Time Marches On

HOw can it be possible that school time is here already. THis morning the boys and I took a bus ride to school and back. It was for Dylan. They call it bus jitters. We discovered that the 3 boys from playgroup are all going to be on the bus together. The boys are so excited. I can't believe my baby is going to be getting on a bus next week. And now I'm hearing rumors that they might be able to ride the bus home, too. Originally I was going to have to drop him off and pick him up each day. We're just waiting to hear next week.

We also got a letter from his teacher yesterday that totally made me cry. It started "I am the teacher:" and went on (a few exerpts)

"I will take your child's hand and guide him to where he needs to be; to the cubby I have specially marked with his name. ...

"I will lookaround my classroom and all the faces, and be reminded that every child is special-each one very unique..."

"When people work with your child, they will view him as a piece of clay with the potential to be something great. Together we will take the preciouschild you have entrusted us with, and do our best at molking and shaping him and smoothing his edges, so that he may stand as tall as possible."

"There will be no last place. We swill strive to impart to your child that in this race, everyone who crosses the finish line is a winner. We will be cheering for your child all the wayy, applauding his accomplishments. "

I pray as a I write this that his teacher will live up to what I feel reading this letter. Dylan is not going to be an easy child in school. He can be very difficult and strong willed. He also gets into mischief easily. I've always known that the rules of school would be harder on my little one. He is so smart and sweet, but it gets lost in the day to day struggles. I hope this year is a great year for him.


Last night was Alex's open house. We met his teacher and got his desk all set up. His teacher seems really nice and his classroom looks like a lot of fun. Lots of bright colors and fun things to do. He's so excited about being a first grader and having his own desk. I think he's even excited about having homework because that's part of being a "big kid" in school. He starts school on Tuesday and is counting the days. Dylan however doesn't start until Friday so we have a few more days of together time.

Animal fun part 2

As I got ready to post my WW for this week I realized that I never explained last weeks post. While we were in OH we went to the "African Safari" It's a type of zoo where you drive through the animal areas and can feed them out of the windows. They have food and carrots that you can buy to feed the animals. There were deer, llamas, buffalo or bison (I'm not sure which they were) and a ton of other animals. The kids liked watching the animals, but weren't sure about having the animals heads inside the car.

Cole didn't know what to think.

This llama was loving being petted. It was so weird to pet such unusual animals. I learned that the horns were covered with velvet. They were so soft.

When we saw this Yak we decided that windows closed was probably the best choice. He didn't look very friendly did he. And he was as big as a car.

Dylan loved looking out the windows at the animals and dropping the foot out the window.

Cole got a "kiss". We never did figure out what these animals were, but there were a lot of them and they were the most aggressive animals there. They'd just stick as much of their body in the car as possible to get to the food.

The buffalo from last weeks post also stuck they're heads in the car, but they drool. It was totally gross. I had buffalo drool all over the steering wheel and me. Not to mention all over the outside of the car. That was the only part that grossed me out. The rest was cool. Like this llama (Alpaca? it's kind of hard to tell from the head)
He was a pretty nice fella.

Alex didn't like getting that close to the animals. He wound up moving to the back of the car. And in case you're wondering with all the animals wandering around the car I never went more than about 2 MPH so it was completely safe for the kids to be unbuckled.

Dylan was so excited by the whole thing.

This is my brother Brian petting a giraffe. There were also zebras, but we weren't close enough to touch them.

At the very end they had some other animals in cages to look at. Then the boys got to go on a pony ride and a camel ride. They loved the camel ride! All in all it was a super great morning and a great experience for the kids.

WW #11 Dylan's flowers

Dylan planted these flowers as seeds in school this spring. I guess this butterfly is enjoying it as much as we have.

Tackle it Tuesday #5

This weekend we tackled a few of our outdoor projects. Right now there are too many to even begin to list them all. But here are the ones we got

done.

First we spent all afternoon cleaning out this area. When we started it was full of branches, seedlings, small trees, buckthorn bushes ( which are an invasive weed in our area), and a lot of dead day lillies. So we pulled out all of the overgrowth, and bushes. We also tried to kill the buckthorn, hopefully this time we might have actaully gotten rid of it. Up till now every time we've tried it's just come right back. Although for now at least it looks much better. Hopefully in the spring we'll be able to get some other plants planted in there and some mulch to make it look better.

I also finally finished my chair. I bought an adirondak chair to finish. While I was in Minnesota mom and the boys did some of the handprints and when I got back we did the other flowers and I did the greenery. It's been sitting in the garage for weeks and I finally put on a couple of coats of sealer to protect it outside. Doesn't it look nice in my garden? I can't wait to sit and read in it.

We also spent some time cleaning up one of the front flower beds. The bed right here is one that we haven't done much with yet. Lots of weeds and very over grown. We have a ton of beds that look like this. Our goal is to get as much as possible cleared out this fall so we can plant in the spring without spending lots of time clearing out first. It's quite a job, but yesterday was a beautiful cool day and perfect for pulling out lots of junk. Maybe next Tuesday I'll be able to show some after pictures of this area.

Sunday worship

We've had a bit of sickness in our house this week after getting back from vacation. Alex had an ear infection, and Dylan and I had colds. This one really knocked us all out. There was a lot of laying around and watching TV done. Now that I'm feeling a little better I thought I'd actually try to post some of our vacation pictures. On a Saturday night I thought it was a fitting time to put pictures of our Sunday morning worship by the lake. It is such a meaningful service looking out on the lake.





Mark wasn't very happy that I was taking pictures of Cole playing the tamborine during worship. We both feel pretty strongly about taking pictures during church, but I couldn't resist. Both of my boys were playing tamborines too, but I didn't take pictures of them. They enjoyed being outside for church, and playing along with the music.

WW #10 Animal fun

My big 7 year old

Otherwise known as how can this sweet little thing be 7 years old?

Seven years ago today I went into the hospital around 6 in the morning to be induced, a week late I might add. After a quick labor, including me wanting to push and the nurses saying, no don't push the dr's not here yet. And then at a little after 2 in the afternoon Alex made his world debut. The dr. barely managed to get there and catch him. He was in a hurry to see the world I guess. He was a big boy then, although you'd never know it now.
This is Alex's first trip to Lakeside. He was a whole month old and grandma already had him fishing. We're at the lake today too and Alex can't wait to fish this week. I guess that's what happens when you start them out early.


Alex was such a smiley baby. This is his first Christmas in his exersaucer. He loved to bounce in the exersaucer and spent most of that Christmas bouncing everywhere he possibly could. He never stopped moving or smiling and he hated being held. He couldn't see what was going on if you were holding him.

Once again here is mister smiley sitting in Grandpa's big chair checking out the world.

This is by far my favorite picture of Alex as a baby, unless you count the naked ones with this hat on. But I'd never put those pictures on here. That might be embarassing. Then again, maybe next year.

I loved this hat on him. He got it for Christmas and it was just the cutest thing. Of course what you can't see here is the deep lines it was cutting into his head, because he'd already outgrown it, but mommy wasn't going to let that stop her from getting a cute picture with it on.

Isn't he such a doll. He always smiled for his pictures. Now he grimaces for his pictures. Nothing like a fake smile. He was so cute he even was a model for Kohl's and was in a couple of adds. That was always so fun to see. Our boy in print.

Now to the present. This is a picture of him at Kindergarten graduation with his teacher. He absolutely loved school and had an amazing teacher this year. I can't believe he's going to be in first grade this year. How can that little boy be this old already.

This year we too him to a Brewer game and he loved it. It helped that he's playing baseball and is starting to understand what is happening. Although, he was a little ticked off that we had to leave before the end of the game. Little brother had had enough and daddy had a barbeque to go to and was already late. Oh well, maybe next year we can stay for the whole game. Alex loves being a helper and here he was in charge of carrying all the drinks to the car.

This is our budding tennis pro. He took tennis classes for the first time and loved it. Did I say loved it. He's really hoping to get a tennis racket and is totally disappointed that he didn't get one before we came to the lake. He's just going to have to use one of daddy's to play while we're here. Little does he know that his Uncle Brian got him a racket for his birthday. Boy is he going to be a happy camper when he opens that one!

Can you tell how much he loves to play. I haven't seen him grin that big in a while.

This last picture is of my boy running home during the relay race for his last day of baseball. He enjoyed it, but wasn't excited about it. Although he's already said he wants to do it next year. We'll see how he feels next year.

Now that I've done the smiley pictures and the sports pictures I wouldn't be telling the whole story of Alex if I didn't include that my boy is a huge, and I mean huge reader. He just spent several days trying to read one of my books, yes an adult book. And was doing a pretty good job of it. He's was getting the jist of the story, but didn't quite get the bigger words. So, I pulled the plug and said we'd work on reading it together. I'm sure I'll have quite a few pictures of him this week sitting in the hammock or on the swing reading.

So here ends my story of Alex, somehow I don't feel as if I've done justice to the amazing boy that he is. He has such a kind, loving heart and is growing so fast, sometimes it blows my mind.

Happy birthday, Alex! We love you!

Rainy day moments!

Well yet again rain is a dilemma in our family. Yesterday Mark spent all afternoon sealing our driveway. A much needed job. However it's supposed to be done at least 24 hours before it rains, well guess what. You got it at 5:30 this morning huge rain storm. So the driveway only got 12 hours to set up. Who knows what we'll find when it's light enough to see the driveway. The problem here would be it hasn't rained in several weeks and we REALLY need the rain. So while Mark is very unhappy I'm jumping for joy (as well as most everybody else) because maybe this way our yard will start to turn green again and my poor plants will perk up again. Everything is so thirsty. Not to mention I might get a break and not have to go to baseball and tennis today. A very selfish mommy thought. We'll see in a little bit what the driveway looks like. Wish us luck!

What a week!

Wow, can it be possible that it's been this long since my last post. Things are nutsy crazy here. I spent the week trying to get acclimated to being home. The boys think it's hysterical that mommy can't even remeber to fix them milk at meals. You get so used to only worrying about yourself for a week that it takes some time to figure out how to be a mom again.

Of course it didn't help that I was sick last week. I felt out of sorts all week and on Friday I was really miserable. After a trip to the Dr in the afternoon it all made sense. I had a bladder infection. NOT FUN!!! That would be the understatment of the century. Of course yesterday was Mark's mom's big family reunion and I had to miss it. Mark and the boys had a really nice time. I spent the whole day laying on the couch and running to the bathroom. I think Mark's starting to get a complex about me and his family though. Their family Christmas on New Year's I had the flu. It's just a coincidence, really it is.

Next week is another crazy week. Alex has baseball and tennis everyday. Between that and the start of T-ball for Dylan on Wednesday we'll be kept running. I'll also be trying to get everything ready for another week's vacation at the lake, yippee! Hopefully in the midst of all the busyness I'll be able to blog a little more often. Maybe I'll even manage to get a few pictures on too.