when he grows up.

Girls gymnastics- hello? Rip-off as Bela Karoli says. I felt really bad for Alicia on the beam and Nastia on the uneven bars. I do not get that tie-breaker thing, either. And where did Shawn Johnson go?

Ok, I think I covered everything now. I'll try to update sooner next time.

I'm Still Here :)

Ok, ok, I'll try to update the crazyness now.

So the biggest thing is that my babies start school in two days. Joey has 1st grade orientation tomorrow night and his first day Wednesday. I have parent orientation for Ben's preschool Wednesday night and he goes for an hour on Thursday. We found out that Joey doesn't get busing (bussing?) so we're trying to work out what we are going to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays since he gets out at 2:40, I don't get out til 2:45, and Ben gets off the bus at 2:51. A little tight. Today we went shopping for lunch stuff for both boys. Joey will be packing a lunch for the first time, and Ben will need to eat quickly between his AM and PM preschool on MWF. We also timed how long it takes to walk to school in case that could be an option for Grandma some days- about 15 minutes and both boys were whining the whole way home so that is going to be last resort.

What else? The boys finished up swim lessons last weekend, and we made it to the pool one more time on Friday (saw an old friend there). Joey has gotten so big and brave. He went down the slide and jumped off the diving board! Last year he wouldn't get his face wet, so huge improvement. Ben also loves the water and gets to do level one next year even though he will not be 5 yet.

My school- I've been working hard on getting my room ready, at least a few hours each day. It's finally starting to look presentable so now I have to get all those first day things ready. We drove in to Schaumburg yesterday and stopped at the IKEA for a few things. They had a rocker for $10 and some cute little finger puppets for my puppet theater. We have meet the teacher night next Wednesday and then school starts the following Tuesday. I feel good about being ready by then, especially now that I can go while the boys are at school rather than dragging them with me. I also did some shopping at Kohl's the other day for some nicer work clothes. I feel the need as the director to wear something a little nicer than t-shirts every day. I had a 30% off coupon and managed to get 2 pairs of pants and 8 new shirts for $100. The other good news is that even though I've gotten a little off track with working out this summer (I will get back to it when I settle in to my routine) I was still able to get size 14 pants. That made me very happy.

The boys have been driving me and each other nuts the last several days. We are very ready to get school started and have a break from each other. This summer has been a very new experience with having so much free time and together time. I already have plans for how to do it better next summer, but it was really great getting to do the things that we did. Even though it wasn't a hot summer, on the days when we were warm and restless we could just head to the pool for a couple hours. I got a ton of reading done, to the point where I have to take a break now or my head is going to explode. I learned how to stay up late and sleep in (though I might decide that's not a good thing come Wednesday). The boys and I played UNO and Big Fish Little Fish together with minimal fighting.

Oh- and my boy started Tiger Scouts. He loves his uniform and is very proud to wear it. This is at rocket day last weekend. He had a cool Speed Racer rocket that he managed not to lose:)

See that one bottom tooth sticking out? It came out later that day with no help from Mommy. And the tooth fairy managed to show up on time this round.And one more shot of my cutie baby. I know you love it.

I Know My Life is Easy, But...

Sorry not feeling the updates lately. I am feeling soooo overwhelmed with all I have to do to get ready for school to start. I have still been working for the Park District and then dragging the kids to the preschool with me to try to get my room set up. The good news is that we enrolled 8 new kids just this week, so that stress is eased a bit. But I still have a lot to do to get my room ready, plus director work so school can start, plus I might want to at least get the first week's lesson plans done. You know, it was my ambition to get the whole year done over the summer. Hmmm, not so much.
The kids are going to my Dad's from Sunday to Wednesday, so I'm hoping to get a bunch done then and finally be able to breathe. I'll try to do a better update during that time, too.

I Been Playin With My Pictures Again

So I was bored and blog-surfing tonight when I came across a blog telling me to check out Picnik. Since I was bored and all I went on over and found this really cool, free, easy, photo-editing site. It's not the fastest in the world if you want to do a bunch of pictures, but I had fun playing with a couple of the pics from yesterday's carp-a-thon. Doesn't Joey look handsome? Here's a fun one. First, sooc (straight out of camera). 60's style. You can actually make your pictures look like you took them 40 years ago. Actually when I look at it now it doesn't look so dramatic. Let me try again. 60's style plus cross something or other. Pretty cool.

Carp-A-Thon 2008

We had the big Carp-a-thon yesterday allll day. We got up and woke the boys about 5:20 in the morning, were on the water by six, and didn't get home until 8pm. Here we are in the morning bright and shiny and still waiting for good things to happen. Shortly after this picture I noticed welts all over Ben's body and Joey started feeling sick. Ben was fine, but Joey ended up throwing up over the side of the boat a few times. After that he was fine and we stayed on the water. It was kind of boring and we didn't have too many bites, so the boys tried to rest and I tried to get some sun.
After a few hours we managed to get one fish for each of us. Ben got the biggest at 7.1 pounds.
Next was Joey with 4.14 pounds. Mommy's was 2.7 and Daddy had 1.7. Not the best fishing day but we did pretty good. The winner's fish was a record 27 pounds.
Ben ended up getting the trophy for his age group. We were all excited and surprised. (Joey was more upset and surprised because he didn't get one.) He was also on the local news last night.

You can watch it here (click on Carp-a-thon). The boys also won big tackle boxes (I'm trying to convince Ben to let me "borrow" his for my scrapbook supplies), and had fun playing games. It really was a great day because we were all together doing something (mostly) fun all day.