Friday, June 27

Just an update, since it's been almost a month!

With summer being here and the weather being enjoyable, we've spent more time outside and doing other things. I've limited myself to two hours of computer time per day, and I try to split that up (one in the morning while I drink my tea, the other before bed) when there's nothing going on in my internet world.
We're in the thick of summer, and July is actually kind of busy for us. Sunday, my BIL and his family are coming down from DTW to spend a week and hold my nephew's 3rd birthday party! We haven't seen them since last July so we can't wait to go hang out with them! I need some snuggles from a little boy who isn't too old for snuggles :-)
July 12, Poseidon's baby sister is getting married!! I have to make sure, but I know she wanted to have our kids as ring bearer/flower girl when the date arrived. Now I'm trying to talk Hurricane Girl into it, it seems she doesn't want to drop flowers on the ground.... maybe the promise of wearing a pretty dress will help? We'll see. Boy is excited about it too, although I think it's because there's a treehouse on-site! I hope to have lots of good pictures from the day, and with their permission I'll share them here.
July 13 the kids and I leave for a week at Mom's. I was hoping to schedule it so that we could make it for Grandpa's birthday party, but yesterday in the mail was the invitiation for that being on the 27th. Now we'll have to shoot for the big reunion in August instead. While we're at Mom's, I've "booked" a picnic with two of my friends and their families! One I haven't met yet, but went to school with her husband. The other I've met, and also went to school with her husband. We're going to meet at a park and let all the kids play, plus we'll have my mom, D's mom, and C's mom and/or MIL - so the Nanas will be there too! I can't wait to see everybody there, and again, there will be pictures! Now I intend to come home either the 20th or 21st, the 21st being Grandpa's actual birthday so I've left a little 'wiggle room' there.
July 22nd, our other nephew will be one year old! Hard to believe how quickly time seems to fly.... we hope to see them too at some point!
July 28th.... the big, dreaded appointment. Both kids go to the Pedi for their yearly checkups - and shots. Boy looks to only have one, maybe two, but Miss Hurricane - well, she's scheduled for FIVE. I'm still looking into all of them, and may actually spread them out so I can catch any reactions to a particular vaccine. I'd like to skip them all altogether, but I've already started and can't take those back. Plenty of kids are delayed, and I see no point whatsoever in holding off for mine. Besides, they're both very healthy kids (both have been sick maybe twice in their lives - yaya for Mama Milk!!) and delaying some shots won't hurt them on little bit. There is a ton of reading I've done and still have to do, too, but I have some time left to decide.

That seems to be one busy month for us! I'm actually glad that we don't have any practices or games or things of that sort to deal with on top of it all.

August is the time of year for my Dad's family's big reunion. Second Sunday, every August, folks come in from all over. That means it's time for me to pull out my genealogy notes and figure out who to ask for some information! I also need to spend some time talking to my elders, as a few of them have popped into dreams lately and I've gotten a bit worried about it. This year, I should be able to make it to the reunion without time constraints, as the school year starts on the second Wednesday (8/13/08) instead of the usual second Monday.
I have to send my baby into Kindergarten! Who's going to hold my hand??

The first day will be the hardest, I know, but I think I'll wait until September to find a job. We'll need that time to recover :-)

So that's what I have been doing, and what's going on until school starts up again. Any family reading this should try to visit Mom's around the same time as us, I don't know when we'll be up again for more than a day - and I want to see everyone I can!!

Until then,

~Namaste~

Monday, June 2

I'm 31 now. Wanna see?

I started writing this one last week. Took me until today to get all the pictures uploaded and sorted and all. I'm just going to copy/paste the original writing :-)

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day weekend! My kids and I went up to Mom's for the weekend. I turned 31 on the 27th, so she held a party/campout for me. Lordy, I can put away the wine coolers now. A case myself, easily.... Didn't even get a hangover, so now I *know* I'm old!! But I got to visit with a lot of family who I hadn't seen in a year or more. It was a really great time, the whole weekend! I just got all the pictures onto my computer, and have them up on Picasa for your viewing pleasure. (You can choose to view them as a slideshow, but you might miss some captions.) I went ahead and created nicknames or used abbreviations for most folks, but got permission from all the parents about pictures of the kids. Mostly, if you don't know who someone is, just ask - if you can get a hold of me, I can sort everyone out for you.

We came home on Monday evening, and I had a day of sewing for myself on Tuesday :-) I made one skirt, fixed another, put some pockets onto an apron dress, and reorganized my sewing area in a logical way. Now I know what I'm going to use to make what things, and I have all the materials and such in one place for each project. Starting that household management binder has helped me so much! {Thanks to you, Jenn!} This coming weekend I get to sew more too, as the kids will be camping with my in-laws for 4 days. Little Miss Hurricane got her first bike for a birthday gift, and she's been having a grand time riding up and down the sidewalk. I'll have to take pictures now that she's steady enough and doesn't need my help with it. Oh, she does have training wheels, but we live near the top of a slight incline, and she's needed me to push her along on the "uphill" part. It's getting easier for her, and I know she'll have a great time next weekend riding her bike with PawPaw.

Some of my friends had asked me what I got for my birthday. Well, as a combo Mother's Day/birthday gift from Poseidon and the kids, I got a green iPod Nano plus $25 in iTunes (MIL pitched in $20, and I had a $5 already). Didn't take me long to spend that! :-) Other than that, I got the usual cards from family, the party at Mom's (which was obviously a blast), and Tuesday for sewing. I actually get two more of those this weekend! I already have everything laid out too.... but I started a little tonight.

Now I need to get to those dishes that have been glaring at me all day. *sigh* The fun ends.... have a great week anyway!

~A

Mama's got to brag a bit.

I know I'm a little behind on things, but bear with me. I'm doing two posts this week - the other one will come as soon as I get the weekend photos done up right.
For starters, though, I wanted to tell you all about Boy's 4th grade year. His last day of school was Friday, May 30th, so he brought home the entire contents of his desk (about 20 pounds of stuff in his backpack!) and his report card. The report card is the most exciting thing, but hang tight....

I know I posted his 3rd quarter grades, and I think maybe 2nd quarter too, but I'll give you another run-down since I have them all in front of me. He has officially been placed in 5th grade next year! His age (one of the youngest in his class) and maturity have always made me wonder if I started him too early - he turned 5 just days before entering Kindergarten - but every year, after the Winter Break, his grades and attitude turn around 180 degrees, and I again feel confident that I did the right thing. I also didn't want a boy who'd turn 18 just before his Senior year of high school, and who might want to ditch school because he'd be an adult. So, without further ado, here's what happened this year......

2nd quarter:
Math - 84/B
Science - 84/B
Science Quest (labwork) - 89/B
Reading - 86/B
Lang. Arts (writing) - 78/C
Social Studies - 76/C
Art - 90/B
Music - 77/C
P.E. - 95/A

3rd quarter:
Math - 67/D {several missing assignments}
Science - 76/C
Science Quest - 98/A
Reading - 71/D {several missing assignments}
Lang. Arts - 80/C
Spelling - 92/A
Art - 84/B
Music - 85/B
P.E. - 95/A

4th quarter:
Math - 84/B
Science - 86/B
Science Quest - 92/A
Reading - 92/A
Lang. Arts - 85/B
Spelling - 99/A
Social Studies - 80/C
Art - 94/A
Music - 90/B
P.E. - 95/A

Did you see the big jump in grades there?!? We are so very proud of him! More importantly, he is proud of himself! At the end of 3rd quarter, we'd had a long talk about school and the importance of doing your best work all the time. Before the 3rd quarter report card came home, we found out that Boy had been hiding assignments in his closet here, and therefore made more work for himself. That, and the report card, prompted me to watch more carefully and really dig into him about what they'd done at school each day - plus, his school now can publish each students grades and coursework online, so he knew I was checking up on him and his classwork/homework. Now, sometime during the last few months, he has also gone through a growth spurt - physically (he's almost up to my nose!), mentally, and emotionally - so that could have had a lot to do with the improvement too. I now feel confident that he's ready for 5th grade, although I'll need to work with him over the summer so he doesn't forget anything. You know, the old "if you don't use it, you lose it". I'm thankful for some friends who homeschool, that I have a list of resources and websites that make it easy for me to find some work to do each weekday. His school also sent a list of reading material for incoming 5th graders, so we'll be hitting the library a couple times per month. I'd like to try and teach him how to write a book report so that it will come more easily once they *have* to be done in school. Let's see if I remember those days..... LOL.

So, did I mention that we're extremely proud of the improvement? He really is an awesome kid, and sometimes things like this just come up seemingly out of nowhere, and it reminds me that I've done my job right. As a reward to him for such great effort and improvement, we bought him a one-month subscription to XBox Live. Relatives can email me if you want to add him as a friend - he's set up with full parental controls and we have to approve all friends, he's not allowed voice or text chat while playing online, and there is a list of games he's allowed to play. On the flipside of this, he also has to play Brain Challenge and Buku Sudoku once daily. I think I'm gong to have him do 3 or 5 Sudoku puzzles, then take the Brain Test, and after that he's allowed "free play" for an hour or so. He's having his "free play" at this moment so we'll be doing the learning games later. I want to play a game too, ya know. :-)

Now - the other post for today. Last weekend Mom had a party for my turning 31, and I'm finally getting all the pictures edited and put together in a slideshow. Come back later, I hope to have them all up by tonight!

~Proud Mama, Amphitrite

EDIT: I came back near 11 p.m. to add links and fix spelling on this one. I really wrote it in a hurry earlier!