Nathan's first day of preschool

Nathan's first day of preschool was Monday. He was as excited as a two year old would be and he did very well. My friend is one of the teachers in the classroom so that helped him feel more comfortable. He keep talking about "going to school". So he had a great day and he is looking forward to going back tomorrow.





Julianne's friends birthday party was last night. She has three friends over and they decorated tee shirts and had a lot of fun. The shirts were very cute. We ironed on their name and other fun little designs. The girls then further decorated them with paint and markers. They are all planning on wearing them on Monday. So that will be fun for them. The girls stayed up probably until about 1:00 a.m. They were crazy and wild around 10:00 pm. and we had to send them downstairs. D slept on the couch in the TV room and I slept upstairs with Mallory. Mallory and I had our own sleep over in my bed. We went to bed around 10:30 pm. In the morning D fixed his traditional Sunday morning breakfast and they all loved it. One of Julianne's friends said she did not want to eat D's eggs becasue she only eats her dad's eggs. It was kind of funny. Another one of Julianne's friends told D that he could not make them go to sleep. He went down at 12:30 a.m. and told them that they could not be loud anymore that they needed to wisper and go to sleep and that is when she told him that. It was interesting.




This is the next morning. Julianne and her friend were the first to wake up so they came upstairs. We also got our new TV room couch and this is it. It is much larger, wider and more comfortable than our old one. We put the old one in the basement and took the old, old, old basement couch and put it in our garage for someone to pick it up. Our new couch is great because D and I can both snuggle and fit onto the new couch.

Here are the girl sleeping. Julianne is a little spoiled because she really wanted to sleep on the air mattress. Whatever happened to sleeping on the carpet? We all did that. Oh well, it was her birthday.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Running in the early morning.
-Having 3 hours on Mondays with just Mallory, she never gets alone time with me.
-Seeing Julianne interact with her friends.

Happy 8th B-day to Julianne

Well Julianne officially turned 8 on the tenth of this month. I can not believe that she is 8 years old. First of all, it seems like she is just growing up way to fast. Additinally, if she is 8 than that means that I am also getting older; which I am. So it sounds wired to say I have an eight year old. Oh well. She had a great day. Another girl in her class also turned 8 on the same day, which is wired becasue this girl is the daughter of Mallory's teacher. So anyway, small world. So she took in cupcakes and shared them at lunch with the other birthday girl. Then that evening she opened her presents from us and we decided to go out to eat on Friday since D had to work late. On Friday we took her to Dave and Busters and had a great birthday meal with tons to games and tickets. Sunday we had the family over and had a great night with cake and presents. One of Julianne's friends had a Barbie cake kit that I attempted to make. It turned out pretty good. I let the kids decorate it and they had fun doing that. Then you basically stick the Barbie head into the cake. So it was not very hard. Her friend birthday party is next weekend so I will share pictures from that next weekend.


Julianne got this cute bag and book from Gigi.

She recieved 4 Webkinz from Nana.


She recived a dog and a little groovy girl from Mallory, a jewerly making set and a game from me and D got her an outfit.


Nathan was oppsessed with the camera.

Yikes.

I'm fine.

Oh and there is a crowd watching me.

I've got it all under control.



This is what she blew out on her birthdate. I made cupcakes for her b-day and for her friend birthday party.

This is the beautiful Barbie cake that we made and decorated.

Love the tongue.

Love the Barbie!!!

She wanted to lick the Barbie. The adult men got a kick out of that. I will not elaborate on that issue. We have it on tape.

She recived some really cool gifts. A bag that you decorate from Aunt Eliza and Uncle Wes, a print screen tool for shirts from counsins Caitlyn, Andrew, and Jacob. Grandma and Grandpa bought clothes and shoes for her. Her favorite gift of all is her new DS from Mimi and Roger. Aunt Crystal and Brian already gave her a decorated box full of writing paper and pens so that they could write each other.

So it was a great week. Mallory is going very well in school. Julianne starts soccer this week so I will be intersted to see how that goes. Nathan starts school this week also so I need to get him ready for it. That is about it.

I also started work this week. The first day was the usual human resource talks and procedures. I watched videos on the history of the company, fire safety, sexual harrasment. That afternoon I recieved my computer and got it all set up and tried to figure out my e-mail and the network. Friday I met with the environmental engineer and talked to him for a long time about what he is doing and what he wants to see done. Additionally, in the afternoon we toured the plant and looked at all the trash and recycling bins and talked about all the stuff he deals with in the plant. So next week is a busy week with all the managers coming in so I will be attending some meetings and dinners and then I will begin meeting with departments starting next Friday. So we will see how it goes.

Nathan was bit by a bug or spider earlier this week and his cheek was very swelled up and hard. It was so cute becasue he kind of looked like a chipmunk. So I tired to captuer it in these pictures but could not really capture the breath of the swelling. I always swell up a lot from bug/spider/bee stings and I think his allergies do not help in these situations also.




Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing how excited Mallory was for Julianne to open her presents. They hearing her say that she "knew that Julianne would be excited about her gifts since she knows what she likes."
-Having an 8 year old daughter
-Starting to use my brain again at work.
-not having to use the air conditionar for the past two weeks. Great cool nights.

Getting settled

Well we are finally getting settled into our school routine. Well at least the girls are. Nathan does not start school for a few more weeks. Mallory has been doing great transitioning into Kindergarten. When I dropped her off on Monday she went right in and then came running back out crying. I think she ran and did not really see anyone and did not know what to do so she ran back out and became very clingy. Well the teacher got her to go back in and then I talked to her about it after school and she told me that she did not know what she was suppose to be working on so then she got worried and came back out. So the next day I asked her teacher to explain what she was suppose to be doing after we drop them off and while she is waiting for everyone to get there. So she told Mallory that she is suppose to be writing her name down and then graphing herself in (meaning signing herself in). So this helped and for the rest of the week she did really well. She loved the extra activities that they get to do in kindergarten such as going to the "book room" (aka library), gym and music. So she loves going now and there is another Mallory in her class and that has helped in the social aspect. They are now best buds and it helped her remember her name. She also has an Andrew and a Jacob in her classroom so that makes it easier to remember those names since they are also her cousin's names.

I finally finished the girls Oliver + S Birthday Party Dress. This dress took me three weekends of blood sweat and frustration. I pretty much understood all the directions and it was pretty easy to assemble except for the sleeves. For some reason I could not understand what they wanted me to do in order to sew the sleeves together. So I ended up hand sewing them and they turned out beautiful but I was still frustrated that I could not get the directions. Oh well. The dresses are one size larger than their measurements since the last dresses I made for them were a little sung. The girls like them. I will not say love because they really don't love them. Our conservative Julianne is worried that her butt will be seen with only the buttons in the back. So I am going to try to find a shirt and tights so they can also wear them in the wintertime. If I were to make them again I would try to line up the birds on Julianne's dress and make them more symmetrical. When you cut the fabric you place the wrong sides of the fabric together and make two sides from one cut. So I lined up the top one so that the birds were in the middle of the panel but I forgot to pay attention to the other side so that is they the birds are a little off. Oh well.






We also had our second annual campout in our backyard this weekend. It was a lot of fun. The kids enjoyed playing in the tent and roasting marshmallows in the evening with our neighbors. Nathan slept inside and of course I had to sleep with him so I slept in our bed while D slept with the girls in the tent. It was a cool evening so I know that it was comfortable for them.








D also passed his oral examine for his license. He is now officially a licensed phschologist. So we are very proud of him for all his hard work and determination for completing the long process to becoming a licensed psychologist. Now he does not have any test hanging over his head and is very happy for that reason. He started his new job at the two private practices and is so far liking his new found freedom of being his own boss (or I guess his clients are his boss).

I think that is about it. Julianne's birthday is coming up and we have not even planned her friend party. she wants to have a sleep over so we will probably be doing that within the next few weekends.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-D finishing his long process to becoming a licensed physchologiest
-Seeing how happy Mallory is with school
-getting back to a regular schedule

First Day of School

Well this week was a first for two members of our household. Julianne started her first day of second grade and Mallory started Kindergarten. Julianne was really excited and transitioned very well to going back to school. She has been pretty relaxed after school and has been playing with Mallory pretty well. Mallory went today to school for an hour and fifteen minutes and then she starts tomorrow for her first real day. So she was a little clingy but went in energetically and did not cry. So the big test will be tomorrow when there will be more classmates and she attends for the entire 2 hours and 45 minutes.





Mallory was not too thrilled with me taking her picture.


Mad, sassy face.

She was happier when she found out where to put her backpack.

Nathan's new soccer outfit from Grandpa. He loves it.

This is what I have resorted to in order to keep Nathan from scratching his legs. He has repeatedely taken off his extra large, waterproof bandades and scratched his ezcema leaving his legs weeping, bleeding and in terrible shape. I just feel like this is our constant battle, keeping him from scratching his legs open. His poor skin must be so scared from this. I can't get it cleared up long enough to see what the damage is. So we will see how long this lasts. After nap he was really scratching but at least he could not really sratch his skin and more importantely he could not take off the bandages.

The kids spent the weekend at Mimi's house and we went out and shopped for a new car. D's car has been slowly dying the past few months and he called last week saying that his car was shaking. So we thought this might be the best time so that we do not have to put any more money into it. So we went to a Honda place and looked at their used Odyssey's and they were nice but they did not have any that we liked and what we wanted. So then we went to a Toyota place and looked at the Sienna. They only had about four at the place and they did not have any used ones. They did however have a used Odyssey so we took it out for a drive and really liked it and thought it was priced well. It has been at the dealers for awhile and they had already reduced the price once. It was basically the same price as one of the used ones at Honda but with all the extras. So we took the plunge and bought it. So it is a 2007 with about 30,000 miles on it. So it is perfect for us. We did not tell the kids that we bought one since I knew that they would be extra excited and would want to see it. So we kept it a secret and picked them up in it. D picked them up and he said that they were so excited. Julianne was the most excited. So it was nice for him to see them in that state of happiness. They still love it and fight over who opens the doors and where they get to sit. It is a pretty nice car and it drive amazingly smooth. Even D likes it. So we are happy with our purchase.

The kids got back on Sunday night and D's mom told me that Nathan had a cough and a runny nose Sunday morning. So I knew what that meant. Sure enough around 6:00 p.m. he started breathing hard and it continued until the next morning. I slept with him and his exhales would make the bed kind of move. I was reading and I thought why is the bed shaking. We wer in the basement so I thought maybe we had an animal friend but I soon figured it out. It was Nathan breathing. We already gave him a treatment that night and then I ended up giving him one at 4:00 a.m. because he was still breathing hard. So this one seemed to last longer and it seemed more severe but it may have been because I was sleeping with him and more involved than at other times. Additionally this was his second episode in one month which is more frequent then his usual once a month episode. I write all this stuff down because it gives me a place to record his episodes in case we need to see a specialist or just to document them so that I know when and what degree they were. So if you get tired of reading about this then just skip this part.


This is Nathan's other Soccer outfit. It is usually worn on Mondays after wash day and is missed and talked about the rest of the week since he can't wear it when it is dirty. Now that we have the other soccer outfit this one will get a break.

This is his sword that rarely leaves his hand or bed.



Ooops!!


Some sweet calm pictures.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Seeing Mallory begin a new school chapter in her life.
-Seeing Julianne act so old and brave during her first day of school.
-Julianne telling me she wants to stay at home with me and not go to school (even though every morning she is excited to go to school)
-running on a trail at a local park with hubby last weekend.