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Confession:

I get mildly annoyed when bloggers don't reply or comment back to my comments.  Few bloggers whom I read actually do a great job at replying, at least a good chunk of the time.  I still read their blogs because I enjoy them, but I'm more likely to comment on someone's post if I get a reply once in a while.  It's like if someone gives a speech, you walk up to them and comment on their speech, and then they turn and walk away.  Make sense?

Here's where the confession part comes in.  I have not been a very good comment replier.  But I'm making a conscious effort these days to hit that reply button and show some appreciation for those comments!

As a blogger, it's exciting when someone comments on a post you write - like, someone actually read it and gave a crap about what you wrote! I love comments so much I have a little blinky button in my right column that expresses that!  So to say thank you for your comment, I will make a conscious effort to not turn and walk away, and hit that reply button!  I can't promise that I won't miss some, as sometimes I can't reply right away and then forget about them, but I'll try really hard!

This post was brought to you by Ragweed Allergies, making me generally annoyed at everything today.

Our Little Mary Lou Retton

Babydoll started gymnastics through community ed this week, and she loved it!  She's been pretty nervous about it ever since I signed her up for it, but that's just how she is.  She worries about the unknown, she's a little like me that way.  She likes to know exactly what is going to happen before she gets there.

Despite us telling her that she won't have to do any fancy gymnastics moves that she's not ready for, she kept stressing about the bar.  She thought she'd have to flip over it without help, turns out she rocked that bar like nobody's business!  They didn't flip on it yet, but practiced casts, pizza hangs, and swinging on it with legs (and pointed toes) pointing forward.

Her right before class started. Can you tell she's excited!?

 Skipping!

 More skipping!

 Standing up after a round of forward rolls.  She came home and did summersaults over and over in the living room for about 10 minutes.

TA-DAH!!

She did a really good job and can't wait to go back next week!

First Slumber Party!

One of the fun things about blogging is that it is a fun way to document milestones.  Some people scrapbook, some people do other things, I blog.  Once upon a time when I only had one little baby in my life, I was a scrapbooker, but it takes time and space and a special eye for the craft that I just don't have.

Sweet Pea hit 2 milestones at once last weekend.  She turned nine, and had her first slumber party!

 First we took the girls (Little Man stayed back with Nana and Papa for the movie part) to the movie theater to see the new Spy Kids movie.  They did pretty well at staying quiet for the movie, the 5 of them were quieter than the one boy in the row in front of them.

 Then we got home and the screaming and shrieking and giggling and screaming commensed!  Needless to say we immediately sent them all outside to burn off some hyper-activity while the oven heated up for pizzas!  Then it was present time, more outside time, and pizza/movie time! Later in the evening there was homemade cake and cookies and cream ice cream (Kemp's ice cream that is).  There was also a fair amount of candy consumed of course... it's a slumber party, must have candy!

Babydoll spent the night at Nana and Papa's house so her bottom bunk could be used, so although she was gone, there were still 4 screaming girls.

Did I mention they were loud?

We sent them to bed at midnight and told them we were going to bed and to be quiet. They crashed sometime after 1AM.

When they woke up at 8:00 they were all quite disheveled looking.  Messy hair, rubbing red eyes.  They looked like a group of mini hung-over college students!  I don't think most of them are used to such late nights.  I know SP isn't used to them!

They had a ton of fun!  And although Spencer, Connor, and I survived, her bedroom almost didn't!

New Baby

Starting today, there's a new baby in the house!  You know what that means?

Itty bitty feet.

Itty bitty fingers.

Tiny size 1 diapers.

Little tiny socks that are still too big.

Little 10lb cuddle bug.

3-ounce bottles.

Swaddling.

Fascinated on-lookers.

The sound of the baby swing.

Warm blankies.

My shirt smelling like newborn at the end of the day, and I love it!

An Exciting Time of Year!

My oldest wasn't the only one starting school the other day, my little girl did too!  She turns five at the end of October and has another year before Kindergarten, so on Tuesday she started Pre-K at home!

 I surprised her with a backpack in the morning and had her first day of school outfit ready to go! (minus white tights, had to go with black)  The princess backpack was SP's when she was in preschool, but was almost never used so it was practically new and Babydoll loved it!  She was proud to wear her little backpack down to the bus stop when SP left for school that morning.

 After getting big sister on the bus, the rest of us headed back home to start our day, which was surprisingly busy considering I had taken the day off.  I currently do not have any other preschoolers than Babydoll, and Little Man is too young to get into themes enough to make it personally worth it for me to whip out all my curriculum this year, so we're doing things differently this year.  I bought this workbook to do with her, along with all of my preschool games, learning centers, books, and supplies!  We're forgoing themes for this school year and focusing on literacy and early math skills.  She absolutely loves her workbook and we've enjoyed our time working on all of it together so far.

As soon as we got home from the bus stop on the first day, she raced to the table, pulled out her workbook (which we'd already started working on in the last few weeks) and picked up where she left off in the math section. 

After we did math, I had her do a first day of school writing sample for me, copying the uppercase and lowercase letters onto writing paper.  We will compare that to writing samples later in the year, and then again at the end, so she can see how far she's coming.  

Also we've been reading Bob Books, Set 1 for Beginning Readers.  They start very simple with only 4 letters used throughout the story, and use word families like "at" and "am" words.  The first book is called Mat and is about Mat and Sam.  Each book introduces a couple new letters thrown in there and a sight word or two (like "the").  At first, a couple weeks ago, I was getting frustrated with her because she was taking wild guesses at what the word says (relying only on the pictures to guess), but with some encouragement and advice from friends we kept at it and she's gotten better at slowing down and sounding things out.  Why is it that teaching our own children can be so much harder than teaching other children?  I think I sometimes have higher expectations or hopes for them and get frustrated when I think they could reach them but don't as quickly as I think.  Something to work on for Mom too!

 Little Man likes preschool too!  We were practicing letter names and sounds today, among other things, and I think it made him feel like such a big boy!  He can only handle a couple minutes at a time, but that's normal for a 2-year-old.  He's even started asking for preschool - a couple times today he ran up to me and asked, "Pee-cool?" with a big smile, it was pretty cute!

Sweet Pea had a great first day, has made a couple new friends, and so far has no complaints about any of it!  

We're looking forward to a great year!!

First Days of School, aka, Make her stop growing!

It's the first day of school today, and although I'm going to miss having SP around during the day, she was really excited about getting back to school with her friends, her new teacher, and her new classroom!  Every morning on the first day of school we take bunch of pictures, and after she left today I looked back at how much she's grown up over the last few years!

Kindergarten

1st Grade

 2nd Grade

 3rd Grade

Strike a pose!

 Walking back from the bus stop Spencer and I were struck with the realization that in just 3 years our first born will be in Middle School, our 2nd born will be in 2nd grade, and our baby will be in Kindergarten!  That's going to be one exciting day for the kids, and an awfully tough one for Mom!

I'll tell you about how SP's first day went, and about BD's first day of Pre-K in my next post!

Family Fun Day

About a week and a half ago we went on a little family get-away.  Wednesday night we had a free room at Mystic Lake Casino and I drove down with the kids after Spence got there earlier that afternoon.  As soon as we got there Babydoll had to go potty so we quickly found a bathroom.  She was already excited about the "kleenex toilet paper" in the stalls, and when she came out to wash her hands I squirted some into her hand and she said, "The soap is gold!"  The other woman in the bathroom and I got a good chuckle out of that one!  30 seconds into our hotel experience and the girls were already thoroughly impressed!  Sweet Pea wanted to move into the hotel and have free run of the place, in true "Suite Life of Zach and Cody" style.

Once we found Spence we headed up to our room where I told the kids they had to jump on the bed and we could get changed into swimsuits and head to the pool.  All three of them had a great time swimming and at 9:00 we were back in our room and ready for bed.  Sweet Pea volunteered to sleep on the floor in her sleeping bag while Babydoll and Little Man shared a bed.  None of them wanted to share a bed with Spence so I was stuck with him.  After 30 minutes of regularly telling LM to put his head down and go night-night, they were all asleep.

Spence and I took turns in the morning giving money to the casino gambling a little bit, we packed up, and headed out to Valleyfair!

 The kids had so much fun!  BD reluctantly agreed to go on the Monster, and was terrified from the moment it started moving. Poor thing :o(  It did help her appreciate the rides that were built for her size more though. She even went on Excaliber and loved it!  SP loved the Monster and went on it 3 times.  There were lots of rides in Planet Snoopy that LM loved too!  He had to say "bye" to every ride as we left them  because it's the only way to get him away from something he wants to stick with without a tantrum.  There were lots of, "Bye Bye Trucks" "Bye Bye Submarine"  "Bye Bye Train", etc.

 After a very full day and no naps, all the kids slept on the way home, and that says a lot because I could probably count on one hand the number of times LM has slept in the car since he was a newborn!

The End of an Era

I feel the need to blog about today, but it's hard.  It's a very bitter-sweet day at my daycare, as 3 of my little punkinheads are moving on.  Both families I've had for over two years, and it's hard to see them go!  The 5-year-old is leaving because he's about to start all day/every day kindergarten, and the 2 year old and 10 month old are leaving to be home with their now stay-at-home-mom.

We're having a lot of fun around here today, to celebrate their new adventures, but also to distract me from what is happening.  Denial can be healthy right??

While I am looking forward to a slower pace around here for a little bit, I get really sad when I think about the fact that when I open my doors Wednesday morning those familiar little faces won't walk in.

My daycare kids live and play in our family living space, which only adds to the feeling of them being part of the family.  Three members of the family are leaving this afternoon, it's the end of an era, and I'm trying not to think too much about it until  they are gone.  Then I can have a good cry, hopefully pick myself up by my bootstraps, and move on to the next era.

It's been a great run kiddos, I love you so much, and will miss you!