School!

Anyone with older kids will totally laugh at me, but I think it's HARD having kids in school! I love it - I love the routine, I love seeing my kids becoming more independent and confident and learning new things, I love picking them up and hearing about their day... but it is still hard.

Suddenly, our bulletin board looks like this (it was neat and tidy all summer)

Tonight I cleared it off and made things look neat again, but it's still FULL and I know the neatness won't last.

Tonight was curriculum night at the girls' school, and when I got home I had to do my homework

There were forms to fill out, checks to write (always!), things to put on the calendar, flash cards to make, and lots of papers to file away.

I know I will get the hang of it eventually (I have to - some day I'll have four in school at the same time!) but right now it seems a little overwhelming, keeping track of everything. I am so thankful to have both girls in the same school. Next year we will be juggling two schools again, and that's even harder - just trying to remember dates, volunteer enough to not be the worst parent at the school, etc.

But it was fun seeing the kids' classrooms now that their fingerprints are all over it - artwork on the walls, desks full, names on the sticker charts.

And I loved this pledge that all of Amelia's pre-K class signed!

There was also a little goal chart next to it - things they hoped to learn in pre-K. So cute. It was fun to hear about what they do in class, especially since Amelia doesn't tell us much.

Tonight at dinner, she proudly announced, "we learned how to spell red today!" She was beaming. We were all looking at her expectantly, finally I said, "how to do you spell red, Amelia?" and she said, "I forgot." Ha ha!

I didn't get any pictures in Sophia's room, but it is just the happiest, brightest, most cheerful classroom you can imagine. Sophia's teacher is pretty darn cheerful herself! I really love that there is so much positive reinforcement in both classes. In Sophia's class, there is a jar and when the whole class is being good, the teacher puts marbles in the jar - when the jar is all full, the class gets to have a party. Kids get rewarded for good behavior with stickers, and can earn extra stickers by putting their name in the "proud box" - which is when the teacher catches them doing something extra good or helpful. After they get a certain number of stickers, they get to go to the treasure chest (both classrooms do this). I think all kids, but especially this age group, respond so much better to positive reinforcement than punishment.

Sophia starts soccer this week, and Amelia starts dance next week. I am limiting them to one activity each (Sophia is also doing violin at school) this year. I know the next couple of years will be challenging, trying to always find a balance between letting our kids experience new things and be involved and also valuing our family time. I refuse to give up our 6 o'clock family dinners or constantly force the little ones to be shuttled around from activity to activity. I see the kids playing together in the backyard after school, and as I've said before, that is what they should be doing right now. At least some of the time. And as homework and other things encroach, I see it as our responsibility to help guard that sacred time. We'll see how well we manage!

It's going to be a busy, fun year!

A Lovely Ordinary Week

I've been a little lacking in blogging material lately (as you might have noticed). But it's for good reasons - we're busy, but our busyness is of the ordinary kind. To me, that's the best kind.

Here's what we've been up to this week...

The girls finished their first full week of school, and it's been great. We've gotten into a great little routine, which makes me so happy, because it makes everyone else so much more agreeable! We started about a week before school started really enforcing bedtime and making the girls make their beds and get dressed as soon as they get up, which has made for an easier transition.

After school, the girls are so happy to see each other, they play together perfectly.

Sophia finally lost that tooth!

She's so silly - all last year in Kindergarten, she talked about how cool it is to loose a tooth, so you can stick a straw through the gap!

Amelia... I just love her.

Whenever we're home, she's in a princess dress.

We are thinking of succumbing to the minivan, because our giant SUV isn't always as practical. Amelia came up to me as I was looking at Honda Odysseys online, and I asked her whether she wanted a car like that. She said, "no, I want a car that has no roof, and then you push a button and it gets a roof." Like I said, I just love her. And I agree.

A couple of days this week it was even cool enough for the kids to play outside! Oh my goodness, I just cannot wait for fall!!! Every tiny teasing taste we get of temperatures under 90, I get so excited and start thinking of pumpkin recipes.

Davis and I have been organizing, trying to make room for one more little person in our little house. All the kids' clothes have come down from the attic, and I've sorted through them all, bought fall and winter clothes to get all four through the rest of the year, and neatly boxed them up. We've cleared everything off the kitchen shelves, scrubbed, and re-organized the cabinets - it's my first time moving things around since we bought this house eight years ago, and I'm so happy with it now. We've moved some furniture around to make more room. We got all of the baby things out of the attic and put them away, buying just a couple of things here or there that were lacking. And I re-shelved the girls' book by color - I love it, and it's motivated the girls to put books back on the shelf properly.

And speaking of adding a little person to our house, I had another ultrasound this week, and everything checked out PERFECTLY! Really, really perfectly perfect! I feel so lucky, this sweet baby boy has been looked at so closely by so many wonderful doctors, and this week his 9th ultrasound was done by a wonderful radiologist who was able to rule out every possible complication we had worried about and just reassure me in the best way. I have also had very few contractions (compared to Henry, when I was already on bed rest by this point) and so we are hopeful. I haven't been hopeful and pregnant in so long, I forgot how amazing it is!

This morning I made 42 of these pancakes, most of them to freeze for the girls to eat during the week. Amelia ate SIX this morning!

Henry at 18 Months

Actually, 18.5 months. Sheesh, time will not slow down!

Henry makes sure we are never bored. From humor - making us laugh with his random outbursts of gibber jabber - to horror - climbing onto the dining room table and dancing - he is a constant source of entertainment at our house. He certainly gets a look in his eyes that signals that he is about to go looking for trouble, and boy is he ever good at finding it.

But he is also still my snuggly, snuggly little boy. He gives the best hugs - just wrapping his arms tight around your neck and totally relaxing his whole body into you. Today he spent the entire hour that we were in church asleep in the nursery lady's arms. When I told her she should feel free to put him down in a crib, she said "but he was so warm and cozy!"

Henry is obsessed with shoes. It is one of his few consistent words that he says "ch-oo'-s" he says whenever he sees a pair of shoes. He always wants to wear shoes, and he gets very excited about new shoes. So cute!

He is a GREAT eater - in fact, I don't think he has ever encountered a food that he wasn't willing to shovel into his mouth with great enthusiasm. I joke that I have college funds for the girls and a food fund for when Henry is a teenager!

Henry is running and climbing a lot. He will repeat words back to us, but will not use very many of them on his own (Amelia was the same way at this age). He does just talk gibberish nonstop. He has the BEST laugh, and laughs a lot!

He does love his sleep and is crabby when he doesn't get it

and he ALWAYS has dirt under his fingernails

He is wearing some 18-24 month clothes and starting to wear more and more 24 month clothes. We are still loving our one-size cloth diapers. He is starting to get some molars, which I think is why his sleeping hasn't been the best lately - he's been waking up fussy, but doesn't want to get out of bed.

We love this sweet boy of ours. I cannot believe in a very short while he is going to be a big brother!!

Phew! We Made It!

There has been so much anticipation - both the exciting, good kind and the knots-in-our-tummies kind - about starting school this year. The girls both started school at their new school on Wednesday - Sophia first grade (!) and Amelia pre-K.

Amelia was so excited, she just could barely contain herself! She ran into her classroom and would barely say good bye to me. Here she is with her teacher Ms. Melissa

We already love Ms. Melissa!

Sophia was excited too, but she also had some major butterflies. Here she is with her teacher, Ms. Blaisdell

See how nervous she looks? At the end of the day, when I picked her up, she looked like this

I was telling a friend that the same thing happened in kindergarten - she seemed so much older when I picked her up from that first day. It takes so much courage to overcome that anxiety, and then when she does, there is NOTHING better than the pride and confidence I see in her!

She loves Ms. Blaisdell and seems to really love her new school. I love hearing her talk about her day!

Two things I love about having the girls in school - they go to sleep IMMEDIATELY when I stick them in bed, and they miss each other all day, which means they get along when they are around each other! Here Sophia is reading to Amelia - LOVE!

Wordless Wednesday - Breakfast Thief

This Weekend - Celebrating the Past and Future

Last night, we celebrated my father-in-law and mother-in-law's 50th wedding anniversary.

It was really beautiful and inspiring. These two, they have been through so much together - married young, not having much money, war, four children, ups and downs, and so many years. And they made it work, and I am sure sometimes it was not as easy as they make it look. Such inspiration, for which I am so thankful!

I love this family!

Henry was so, so tired! He came for picture-duty and then went home with a sitter - he crashed in the car on the 5 minute drive home!

Amelia with her uncle Kent, who hung the moon in her eyes, and her Aunt Nicki, her sweet Godmother. Whenever I pine for Maine - which has been a LOT this hot, hot summer! - I think about how wonderful it is that my kids get to grow up with such great family nearby.

Sophia and her cousin Wilson - these two are joined at the hip and play so sweetly together. They will now be going to the same school (though different classes - Wilson is a year younger, so he'll be in Kindergarten) and are so excited about it.

There are hundreds and hundreds of pictures from last night, but I knew if I waited to review and edit them all, I would never get them posted. One of my favorites we took because my sister in law joked that every family should have a stuffy portrait around an old wingback chair!

Today, we visited a wonderful new church (not a new church, just new to us!) and school starts this week... I finally feel like we are on our way to moving forward from the sadness of losing our school/church. Really, I have been stuck in that sadness all summer and have dreaded finding a new church/starting a new school - like climbing up, up, up the ladder to a really scary water slide. I have had knots in my tummy and kept thinking about how I just want to go back DOWN where it's safe and normal.

This afternoon we had a church service with many of the families and staff from our old school, and it opened up a lot of the hurt again. Hearing Sophia sing all those songs, hearing the choir from the school reunited, I just felt once again everything that has been lost. I have that same pounding headache from crying too much that I had after the end-of-school service. Sophia asked me if her new school had a chapel, and we had a long talk about why her new school doesn't. But this afternoon's service was also healing, and I needed it before I could move forward. The first hymn today was the last hymn from that service in May - and it did feel like the wound was fresh again, but that bandaid needed to come off so the healing could really take place. And it did. The dread and the knots are gone.

I just know after this week I will be flying down that water slide, and the water will feel good - once we are IN the water and forced to stay afloat with back-to-school popsicle parties and packing lunches and homework and permission slips, my focus will shift back to my children, where it always should have been anways - seeing them learning and making new friends, it will heal those wounds. And finding a church that once again fills me with hope and not sadness, I know, every little thing's gonna be alright.

More Solutions

Just like trying to find first aid supplies when they are most needed, finding a pen when the lady on the phone starts rattling off a phone number is equally hard at our house. I've seen this idea several places, so it is not mine, I just don't remember where I've seen it.

I took a small metal canister (Starbucks sells mints and things in them - this one came from Trader Joe's via the Easter Bunny), spray painted it (I've seen much cuter versions with paper modge-podged on them and/or ribbons) and then hot glued a magnet to the back. Now I have a pen and pencil that permanently live on the fridge.

For more about how I menu plan for the week, click here. Our grocery bill has gone up since I wrote that post, now that the girls are older and we've added a little boy with a VERY healthy appetite to our family. But I still do things the same way, and it works well for us. This past weekend, I bought $207 worth of groceries, and then handed the cashier my Kroger card and stack of coupons, and watched the total drop to $126. It's not Extreme Couponing, but I also don't have 8 hours to prepare for a grocery trip, nor do I desire to have stacks of body wash piled up in my living room (a friend of mine the other day said, "the only difference between Hoarders and Extreme Couponers is how well organized their stuff is" - ha ha! So true!)

******

I also wanted to get the kids really into the habit of doing their chores toward the end of summer vacation, so they would already be in the habit when school started. And yes, I start my children early with plenty of chores - Henry even helps clean up his room and take his clothes to the laundry room, like his sisters did at his age. I just think it's easier to get them started when they are still at the age that they like being helpful!

We have a giant bulletin board (you can see it here) divided into sections for each of the kids. I made little lists for each of the girls with their names and days of the week written on them, and then laminated them, so I could write in their chores (they change every couple of months) and fill in the circles every day with an overhead projector erasable marker

Along with their daily chores, the kids each have Saturday jobs.

The girls are pretty good now about some of these chores - they usually make their beds and take their dirty clothes to the laundry room without being reminded, and they like the satisfaction of having colored in circles enough that they will do their other chores too.

Amelia loves dusting! I collect old socks that have lost their partners, turn one inside out and slip it on her hand - and that girl will go to town on bookshelves and baseboards!

Small Solutions

As I've mentioned a couple of times lately, I started to get nervous about this fall - having two kids in school, a toddler (a very active toddler!) at home, and a newborn (on top of all the normal work-life balance issues I deal with anyway). So I have been working hard to come up with simple ways to simplify and organize our lives. I thought I would share a couple of the small solutions I've come up with - having things organized helps my mind feel more in order!

1. The First Aid Kit

Anyone who knows my husband understands that a well-stocked first aid kit is vitally important in our house! I first started stock-piling wound-care products when we were dating, and now that I have birthed his children - some of whom take after him in the injury-prone department - I make sure we have everything we need for small emergencies at our house.

The problem was, whenever we urgently needed a butterfly bandage or tweezers, we would dig through a big unruly box of wrong-sized band aids, and never find what we needed. No matter how many times I tried to organize our first aid kit, or buy nifty divided boxes at the Container Store - it wasn't long before someone in search of a piece of gauze turned the whole thing into a mess again!

Well, check this out

I ordered this clear shoe holder (small enough that it hangs higher than toddler hands can reach) for the inside of the bathroom closet door.

It makes me so happy every time I open the closet now, and it even motivated me to clean our and organize the rest of the bathroom closet. Now when an emergency strikes, no more frantic riffling through a bunch of junk to find what we need.

We also have a big emergency kit in the laundry room, which never gets touched (it's for BIG emergencies - you can read more about it here). I just bought this prepackaged kit, and then we have extra gallons of water and food, etc. in the same cabinet.

2. The Car

I remember before I had kids, I was very picky about keeping my car clean. I swore I would NOT become one of "those" moms with the french fries on the mini van floor. Ha ha ha! Well, I don't have a mini van, and french fry consumption in our car is very limited, but still, it's really hard to keep the car clean with three little kids!

One thing that drove me crazy, is that my SUV has a giant console between the driver's seat and passenger's seat - we always joke that it could fit an 8th passenger in there! The problem with it being so big, is that it was hard to keep track of all the stuff that accumulated in there. If we emptied it out, we always ended up needing a Kleenex and not having one in the car.

Well, check this out

These pouches are pretty small, so I can also grab one and stick it in the diaper bag, if for example we're headed to the doctor's office and need some snacks or activities to keep everyone happy while we wait.

The only other thing in the console now, beside these bags, is the remote for the DVD and this small notebook/pen.

Our glove compartment is big too, so I separated paperwork into two plastic envelopes that are easy to grab if needed. The Emergency Information sheet contains all of our names with our pictures and dates of birth, our insurance information, medical information (drug allergies, etc.), and contact information for our families.

Insurance and Registration is so Davis can easily get to it when he gets pulled over. Ha ha! I just totally jinxed myself by thinking about how many years it's been since I've been pulled over...

Twist on Movie Night

We took a break from Family Night over the summer, but since school is just over a week away (yay!) we brought it back this week. We have done a movie night for Family Night before, but I saw this great idea on Pinterest, and decided to give it a try...

All day today, the kids got to earn tickets by doing jobs around the house - we just used a roll of raffle tickets I bought at Walmart a while back. Then, after dinner, they got to use those tickets to buy a ticket to the movie along with concessions: popcorn, Sprite, peanuts, and candy.

The kids were SO helpful all day - they cleaned and cleaned, did their chores without a second thought, and just jumped at any opportunity to help out. It was great! I bought the anniversary edition of Sword In The Stone, which the girls had never seen, and we piled all the pillows and blankets around the house on the living room floor and watched it.

We started the movie at 6:30, immediately after dinner (I set up everything for the movie while cooking and the kids got into pajamas) so I wanted to make something both light and at least a little healthy for dinner, knowing they would eat a bunch of junk right after. So I made stuffed zucchini - they were yummy and not too filling.

Stuffed Zucchini

3 large zucchini (try to get them around the same size)
1/3 cup diced cooked ham
1 Tbsp chopped parsley
1 Tbsp plain breadcrumbs
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp dried basil
dash of nutmeg
salt and pepper
1.5 Tbsp butter
1/5 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bring a large pot of water to boil. Trim the ends off the zucchini and boil in the water for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan, add flour, and then slowly add milk. Whisk and cook over low heat until it begins to thicken. In a medium bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, then slowly add the white sauce. Drain the zucchini, slice in half length wise, and use a spoon to scoop out most of the pulp. Drain the pulp in a colander and then add to the ham mixture. The zucchini should look like little boats - place them in a shallow, buttered baking pan, then fill with the ham mixture. Mix a little parmesan with more breadcrumbs and sprinkle on top. Bake for 30 minutes.

Happy Monday!