The First Day of School

Again, there are a couple more new posts after this, so keep on reading. In case you haven't noticed, I deleted that other post where I was completely losing it. I'd hate for my job to be in jeopardy over a little temper tantrum. It's been a crazy first couple of weeks with a lot of adjustments. But, this week has been much better than last week, so I'm trying to stay optimistic. The kids have done great. They all really like their teachers, and I love being in the same building with all 3 of them. I don't know what I'm going to do when they go to middle school. I'm so used to being right there with them and knowing everything that's going on and being more than just parents of the teachers' students, but friends and co-workers with the teachers. I told Andy the other night that I need to go back and get certified in middle grades education. Actually, middle grades go from 4th to 8th grade, even though elementary is pre-K through 5th, and since I did my student teaching in 4th, it would just mean a few more classes. But, I'm trying to not be completely neurotic and let go a little. I still have a few more years, so maybe I'll be ok by then. Andy had to take them to their class rooms on their first day since I had to be there to greet my students for their first day. Plus, I was having a really hard time with my babies starting kindergarten. I definitely lost it when I walked out of the school to leave Drew for the first time, and I was about the same with Evan and Alli. I had to leave before them, so when I told them bye I got in the car and cried on the way to school. But the kids were fine, and they still love it. I get reports from Evan's teacher that he's "all boy," which I just tell myself she means in a good way. I think she does. Alli had her strip moved one day for playing with a boy that she was in Pre-K with during rug time, and then had a little time out for talking in art class, but nobody was surprised about that. Everybody knows Alli can't be still or quit talking. Drew was scared to death about her teacher because she's the oldest 3rd grade teacher, and isn't all warm and fuzzy and huggy, and has a reputation for being very firm, but she's a great teacher and is funny and very nice, and now Drew loves her. She also has a little girl in her class who she had some problems with in the past, but they're friends now, so it's all worked out fine. If I can just get myself together and not get so stressed about everything, we'll all be doing fine. I'm doing better. My house is staying clean and laundry is caught up, and I'm not behind on grading papers yet (but it's just the 2nd week of school). We have groceries in the house and have managed to have dinner at the table as a family, instead of grabbing fast food and eating in a rush to get in bed. The only thing is I started my Master's on Monday, and it's all on-line and pretty flexible, and I'm doing it with 3 other girls that I got my Bachelor's with, but it's still extra projects and papers. I keep telling myself that the pay raise will be worth it, not to mention the credentials, which I personally enjoy. So far, it appears as though the professors all get that we all work full time during the day, and a lot of the projects seem to be things that we'll be doing in our classrooms anyways, and just reflecting on those. Plus my friends and I all work in the same county and e-mail a lot and meet for dinner once a month to talk about things and vent if we need to. So, like I said before, I'm trying to stay optimistic. I'm finally starting to get attached to my students, and I have a lot of sweet kids (who just love to talk, which is becoming an issue), so that helps. The first week all I could see was that they wouldn't shut up, and I was feeling so much pressure from the principal and there were so many huge changes from last year. But, it's all starting to become routine now, and the kids (my personal kids) are happy, which definitely helps! Oh, here are pictures of the kids on the first day that Andy took. They're in the kitchen where the walls are yellow and we have those little energy saver flourescent light bulbs, so the color came out really yellow.

More of Evan's Dirtbike

First of all, there's one more new post after this one, so make sure you keep scrolling down! Evan currently has 2 dirtbikes. Well, they're really not Evan's. Andy got them both, and one of them is an official racing dirtbike, and the other is more just for fun and a little slower, and, actually, Andy rides the slower one around more than Evan does. Anyways, when Evan rides the racing one he has to wear all his equipment, which includes a helmet and big, hard boots. The last time he rode it, he did great and rode all over Andy's grandfather's pasture for a good while, until he hit a tree root and had a little wreck. It wasn't a bad wreck, and he didn't get hurt at all. It just scared him a little. So ever since then Evan's been pretty skiddish about riding either dirtbike. Andy got him out in our back yard to ride the slower one to see if he could get him more comfortable with it, and he wasn't very happy about it. He kind of whined the whole time, until Drew decided to ride it. Evan didn't think she was doing it right (she was even whinier about it than Evan was), so he decided to get back on and show her how to do it, but after about 30 seconds he was ready to get back off. Since he's been so nervous about it, Andy would have to start out riding with him, and then jump off the back when Evan got comfortable with it, which was funny to watch. You can hear Evan yelling, "Can I get off now?" in the video.

Mom's 50th Birthday

On August 2nd (yes, that's 3 weeks ago! Sorry to all the family members out there who couldn't make it to the party and have been waiting for this!) we had a surprise 50th birthday party for Mom. I think me, Stephanie, Erin, and Dad sent something like 187 e-mails back and forth planning it. We barely talked on the phone about it because either she was around or my kids were there (we definitely didn't want them finding out about it), and e-mail is a way to talk to a bunch of people at once at each person's convenience. Andy kept asking me, "Why don't you just call each other?" Anyways, we had mom convinced that she was going out to a fancy dinner in Buckhead with some friends, so she got dressed up nice to meet them at their house, and then we were all there for the surprise. She was so excited about such a fancy restaurant that we started worrying that she would be disappointed that she wasn't getting to go that night, but she was fine. She was totally surprised and had no clue at all. Her birthday wasn't officially until the 13th, so she wasn't expecting anything just yet. Plus, her and Dad went camping a week before the party and Dad told her to go buy an air mattress to sleep on, and that it could be her birthday present. It was funny when she called me to complain about that a little. Poor Dad, I had to act like I believed it and that it was completely inappropriate for a 50th birthday. But, we both agreed that he'd probably do something else for her, like he always does. So, after all the lying and sneaking, it all turned out great. We all discussed before she got there how guilty we felt for all the lies, but I guess it's one of the rare situations where it's worth it in the end. Here's a picture of the cake and a little video clip of her reaction. In the picture, the cake says, "Allison Makes 50 Fabulous," and it has a lady sort of lounging on the top. It turned out really cute, but the order was sort of a disaster. Stephanie took all these pictures to the bakery and talked to the lady, and then called a couple of days later to check on the order and the lady had no idea what she was talking about. Steph finally got the lady to remember, but then 1 or 2 days before the party she called again to check on things, and the lady had totally lost the order and needed Steph to bring everything to her again. Thank goodness it all turned out ok, and the lady took a little off the cost for all the trouble without us even asking her to. In the video, I was way over on the side instead of getting right in front of her, so it's not the clearest shot, and I was pretty excited myself about the whole thing, so my hands were a little jittery when I was recording.

Too Much Fun

I know a long while back I already mentioned this , but it's become second nature for me to hear my children laughing hysterically (not just a good belly-laugh, but complete hysterics) and immediately tell them to stop what they're doing, whether it's good clean fun or not. This is because the extreme happy emotions they're feeling generally turn to extreme angry emotions and become a fight. I took a video of this hysterical fun. Right before I grabbed the camera Alli was laughing uncontrollably, which toned down when I turned the camera on. And, in the video Evan is being a bit of a pain to Alli, and then she ends up getting irritated with him. The video is a little dark. I should've turned the light on, but I was afraid they would stop playing and I wouldn't get the full effect. Also, you can get a glimpse of my constant battle with laundry. The pile grew before it was all over, but I'm happy to report it's been folded and put away.

Drew's 8th Birthday

Drew turned 8 on Saturday, so we had a little family party at home for her. We had everyone over for dinner and grilled hot dogs, and then had cake and ice cream. I made the cake myself, and I was pretty proud of how it turned out. I even made my own homemade buttercream icing. Drew got lots of really nice gifts including some clothes for school, pajamas, a movie, some money, a new Webkin, and her very own ice cream maker (which I have to admit I was pretty excited about myself). We got her a new bike. Her old bike was out in the front yard close to the road, so Andy asked her to go out and move it and when she got out there, the new one was waiting for her. That picture is her genuine response, which I thought was great. We were unable to get all of her little friends together at the same time on a weekend, so we're having 2 little girls over to go to the movies and spend the night on Tuesday. I guess that's the advantage to having a summer birthday. We seem to always have trouble working around everyone's schedule on the weekends for her birthday (the disadvantage) so we usually end up doing something during the week, and her birthday seems to drag on for several days and several events. She loves it, but I worry about her becoming more spoiled than she already is!

The 4th of July...sort of

This year we did absolutely nothing on the 4th of July. We talked about it, but ended up just relaxing that day. We didn't feel too guilty about it because I had taken the kids the week before to see fireworks down the road from our house, and because we knew we were going out on the lake on Saturday to see fireworks. We had a really nice time. Andy's uncle and his wife went with us. His uncle isn't much older than him, so they have kids around the ages of our kids, so they were all excited about being together. Of course, I wouldn't be me if I didn't forget something, and this time it was my camera. We ended up leaving the boat at the lake overnight (Andy has a friend who lives on the lake) since there were quite a few people trying to load their boats on trailors as soon as the fireworks were over, so we went back Sunday afternoon to get the boat. The kids wanted to ride around again, and this time I remembered my camera. They all got a chance to ride on the tube by themselves, and then they all three rode together for a while, until Drew decided she'd had enough. They had such a good time. On Saturday they were a little nervous about it, and the water was really choppy from all the boats out there, but Sunday they were much more relaxed about the whole thing. Here are a few pictures of the kids on the tube (or tuba as Evan and Alli call it), and a little video clip.

Teach Your Children Well...

This morning as I was cleaning the kitchen, Evan came in and asked for some milk. There was just a tiny bit left in the container, so I told him to just drink it out of the bottle instead of getting another cup dirty, and then I immediately thought of the bad habits I was teaching him that I would have to deal with later. Of course, I wasn't bothered by it enough not to take a picture and think he looked really cute at the time. Oh, and that big red spot on his cheek is from him falling out of Drew's bed in the middle of the night and hitting his face on her night stand. It was fun searching for bandaids at 2:00 in the morning.

More Summer Stuff

Stephanie and Jose got Evan and Alli a 3-laned slip-and-slide type thing for their birthday this year, and we finally got it set up in the yard yesterday. We quickly discovered that we have to put it away every day because Daisy will definitely chew it up. She was very curious about the whole thing. Here's a little video clip.

Weekend in Alabama

We got home from Alabama at a reasonable 8:00 last night, giving me time to run to the grocery store for a few things, and still get in bed at a decent hour. Alli and I went over Friday with my parents to make it in time for the wedding rehearsal, and then Andy, Drew, and Evan came over later that night (arriving around 1:00 a.m. Georgia time). Drew had her end-of-season softball party where they got their trophies, and since she was the best player on her team (not my words - her coach told me this when we had to miss a game for Erin's wedding, although as her mom I completely agreed), we hated for her to miss it. We all had a really nice weekend, and I was happy for Andy to get to be around my hometown and old friends since we live in the middle of his and run into old friends of his all the time. We spent a lot of time with our old neighbors, who are the kind of neighbors people wish for. Andy kept worrying that we would be imposing, and I kept insisting that they didn't care. They're such nice people that at one point we were in their house admiring a decoration they had hanging on their wall, and Andy jokingly asked if they'd give it to us, and I told him they probably would if we asked for it. I don't know that they'd go that far to give us decorations off their walls, but they're just super nice people. I saw several of my high school friends at the wedding, and then we saw a lot of old friends at church on Sunday and had lunch with a few of them. So, it turned out to be a really nice weekend. At the wedding, the girl that did everyone's hair spent about 30 minutes each on Alli and Drew's hair curling it into ringlets, which they loved. Neither one of them has a bit of curl to their hair, so they were pretty excited about it. Here are a few pictures of them getting their hair done, and one with the bride and with Erin, who was also in the wedding.

Andy's Photography Skills

It's likely that none of you realize what a master photographer Andy is. Here he is showing off his talents at Erin's wedding rehearsal.

Summer Festivities

We're back from the beach and not a moment too soon. Andy and I were discussing how temperamental we are, and whether it's a good thing or not. It's like we have this extremely find line dividing where we're having fun and where we're not, and we go along having a great time, and then all of a sudden it's over. Last year we stayed at the beach way too long, so this year we were planning on leaving much earlier. Andy was ready, but I was still having a great time, so we stayed one day longer, and that proved to be too long. But, we did have a great time for the most part. First, though, there was Erin's wedding, which, as I mentioned before, was just beautiful, and it was great to see so much family that I hadn't seen in so long. Since I have so much to catch up on, here are just a couple of pictures:

After the wedding, I had a week of post-planning and training on our new math program, and then summer finally started for me. I found it to be very stressful. I've been so high strung for about 6 years now that the sudden drop in activity has been difficult for me. I'm adjusting, though. I was able to relax at the beach and I'm really looking forward to lots of mornings of nothing, and now that we have a back deck, my favorite thing to do is get up before the kids and drink my coffee out there, usually on the phone with my mom, solving the problems of the world. Any ways, here are some pictures of the beach:

Above are the kids playing Bingo. I can't tell you how many games of Bingo they played, but I appreciate the game on a whole different level now. It's fun and competitive with such basic rules, anyone who can recognize letters and numbers can play.

Here are Drew and Evan collecting what they called "clams." I don't know what the proper name is, and they may be clams for all I know, but they're those things in little closed shells that dig down into the sand.

Here's Alli with a boogie board.

Here are all 3 of the kids floating, or "relaxing" as they say.

And, last, we had to take some family pictures on the beach. It was kind of funny. That evening everybody had the same idea, and there were tons of families taking pictures. It was really nice down there, but I'm glad to be home. We're now getting ready for our trip to Alabama for the kids to be in their next wedding. If anybody needs lessons for their kids on being in a wedding, let me know. My kids have been in so many that Andy's considering charging for their services.

Insert Creative Title Here

Ok, here's another boring post with no pictures, but I just wanted to update again. My laptop is at my dad's house having more memory added to it. I should be getting it back at some point this week, but until then, I'm stuck using Andy's laptop to post, and he refuses to let me put any pictures on his computer, with the fear that his computer will slow down like mine did because of lack of free memory. Anyways, Erin's wedding was beautiful, so I'll get some highlights of that up soon, and in 4 days we're leaving for the beach, as I said before, so I'm still promising more interesting posts to come. Just bear (or bare?) with me for a few days while I get everything together. I'm struggling with a sudden absense of things to do in a world where I usually have a zillion things to do. I forgot how to sit still and relax without sleeping, so I'm relearning while walking around my clean house looking for things to clean because I don't know what to do without a job, papers to grade, lessons to plan, laundry to catch up on, a messy house to clean, ball practice, etc. Pitiful, huh?

Update

Just wanted to let you all know I'm still around, and still busy as usual. The end of the school year is crazier than I realized, and I just haven't had time to take a lot of pictures. Plus, while I am really busy, life's just not that exciting right now. Ball has pretty much ended, so we're right now we're just working toward the light at the end of the tunnel, which is so visible I can hardly stand to get up in the morning. But, this weekend is Erin's wedding, so I'll have plenty of news there, and then 2 weeks after that we're going to the beach. So, there are exciting things to come!

More T-Ball

I took some video last night of Evan and Alli playing T-ball. Of course, there's all kinds of action throughout the game that makes cute video, but here are just a couple of minutes of it. In the first one, Alli is batting, and in the second one Alli is on 3rd base and Evan is batting. He actually hit a homerun, which I didn't realize until he got to second base, but you can sort of get the idea of how funny their games are.

Evan and Alli's Birthday

Yes, Evan and Alli really are 5 years old. When I think about Drew turning 5 she seemed so grown up to me, but Evan and Alli still seem like babies. They're so little. Another thing that I keep thinking about is when I was 28 weeks pregnant with them I was put in the hospital with contractions 8 minutes apart. It was such a stressful time because I was in the hospital for a week hearing nurses whisper in the corner that I wouldn't be leaving the hospital pregnant, which worried me to death. I remember my doctor reassuring me that he saw a patient of his that day who had premature twins that had just turned 5, and I thought about how lucky she was to have her babies grown and healthy, and that seemed so far away for me. Of course, I did leave the hospital pregnant and held on for another month, and here we are today, with 5 year old normal, healthy kids. I know, the sap is overwhelming. Anyways, back to the birthday party. We took them out to dinner on their actual birthday because they wanted to go to a restaurant where they sing to you. And then we had the big party this past Sunday. It went really well. Of course, nobody knows what RSVP means these days (I myself am as guilty as the next guy), so we had no clue what to expect. A whole bunch of kids showed up. Twins means double the kids and double the presents, so we had a garage full. The rain showed up before the party, and it ended up pretty nice. The ground was wet and soggy, which was why we moved everything into the garage, and the kids still played outside with all their little friends and got nice and muddy. They got a crazy amount of gifts (lots of much needed clothes and several not-so-needed, but much desired toys). I think more than anything they were just thrilled to have their friends at their own house. And, Andy and I were pretty excited about getting to show off the house. It was a really nice day, lots of family and friends around, and a few strangers, including one very odd mother - nice, but odd. Here are some pictures:

Also, here's a little video clip of Drew hitting the ball at her last ball game. Of course, when I thought to get up and take video she hit the ball straight to the pitcher and got out, but she hit it pretty good anyways.

T-Ball

I finally have some pictures of Evan and Alli playing T-ball. I don't know what the deal is, but for some reason the week's forcast is beautiful every day except for Saturday around here. It has seriously rained every Saturday for a while now. In fact, at this game in the pictures, we were sort of misted on the whole time, but they've cancelled so many games I think we all knew the only thing that would stop us was a terrential downpour. And, this week's forcast is the same. Sunny, sunny, sunny, and then rain on Saturday and Sunday. I think it's raining on Sunday just because we have Evan and Alli's birthday party planned for that day and we were going to grill outside. It's me. I'm cursed. Anyways, back to the T-ball games. They're so cute at their games. They look so little after watching Drew play. They're doing so good and are really having fun. T-ball is so nice and so unstressful. There are no outs, and everyone bats and plays the field and we don't keep score, so it doesn't matter. It's just all instructional. Their coaches are 2 girls that I work with, and there are 2 other teachers' kids on the team (which makes 5 of us altogether), so it's nice that we can all go to the games together. So, enjoy the pictures. And, stay tuned for birthday party highlights (and pray that the rain stops before the party).

On to the Bathrooms

First of all, I realize that most of you probably aren't used to me posting this regularly, so if you haven't looked at the pictures of the kitchen, make sure you scroll down and look at that, too. On to the bathrooms. I rarely take baths (meaning, of course, that I always take showers - not that I don't bathe), except for when we go on vacation and stay in some really nice place that has a TV and a bathtub in the same room. It's just really hard for me to shut my mind down and fully relax without thinking of the 10 million other things I should be doing unless I have some distraction, which is what the TV does for me. (Like it or not, it's true. I thorougly enjoy TV, and even use it as my friend to keep me company when I'm alone.) So, last night when I got home from the grocery store, Andy had run wire to our bathroom and hung a TV on the wall for me directly across from the bathtub! I was so excited! There was no electrical outlet on that wall, or cable, so he had to wire all that stuff, which is second nature to him since he works with electricity all the time. He's just so handy to have around! I mean, he's big and warm and makes me laugh, and on top of it all, he's handy! Talk about a bonus! Here's a shot of it from in the bathtub, which I layed in fully clothed (no water of course) just to take a picture for the blog.

Here's another picture of the bathroom. You can see the reflection of the TV in Andy's mirror. My sink is there to the right. You can see the corner of the counter. The shower is directly across from my sink, and then the toilet is in its own little closet next to that.Speaking of bathrooms, I was upstairs cleaning the kids' bathroom today, trying not to vomit from how nasty it was. I clean it as often as I clean the other bathrooms, and it's always exponentially worse. I have a good friend who has 2 kids right around the ages of mine and we've discussed how gross the kids' bathroom gets compared to the adult bathroom. The toothpaste caked on the sink is 100 times worse. Not only do they spit right on the edge so that the toothpaste runs all the way down the sink and most of it doesn't get rinsed off, but they also inevitably spit one big glob that apparently never gets touched by the toothbrush right where water doesn't hit that sits there and dries overnight. Yuck! Also, my kids play outside a lot, and they always seem to get covered in orange mud, which then floats on the top of the bath water in a yucky orange pool of suds, and then when they drain the water, the residue sticks to the sides, so I always have a nice orange ring around the bathtub. I won't even bring up the toilet. What's sad is that I cleaned it all today, and the kids spent the night away last night, so they took a bath over there, but tomorrow as soon as they take their bath, it'll be nasty again. Such is life. I feel the same way about laundry. As soon as I get it all washed and folded and put away, it's time for bed and the kids change into their pajamas, and the 3 outfits they were wearing make half a load already. This is why my laundry gets so piled up at times. My mind goes on laundry strike and I can't make myself get motivated to do it anymore, until we're all out of socks and underwear, and whether I like it or not, it must be done.

Kitchens and Softball

In my last post I forgot to include a picture of the outside of the house, so here it is:

Also, we got our new pretty granite counter tops, faucet, and tin backsplash, which Andy finished today. We also switched out our appliances. We got new ones at the old house about a year ago, and this house had decent ones, but they were all white, so we decided to switch them out to update everything. Here are a couple of pictures:

Here's an upclose shot of the granite and tin, and my pretty new teapot that Andy got me to match the counter tops (the black and brown one).Also, last weekend Drew had her first softball game. She's playing coach-pitch this year, which is why she's standing on the pitcher's mound next to a coach in a different uniform. She played the pitcher position because she's so awesome at stopping the ball, if I may brag on my child a little. The majority of hits go toward the pitcher at this age, and she dives for the ball and lets it hit her and everything. She makes me proud. Evan and Alli's T-ball games start this coming Saturday, so I'll have pictures of them up soon.