Friday, September 21, 2012

The Last Week or So



The last week or so we have been settling into our new routine.  We have been busy, but not crazy busy, which is so nice!

We spend each morning at home until about 10a.m.  Lilah sleeps for most of that time, which allows for some Mommy/Brian time!  On the rare occasion that Lilah wakes up early, we have been trying to spend some time outside.

We head to "Mommy's work" around 10 and I work for about an hour while the kiddos play.  Brian gets on the bus at 11:20ish each day.  After that, I work for a bit, Lilah and I have lunch and then we have Mommy/Lilah time!  Sometimes we go to the park, or lunch with daddy.  We've been to the zoo and done quite a bit of shopping.  (Shhhh don't tell Brian!!)  Lilah naps for a good portion of the time while Brian is in school.  This has forced me to get creative.  She seems to prefer to nap in the car )too many interruptions at church, so I have been bringing work along and actually getting a lot accomplished!  I have also found local restaurants to steal wifi from, ha ha!

All in all Brian is really enjoying school and from most accounts he's doing really well.  He has been in trouble a couple of times-once for spinning in the hall and once for throwing goldfish crackers on the floor.  And he has been in even more trouble at home for those instances since he LIED about both of them!  In some ways, it's nice that he has the speech to be able to lie, but it's not a trend we'd like to see continue!

He's gotten way more positive feedback than negative.  One of his goals is that he will attend to the teacher during small and large group without redirection.  His teacher says he's doing great with that!  He's also making lots of friends and coming home and telling me about them. I get lots of details that I didn't get last year about his days.  He tells me what he ate, what he played with, what the story the read was about.  It's so much fun to hear!  (He even got invited to a friend's birthday party last weekend, which meant his first visit to **cringe** Chuckie Cheese!)

Our nights have been mostly low key, but soccer has started again, so we get to do that once a week.  That seems to be going better as well.  Brian is definitely following the ball the whole time and kicking it more and more.  Last season he played in the grass a lot, so this is a great improvement, really!  Lilah is LOVING watching him play.  She wants to get out there so badly! 



We got to celebrate Pappy's retirement with his work friends one night last week.  Lilah was a huge hit at the party.  Both of the kids were really good and people enjoyed seeing them.  Lilah made quite the exit.  She walked down the aisle of the room waiving like a royal.  She's a crack up!

We've been having lots of fun on the weekends too.  Last weekend we went on a Farm Tour.  We only made it to two farms, but we had a lot of fun!  The shrimp farm was easily the favorite.  Brian loved "fishing" for shrimp and the tractor.  The kids got to pet a horse, two sheep and a chicken too!



Monday, September 10, 2012

A Random Post with Pictures

Last week we had our monthly dinner night and baby Ava, the newest addition to our group of friends, made her dinner night debut!  We snapped pictures of course.  Brian and Addison had to make sure to get me to take plenty of pictures of them too!


With the beautiful weather this weekend, we spent a lot of time outside.  We went to a "Hopebox Derby" on Saturday.  The cars were neat, but the bounce houses had Brian's attention.  We didn't stay very long because it was really, really muddy! 

Saturday morning at Lilah's swim lesson, the teacher decided to move her up from "Water Babies" to "Toddle One."  She really loves the water and has picked up on all the skills easily.  I was glad to make the move because I think she's ready and it's a half hour later...more sleep!!

Sunday we went to an airplane exhibit.  Brian liked getting in the planes and emergency vehicles.  Lilah liked  being outside! 



Last night we cooked dinner for the family.  Brian decided Lilah was bored in her booster seat, so he ran and got paper and crayons for them to color with.  He's a good big brother.

Before dinner they were snacking on goldfish and hamming it up on the stairs for me.


And speaking of a ham.  This child is definitely our ham...



School seems to be going well for Brian.  He did have a relatively large fit on Thursday when it was time to get on the bus, but that had more to due with the fact that I took his I Pad away.  Mean Mommy.  Won't let him take his I Pad to school!  The driver said he stopped crying as soon as they pulled out of my work parking lot.  Of course I felt like the worst mom ever for the next several hours.  It's so funny.  I RUN a preschool.  I have seen kids act that way numerous times, but I can't handle it when it's my own kid. 

He comes home daily with a report on what he made and what he ate.  It's way more information than I got out of him last year, and I am very grateful for that.  We are starting our normal routine this week, so we don't have to be at my work until about 10:30.  Miss Lilah gets to sleep in and we all get some time at home before we start the day! 

It's a big week.  Shawn's birthday is Wednesday and Dad's retirement party is tomorrow night!