Start of the new year :)

It's that time of year...back to school! Of course my little ones aren't going to "real" school, but we have started our own little school this week. On Monday we went to a wonderful little picnic for a homeschool group and it was great! The kids and I all had a great time. I'm looking forward to getting to know all of them!
Today we started our school work. We didn't do much, about an hour of "table-time" It was fun though! We did do our hooked on phonics CD and flashcards during breakfast. After we all got dressed and ready for our day we sat down at the table and we learned the letter B (Lyssi does know all of her upper case letters and most of her lower case letters, but we are reviewing their sounds) made a book about our body, learned a finger play, sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and then watched Baby Einstein (Baby DiVinci, it's about the body) All in all it went really well and was a nice way to get back into the swing of things.
Tomorrow morning we'll do our flashcards, then we'll go to storytime at the bookstore. We'll also do some worksheets/workbooks together!

Clowns and candy....

Life is going pretty well this week :) We are doing the letter C for the week. A good letter to be focusing on because Lyssi already knows it because she can write Casten's name, that way we can kinda ease back into our structured days! Yesterday was math day. We started off playing with playdoh and making letters with it. Then we did some candy counting :) Lyssi did pretty well but it was hard to get Casten to NOT EAT the candy! hehe! We counted how many jelly beans we had, Lyssi had 15 and was able to count to 13 correctly. Casten had 10 but can only count to 5 on his own, but he did repeat after me :) I then gave them each a sheet of paper that had colored circles w/ the color of each jelly bean on it and had the kids put the jelly beans on the right color. Casten did an amazing he was able to do it with almost no guidance. He got a little confused when he had two of one color and thought only one jelly bean should be on each color! Then Lyssi and I worked a little on addition, it's definitely a work in progress! We then did an activity on the computer and called it a day :)
I took them both to the laundromat with me after Casten laid down for a nap (didn't take one...but laid down...) and they reminded me again why I don't take them! They have a bunch of fisher-price play things at the laundromat...a slide, picnic table, play kitchen, vacuum, and a play washer and dryer. We put the clothes in washers and then took a walk to the 7-11 down the strip and got slurpees (they were so excited about this because this is the only time they get slurpees) but the cherry wasn't working, the other options were coke, Amp (mountain dew w/ EXTRA caffeine) and a mocha coffe thing....UGH!!! So they got small coke ones and a bag of cracker jacks (their first experience w/ them!) then we walked back and the kids were CRAZY!!! They weren't listening to me at all and all over the place. I mean I know I had given them some caffeine and all, but they've have caffeine before and they don't act that way! UGH! I know that they were bored and Casten hadn't had a nap so I'm sure that all played into it!
Today we did a small activity. Casten isn't in a very good mood and I do more one on one w/ Lyssi during his nap. But w/ this being C week we are doing a circus/clown theme. So we painted clown faces and glued yarn hair on them! they did a great job! it's a really nice day here today, so are hopefully going outside after Cas's nap...but it's prety windy and the kids don't really like it when it's too windy, so it may not last long! i may actually DRIVE to the park :( lazy I know, but I don't want to do the .5 mile walk home w/ two kids that are freaking out because it's too windy....we'll see though!

finally getting back in the swing of things!

What a very busy few weeks we've had! Thankfully everything has slowed down and we can FINALLY get back to our everyday lives :) I'm starting our lesson plans for this month, and it's going to be fun :) We are going to learn the letters C, D and E.
I've decided to go with the letter of the week curriculum for right now ( http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html ) Alyssa has been asking me for "table time" for the last few days and a bit last week! She said "That's what we call it when we pretend that our house is school!" hehe! It works for now!
We are all doing well. Casten has had a bad rash on his chest. No idea where it came from, and the doctor said it's just something that irritated him and there is no cause for concern. It's getting better. It didn't seem to itch him at all today, so that's great! Lyssi has really struggled the last few days trying to get back into schedule after our hectic weekend! My sister Beverly got married and with all of our activities involving that she was up WAY past her bedtime all weekend! Maizie, as always, is doing wonderfully! She was 12lbs 8oz on Tuesday at the doctor. She's growing so fast! She's such a happy baby! Loving her very very much!
So now that we are getting back in the swing of things I hope I can get on here more often and update everything! My goal is to get on here daily to update what we do each day!

This and That....

Oh the joys of trying to get back on schedule!!!! With the kids staying Monday and Tuesday with Kathy, then Alyssa going out to her grandpa's Thursday through Sunday, the kids are all out of wack! They are a mess! They had a great time at both places though so that's great! It just takes awhile to get back into the swing of things!
Alyssa has/had 5th disease also known as slapcheek. It's really no big deal (unless you are pregnant) except when it clears you end up with a rash all over. It's just lovely! The rash looks terrible but we are glad that this is all that it is. We were afraid it would an allergic reaction or something like that! The rash doesn't bother her either, it isn't itchy or anything like that, which is awesome!
I weighed Maizie at the doctor's office on Tuesday when we took Lyssi in for the rash...she weighs 12lbs 2oz!!!! This baby is just getting too big too fast! She's adorable though and we love her! She's still for the most part sleeping through the night, which rocks! Hopefully she will continue to do this for me!

Catch up on the last few days!

We've had a busy couple of days here! The big kids went and spent Monday and Tuesday with Kathy. They had a great time and it was nice to be able to go to a few appointments and not have to bring the kids with us or worry about childcare! As always though, yesterday and today have been struggles to get back into routine and normal behavior! Now today Lyssi is leaving to spend 4 days with Jay's dad. She should be a peach when she gets home :)
I had my 6 week check up with my midwives on Monday. Everything is looking good, I'm healing well, but I still have some undissolved stitches. Penny said it may be another 2 weeks before those are completely gone. They told me in the hospital that it would take 2-4 weeks to dissolve and now it's going to take 8! No big deal really.
Tuesday I went to the dentist to have 4 more cavities filled! I can't believe I had so many! I had 3 filled 2 weeks ago and now these 4, and I still have a root canal I need to have done! The exciting part of the dentist appointment was that my front tooth that was cracked (thanks to Beverly about 15 years ago! hehe! The cap on it fell off about 3 years ago) had a cavity in it. Since it was a front tooth, insurance covered it being filled...so I no longer have a chipped tooth! Woohoo!!!! Now we can go get professional family pictures taken!

Yesterday we tried to start getting back in the swing of things with the kids. We did some St. Patrick's day activities, we painted w/ shaving cream and glue. The kids had a great time with that, although I didn't get the mixture quite right and it didn't stay puffy when it dried :( We also colored a leprechan. Then we learned the letter C and colored a picture of a cat. Pretty productive morning! Then after naps (they BOTH took a nap...at the same time as Daddy and Maizie...so I got a nice little break!) we went and played outside. I tried to bring Maizie with us but the cold and the breeze kept taking her breath away, so i had to send her inside :( It was fun for the kids though!

The many adventures of Casten Queen

What a day my son has had :) Okay..it really wasn't all that exciting but still! He woke up in his usual whiney bad mood, but it quickly went away once he got his carnation instant breakfast (his cha-cha milk) it's almost impossible to get that kid to eat anything in the morning, so this has become our normal breakfast along usually with a bowl of cereal that he doesn't eat. Soon I got him dressed and he was off to church with Grandma to ride the bus (they park in a remote parking lot so that the kids get to ride the shuttle bus, the highlight of the morning) after Sunday school both he and Alyssa were able to go see the area they are expanding the children's ministry to and were able to color on the floor.
Once they got home I took him to Sam's and we had our mommy and son time. I love this time. He's a completely different kid when he's not around Alyssa. He loves his sister so much he tends to follow her but it's different when he has to entertain himself! We sat for a bit and shared a hot dog and he kept me entertained. After that we went to Target, where my sleepy son had no interest in walking next to me. I spent the majority of the trip saying "Casten come on....come by mommy!" He fell asleep in the short ride home. When I got him out of the car he was staggering like a poor old drunk!
After dinner came the exciting part. Of course my son didn't eat anything but that's kind of irrelevant. Anyway, they were taking a bath while I was in the other room (yes I'm a bad mommy that leaves her kids unattended in the bathtub for short periods of time) and Alyssa calls for me to see how Casten goes potty. My son is not potty trained so I had no idea what she was talking about. As I'm getting in the bathroom the toilet is flushing and Cas is climbing back into the tub. So I ask Lyssi what happened. Apparently my son went potty "like Daddy"!!! He stood in front of the potty, held his little pee-pee and went to the bathroom!!!! All by himself! This was the first time he's EVER done that!! I didn't think he understood the whole concept!
After his bath I gave him a tootsie roll for going potty on the toilet (big mistake as he was a bigger mess after that than he was before his bath!) and I asked him to show me what he did. So he goes over to the toilet, lifts the lid and spits in it (his new favorite thing to do...spit!) While doing this he spit his piece of candy into the toilet. Not wanting to lose out on any of the chocolatey goodness, he reaches in grabs the candy and puts it back in his mouth! YUCK!!!! It happened faster than I could react! However, he did show me how he stood infront of the toilet and held his pee-pee. I'm still in awe!
Other than that we all have a bit of a cold. Jay and Maizie seem to have it the worst of it! My poor little girl there is nothing we can really do for her, so I;m off to sit with her in a steamy bathroom!

mom look-alike

I decided to go to church on my own tonight. I debated between going to Parkview, my mother in law's church and the Lutheran church down the street. I decided to go to Parkview. I enjoyed it more than I normally do, however the message wasn't what I was seeking today.
The crazy thing was that I had a "I miss my mom" moment on my way there. These hit me on occassion. Usually out of the blue and I end up in tears missing my mom so much it hurts. Today it was because I was talking to Maizie (I took her with me to church) about taking her to "see" Grandma DD this week because the weather is suposed to be warmer. I did this with Casten when he was small and want to do it with her as well. Then I corrected myself and said "Well we'll go to the cemetery anyway" and then I started to remember the morning after we brought Maizie home and I woke up trying to figure out a way to get up to my parents because my mom hadn't seen Maizie yet and I wanted to bring her over there. I seriously laid in bed for 5 minutes, half asleep trying to think of a way to get up there and get everyone home because I'd want all the kids to get to visit with Grandma DD. Then reality hit and I had to laugh at myself...seriously it's been almost 3 years since she passed away.
Anyway, so I go into the church with an open heart, ready to accept Jesus. The music started and I am singing along and I glance at the choir and there is this woman standing in the front row that catches my eye. From a distance she looked so much like my mom. It was scary how similar her her manorisms were to my mom's. I knew if i saw her up close she would look nothing like her but from this distance I could have sworn I was watching an older version of my mom. At the very end of the service we were singing a song and the song itself was really speaking to me and the way it was presented had me on the verge of tears, then I noticed the choir had come up the aisle (I was sitting on the edge) and were singing. When this mom look alike reached where I was at she stopped and turned around and finished singing the song. I lost it then. There I was in the middle of church sobbing. When the song was over this lady came over and was looking at Maizie and asking me questions about her. It was definately a very interesting experience! I had to look at this as God's work. Just a reminder that my mom is always with me wherever I am.