Meeting the teacher

It was a tough decision, but we decided to put Joshua in Kindergarten this year. Looking at the statistics for 1st grade this year, many of the kids are getting ready to have their 7th birthday soon, and he just turned 6. I'd like to break him in slowly to mainstream society. Looking at the curriculum for this year's class, I think he's going to love Kindergarten. We talk about how last year was practice for this year. We refrain from using the word "repeat" since there is a negative stigma to it. Last year we did Kindergarten at home and this year he gets to do it with friends at school. Daniel was loving the cubbies with all the toys and legos in them. He wants to go to Kindergarten so badly.

All of the kids loved the reading corner. Daniel found Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom - a favorite book around our house.

Megany

Megan's room is the first room in the house that's 99.9% finished. She has a few more things that need to be hung up, but for the most part, it's complete. I asked her what she thought and she said, "I love it, it's very Megany" Megany has now become the word of the day at our house. It cracked me up to hear her say that. The previous owners left behind the adorable little bird houses, as well as painted the room a beautiful yellow that complements Megan's new bedding very well.
I gave her a bulliten board to display all of her school artwork. She's very excited about school.
The view from her window overlooks the pool.

A word about school uniforms

I was thrilled when I found out the kids would be wearing unforms to school. Let's face it, kids' clothes are expensive. Not to mention, I'd hate to send the kids to school in expensive clothes only to have them glitter/marker/spill lunch/roll in the dirt or whatever else kids do in preschool and kindergarden. Yippie for uniforms.

Although, I have to admit, this school is a little new to uniforms and there is very little actual "uniformity" among the uniforms. I was swimming in choices...crew cut shirt, collared shirt - blue, white, red or green. Khaki or navy blue shorts, pants, capries or skorts. And then there is the parochial school-looking optional jumper/dress for the girls with the white peter-pan collared shirt (totally not Megan-y at all). At first the school was very specific that we could only purchase the bottoms from one particular vendor that they had contracted with. It was insane - nearly $25 for a pair of pants that any normal elementary school aged child will outgrow by Christmas break. Thank goodness somebody at the school had a stroke of genious and just the other day (about 5 days before school is scheduled to start) sent out an announcement allowing parents to purchase uniform bottoms at other vendors. Yay for Target's $9.99 uniform pants/skorts/shorts/capries.
Megan insisted that she needed a backpack to take to school with her. She picked out this monkey backpack at Target tonight, along with two new pairs of Mary Jane shoes to wear with her uniforms.

Saying "When"

I remember when we were kids, sometimes my parents would let us stay at my grandparents house for the weekend. My Grandmother would say, "say when" when she poured milk into our cereal bowl. It meant for us to say when we'd had enough. I'd officially like to say "when", I've really had enough.

Let's do a brief re-cap of the move-in excitment. Starting with one week prior to closing on the house Keith gets hospitalized 2 hours away from our house. We finally sign on the house. The next day as our new washer and dryer are being delivered the Lowes guys inform me that our washer bib appears to have been possibly broken during the disconnect of the previous washer and dryer. Everything works, just needs a plumber to tighten a few things...add plumber to my list of people to call. The following day our house hold goods arrive - the truck driver manages to bust up our mailbox. It still works, the mailman just has to push the mail all the way back so that if it rains before I get the mail, it doesn't get soaked - add new mailbox to my list of things to do. Two days later (on a Sunday, no less!) the power company knocks on the door letting us know that our home is currently a fire-hazard due to a power surge from the power box in our backyard. It's possible that the box was struck by lightening, sending a surge through our house and the street light across from our driveway. Sure enough, when they opened our box near our power meter, the protective insulation was fried off and the wires were exposed. So we spent a few days without electricity (we continued to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house during this time). So with the power back up and running, we had the pool-guy come out and school us on all of our pumps/filters/cleaners/chemicals. Let's just say that after a few hundred dollars, a half a day and a very handsome handy husband (he's mine, ladies) - our super-cool pool vaccuming system was back up and running. So with all this, I ask you what on Earth was I thinking having a tree cut down in our backyard?
For a number of reasons, this gigantic pine tree had to go. It probably should have been cut down years ago. The entire yard is covered in pine needles and sap.
So after a few referrals and a few estimates, we chose someone that had a good reputation and was licensed and insured. They were also on the higher end of the estimates, but brought the greatest number of workers to the job, so it all evened out.
It really was a sight to watch the tree's limbs get cut down piece by piece. The guys were doing their job just the way the boss had described it to me, when disaster happened. Fortunately everyone was safe, except for the pool. It's hard to even describe what happened, because it all happened so fast. A heavy, awkward part of the mid-trunk of the tree slipped as it was being lowered - landed on the hilly grass and bounced to a landing on the side of the pool. Because of the weight and the force behind the fall/bounce, the walkway around the pool was dented and the tiles shattered off into the pool.
I was in such shock that nobody was hurt, that it was impossible to be angry. Accidents happen. The company completely repaired the side of the pool. Fortunately, all the damage was above the tile-line and on the walkway. After two additional days of jack-hammering up old concrete and pouring new concrete, setting new tiles and skimming out the pool - everything was back looking wonderful again.
Once the area around the repair is pressure-washed, the coloring should match up much better. For now the only thing left to do is to rebalance the chemicals in the pool and we'll be back to normal.

With everything that's gone on, I think I'll refrain from any other major home improvement projects for a little while.

Fun in the sun

Up until the time of the tree incident, the kids and I had a nice routine of swimming every morning between 1030am and lunchtime. Then they would take a nap while I unpacked a little bit and we'd hop back in the pool from 3pm until dinner time (if it wasn't raining out).
Joshua is a great swimmer. He enjoys racing me from one side of the shallow end to the other side of the shallow end. He's got quite a competative streak in him.
Megan and Daniel are pretty content to play on the stairs. Sometimes Daniel wears his life vest if he's really interested in swimming around in the pool. He likes to sit on my belly when I float on my back and I take him sailing around the pool. Megan is much more cautious and would prefer to just sit on the stairs.

If you happen to be up at 2am...

Megan has had nose-bleeds for months now. They come and go without any trigger. Sometimes at night, sometimes during the day, sometimes we'll have weeks between episodes and sometimes we'll have 3 or 4 in one day. She's not picking her nose, putting anything up there, living in a dry area (infact, quite the opposite), etc, etc. It's just something we've both come to calmly live with. I was the same way growing up. My older sister and I shared a room together and let's just say that she doesn't really like the site of blood. (Which is why I posted the picture that doesn't show any blood.)

I've been keeping a log of the episodes (because I have control-freak issues and can't seem to accept that there is no reason for this happening), and we follow up with the doctor next week. In the meantime, hydrogen peroxide continues to be my best friend as I launder little pink and purple pajamas in the middle of the night. Megan sleeps with a towel under her pillow and she tells me she can feel when her nose is going to bleed, so she pulls out her towel to cover her nose and heads down to my room so I can help her pinch her nose in the right spot.

This week while relaxing in the pool, she looked up at me with big wide eyes and said, "get a towel, it's coming". I felt so bad for her, but she handles herself in such a big-girl way about this. Unfortunately, it's like having a newborn in the house again. I've found that I am an exceptionally light sleeper now waiting to hear her moving around in her room.

Pictures from church

These pictures are from church last weekend. Sadly, we missed church this weekend due to the overwhelming number of sleepless nights this week resulting in some seriously grumpy kids. Joshua's class sang Happy Birthday to him. He was very excited to be in the front of the classroom.
Here he is about to blow out his candles.
Daniel's class had a snack this week. They don't often serve snacks in his class, and boy what a difference. Give these kids a little cup of goldfishes and they'll sit for the story. I did have to chuckle when the little girl sitting beside Daniel had her eyes closed for the prayer, I could tell Daniel was struggling with whether or not to steal a few goldfishes out of her cup. He kept looking at her cup, then looking at her eyes.
Daniel loves the felt board. He likes making stories and rearranging the stories.
Megan was looking a little disheveled that morning. It had been our first morning waking up in our new house and we were all running around like crazy. She loves to do crafts and sing in her class. She has really gotten quite good at coloring in the lines, drawing pictures and writing parts of her name.