Kindergarten - Day 1 morning review

Today marks the first day of Kindergarten for my very first baby.  It is hard to believe that Jake is old enough to be going to school every day for the length of time that he is actually away from me!  I was really ready for this to happen (like really ready).  The arguing between the boys all summer has been epic, and Mama was ready for a break from the constant disciplining.

Leading up to the first day was great - we picked out his backpack and lunchbox a month ago, and that started getting him excited.  Then we got some new shorts, shirts and shoes for him.  And went and got new water bottles and Lunch Blox (tupperware type stuff).  He seemed ready - he seemed excited!

Last week we started waking him up a little earlier to ease the adjustment just a little bit.  Not going to say it was an overwhelming success, but it also wasn't a failure - so I guess that works.  I can say that when he is the only one up with me in the morning, I get some AWESOME big boy snuggles!

I got all the things in his backpack the day before, got his backpack, water bottle, lunchbox, and all the things going into his lunchbox labeled with his name on them.  I even made his lunch the night before and stuck it in the refrigerator so that I wouldn't be too rushed in the morning and forget to do something that I wanted to make sure was done.

This morning I went in and woke him at 6:40, and the kid was OUT.  He rolled over and snuggled into my side, and it was about then I decided that I wanted to do that all day instead - but reality quickly hit and I told Jake that I would give him a few minutes to wake up before I actually made him get up.  Then I went into Travis's room to get him up - because on the first day obviously the whole family has to come to school drop-off.

Everyone was dressed, ready, and had pictures taken right on time to be walking out the door - and so we did.

We parked across the street from the school, because on the first day you are allowed to walk your baby child in when they are in Kindergarten.  And the 4 of us walked across the street and in to Jake's new class.  His name had been corrected from last week on his desk and cubby (curse Mama for giving him a different first name and making him go by his middle name - we'll have to go through this every year now).  His teacher was so sweet and took a family picture for us in his classroom, and then we took a picture of him with her as well.  His awesome smile from the morning had disappeared a bit - my overly cautious child does not enjoy new situations.

Miss Browne (his teacher) showed Jake where to put his lunch box, and where to put his snack - and he did an excellent job following the directions that she gave.  Then we had him sit down at his table where his name tag was for another picture (and almost got a smile back out of him).

And then it was time to say goodbye.  Unfortunately, this did not go nearly as well as the rest of the time leading up to this moment had gone.  He gave mama a hug, and sniffled and started to cry.  I am sure that he knew that we had to leave, but I think that the new situation just got too overwhelming for him all at once, and the poor little guy just couldn't take it.  So I gave him big hugs, lots of hugs, long hugs - and then passed him along to Daddy for hugs too.  And more tears fell for my big kid.  Blake told me and Travis to wait out in the hall for him and he would get Jake settled.  At which point, sweet Travis said to Jake "I'll miss you while you are at Kindergarten".  I'm not certain that Jake heard it, but all I could think was - shush kiddo, he's having a hard enough time as it is (I know, not so motherly).

We then walked out and waited in the hall while the rest of the kiddos came into the class.  And unfortunately, it took quite a while for Blake to be able to escape.  The only thing keeping me from running back in there, scooping up my baby, and taking him back home with me (besides the fact that I wouldn't be allowed to, and would just have to do it all again tomorrow anyway) - was that I couldn't hear him crying from the hallway, so I knew it was still just tears and sniffles and not turning into an all out meltdown.

Blake did eventually make it out of there, and said that he had calmed down a bit but was still crying when he left.  Cue Mama guilt!

We went to breakfast as a family of 3 - which felt really wrong and weird, and even though they had been fighting with each other all summer, I just wanted my babies to be able to be together with me!  (They hadn't really been fighting all summer, mostly they had been getting into trouble together because they were having too much fun, or trying to be sneaky - those boys are best friends).

About 2 hours after leaving I finally decided that I had to know, so I emailed his teacher.  I figured she was busy and I might not hear back, but I couldn't sit around doing absolutely nothing.  She got back to me within 30 minutes (liking her a lot about now!!).  She said he did cry for a little while, but by 10 minutes after we left, he was just fine - that he was at art class at that time and had already worked on 2 activities, had a snack and was adjusting well.  This made my Mama heart much happier, and helped to relieve some of the guilt.

So at this point all I can do is hope that the rest of his day is going well, and I know very soon I will be back up at the school, waiting on him to get out of class and tell me how his day went.  And either way - good day or bad day - I will wrap him up in a huge hug and be so very happy to have my boy back with me.

Leaving him for kindergarten for some reason was harder for me than leaving him for that first day of school when I had to return to work part-time.  (Probably because 1. he wasn't asleep, 2. he knew what was going on, 3. I know him so much more now than I did back when he was that little 9 week old baby, and 4. I actually had somewhere that I had to go and things that I had to do that weren't able to be pushed off another day back then.)  So here is a throw-back to his first day of school ever (on Longhorn Championship game day).

I'll let you know how the rest of the day went tomorrow - I'm hoping for the best!

Addicted

For Valentines Day, Blake took Jake to Whole Foods with him to select items for me.  They did a fabulous job, and came home with beautiful flowers, chocolates, and bath soaps.

Beautiful Flowers

In the span of Sunday thru Wednesday though, I ate all the chocolates - yep, all of them.  Okay, not all of them, I left the Malt Balls for Blake because really those he got for him - but the Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels - yep, all gone.  And I may or may not have gone to Whole Foods Thursday morning and bought more - nothing else, just more Chocolates...

Mmmmm deliciousness.

So yeah I probably have a problem - "Hello, my name is Sarah and I am addicted to Whole Foods Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels - and I am NOT ashamed!!!".  So I guess if you ever need a go-to gift idea for me - this is a good one.  ;)

Happy Friday everyone (I will probably have to go back to Whole Foods again by Sunday - Geeze)

The Haircut

If you are wondering about the title - yes this is about a hair cut.  The boys got haircuts at the beginning of the month, so it isn't about them - and yeah I like my hair long, so it isn't about me either.  This is a post about the dog.  The dog that Jake gave a haircut to... let me repeat that - The DOG that JAKE gave a HAIRCUT to!!!

So Jake and Travis were well behaved yesterday (or so I thought!), and played upstairs for quite a while quietly and happily.  At one point, Jake decided that he wanted to vacuum the playroom, so I said "Sure, let me get the vacuum for you", and I put it at the top of the stairs.  Jake vacuumed, they both played, everyone was happy.  Fast-forward a few hours...

I am sitting in a chair in the living room and Bo is laying on the floor in front of me, and my eyes get wide, and I look again and tell Blake - someone gave this dog a haircut!  Then I call for Jake and make him come downstairs and tell him to look at the dog, and ask if he took scissors to the dog.  And he of course bashfully denies it, repeatedly, until Blake tells him that things will go better for him if he doesn't lie.  Then he very quietly says yes that he did it with the scissors that were in Travis's bathroom drawer (no idea where those came from but you can bet they aren't there anymore).

I send Jake to his room to "think about what he did", and Blake says that maybe next time that Jake asks to vacuum, I should go look at what he is vacuuming up...  Yep you better believe I will!

 

Bo's haircut (notice the lighter patches)

This one shows it a little better

Of course I am thinking great, our dog looks like he did when he was a puppy and had the year long bout  of puppy mange, but looking back at those photos - he really doesn't look that bad with the haircut, just a little ridiculous.  

Poor Bo as a puppy with no hair on his legs - looking utterly ridiculous

And with no hair on his head.

So, while the dog decidedly doesn't look as silly as he did as a mangy puppy, now all scissors in our house will be under lock and key for the foreseeable future lest one of the small people decides that his brother needs a haircut!

post from my phone

Well, it only took 8 months after getting this new "smart phone", and having to invite myself to be an author on my own blog - but I have finally figured out how to post on the blog from my phone.  Yea!!!  I know, welcome to modern technology to me.  Unfortunately I still have yet to learn how to add photos from the phone - gives me some message about low memory or something.  So we will see if this will really work in the long run or not.

What has been going on

Ugh, I know, I have gotten really bad at this recently.  We have been busy - and not busy at the same time.  We had Thanksgiving, and Blake's 30th Birthday, and Christmas, and New Years, and all the parties which go along with all of those events.  So here is the brief overview of all of those items:

Thanksgiving:

 - We again had everyone over to our house for the holidays.  I really think this is the best way to go - invite everyone to your house and call it a potluck holiday so everyone brings the sides...  We prepared the Turkey (well Blake did that - one fried and one smoked), and I made the rolls - Rhodes defrosted all the way.  Other than that all I had to do was clean the house, which let's face it I would have done anyways.  Everyone else brought all the additional Thanksgiving items to eat.  Our new table which I refinished (twice) this summer, easily sat all 10 of us.

Travis was the official Welcomer and Door Holder.

My lovely table set for 10

Travis loving on Pops

Jake loving on Grandad

Blake's 30th Birthday:

 - I planned a surprise party for Blake's 30th - which amazingly, actually surprised him (or so he claims).  Mimi and Pops picked up the kiddos for a slumber party around 4, and Blake and I got ready to go to "dinner with another couple".  We headed over to their house at 6, and then they drove us on from there.  We went to Chinatown, and surprise - Blake's closest friends from High School were there to join in dinner with us, along with our families.  It was a wonderful dinner, and the company couldn't have been better.  After dinner we had another surprise, and went bowling - I think this is the first time we have been bowling together (aside from the Wii), since College - so that was fun.

Christmas:

- As in years past, we had 3 Christmases all on Christmas day.  The boys actually slept til the respectable and normal hour of 7:30, so we did Christmas morning at our house at about 8am.  By 10, we had driven to Driftwood to do Christmas at Mom and Dad's, and by 4 we were in Westlake to do Christmas with Blake's parents.  It was a long, exhausting, but fun day.

Not from Christmas but from one of the Christmasy things that we went to do.

Also not from Christmas

Boys Decorating the tree at beginning of December

New Years:

- My parents requested that the boys spend the night at their house for New Years, thus giving us a date night!!  So, we went to the Movie House Eatery, and watched the last Hobbit Movie.  This place is awesome - not only do they serve wine (YAY), but the seats are full blown recliners - so comfy.  Pretty sure we will only go there for movies from now on.  The entire evening was pretty laid back, and although we didn't watch the ball-drop ceremonies for the first time, I think we were still awake at midnight.  And we got to sleep-in in the morning thanks to the lack of little people waking us up!  On actual New Years day, we went back to my parents and joined some extended family in a New Years day Lunch and football watching party.

So, that is about it - all that has been missed summed up for ya.

A lovely Sunday

A beautiful, warm Sunday in January where you can walk around outside in short sleeves is something that you can only find in Texas.  And is one of the many reasons that we are happy to live here!!

Sunday started out pretty basic and ordinary, with rolling out of bed after the kids made enough noise scrounging for their breakfast in the kitchen, and had coffee and some breakfast ourselves.  Then, somewhat out of the ordinary, we all got dressed and left!

We headed to Home Depot with the goal of finding some wire to re-hang the existing kitchen light fixture so that it would be actually over the top of the table instead of over the side where I bonk my head on it with some limited frequency.  We ended up looking at new fixtures though and found one that I liked a bit.  But being the ever cautious shoppers that we are, we figured we had better compare to Lowes inventory before purchasing.  So we headed to Lowes.  Unfortunately, there I did not find one that I liked at all, so we left.

And... we went all the way to the Farmer's Market in the Lowes parking lot.  While there, the boys walked around holding on to each other, and we watched them with amused smiles.  We left with a bag of Kettle Corn, and a bag of Dad's Granola - almost left with eggs, but wanted chicken eggs and all they had was duck - oh well, we do have some yummy snacks!

After our farmer's market adventure we decided we were hungry, and headed over to Zingers for lunch on their patio.  And may I just say again what an amazingly beautiful day it was to spend on the patio outside for lunch.  We had a delicious lunch, the boys enjoyed the fire-pit, and the patio dog, and when we were all done we headed back to Home Depot to pick up my lovely light.

The afternoon was spent with us hanging the light in the breakfast room, which of course involved me standing on the table - which was interesting.  The boys played in the backyard - creating some interesting towers of toys which they attached to the fence (missed getting a picture of that though).

Did we still have our downs - of course, Travis threw a couple fits, and Jake hit a couple times, but the overall mood all day long by everyone was a happy mood - so I am going with remembering it as being a great Sunday, because I remember sitting there on the patio at lunch thinking that everything was just perfect!

The River Trip

Yes, we are all still alive over here!!  And not really all that busy, although we have been doing things - I guess I just haven't been very inspired recently to post anything.  Sorry peeps - sometimes Mama gets into a slump.

This last weekend though, Blake went out of town hunting with all the Men-folk of the family, so the kids and I decided that we would take Mom and go out to the River House and enjoy a little time of relaxation of our own.  Little did I know that this would be the ABSOLUTE BEST decision that I have made in a long time regarding how to spend our time!!!

Shortly after arriving on Friday and getting all our stuff into the house and generally arranged, we walked down to the river.  The grass was knee-high (elbow/shoulder high if you are 2 1/2), so there was a bit of complaining about sticker-burrs, but the kids and dogs were all troopers and made it all the way down.  Once there, the dogs swam, and the kids threw rocks - because why not?

We actually stayed down at the river for nearly an hour, and finally decided we needed to head back so that we didn't have to find the overgrown trail in the dark.  While I made dinner, Mom and the boys built us a fire in the fireplace.  No, it wasn't really all that cold (although it did get into the higher 40s overnight), but I had promised Marshmallow roasting if they did a good job on eating their dinners.

It was their first time to ever roast marshmallows, and they thought that it was a pretty fun thing to do - I mean who doesn't like playing with fire?

Jake's Marshmallow

Travis's Marshmallow

After roasting them, they actually decided that they didn't like roasted marshmallows, and that they preferred them not squishy.  Maybe next time I will have to introduce them to frozen marshmallows...

The boys even had a room all to themselves while we were out there - oh the wonderfulness of having a decently sized house to get away and play at.  (Thanks Grandmommy and Grandaddy - the house you built is perfect)  They were so excited to get to have a slumber party together, and they did quite a bit of playing in their room before it was actually time to go to bed.

Quite a bit of playing also of course was done in the living room - mainly Legos, tractors, and Go Fishing (thanks Aunt Laura), since those are the toys that the boys deemed necessary to come out to the river with us.  Sorry to the next visitors if you find any Lego pieces - just stick them on the mantle and we'll retrieve them.

It took about 30 minutes after sticking them in bed before they quit goofing off and actually went to sleep, but 30 minutes isn't too long, they really weren't too loud, and I had wine - so I decided I really didn't care that they weren't doing exactly what I told them to do.

Jake woke up a couple times in the night with a foot that fell asleep and freaked him out, but other than that they slept pretty well, and got up at the mostly reasonable weekend hour of 7am.  (I say mostly reasonable because my boys aren't supposed to get up before 7:30, but at home they have blackout curtains, and there are definitely not blackouts at the River House).

After being up for a while, getting enough coffee and breakfast, we headed back outside - because what is the point of having all this outdoor space if you aren't going to use it!!  So we spent some time blowing bubbles, and Grandma got the tractor out and mowed so that we wouldn't have quite as many instances of "Mama - Sticker" when we headed back down to the river.

When we headed back down, we only took 2 dogs - Miss Molly was a little tired from the day before, but she still protested being left behind, sorry girl, I want you as healthy as I can keep you and your hips would not have liked a second trip all the way down to the water.

One dog short though did not stop the boys from having just as much fun.  The above is a picture of them running back and forth from the ledge (where they could grab decent sized rocks) to the water's edge to throw the rocks for the dogs, or maybe just for splashing and the dogs decided to chase anyway.  Either way, it was a bit difficult to tear them away when everyone started getting hungry.

Eventually we made our way back up to the house for lunch, and then we went around to make sure all the bird feeders had food in them - there are 6!!  So the boys got to do lots of seed filling which they of course loved.

When it rolled back around to nap time/quiet time, we packed up and headed back home.  And you would think that my boys would have been so exhausted that they would have fallen asleep by the end of the couple miles long driveway... nope definitely not.  And they weren't asleep when we hit the turnoff from 281 to 71, and they still weren't asleep when we hit Spicewood!!  Jake finally fell asleep about 15 - 20 minutes from home, and Travis not until about 8 minutes from home.  And of course that was all the nap that they got.  Oh well.

My favorite things about taking the boys out to the River you ask??  Well, even though we missed nap time 2 days in a row to be able to drive out and back...

• All the screams were happy screams
• The boys were mostly polite to each other and polite to their Mama and Grandma
• There was NO TV for over 24 hours
• Everyone slept REALLY well when we got home

So, I am thinking that this is something that we can do again some time - particularly at a time when Mama again gets to her wit's end with the way that the small people are acting, as had probably recently happened which spurred me to just want to get away for a bit.