Merry Christmas!

We've had a nice day so far.  We were at Mom and Dad's yesterday (drove up there on Friday afternoon) and made it back just in time for church last night, then went to Outback for dinner afterwards.  By the time we got home the kids were super tired and ready for bed and went to sleep pretty quickly. Eric and I made sure that everything was ready for today (which included him fixing our dryer; we'd discovered on Friday just before leaving for Pickerington that it wasn't working) and headed to bed relatively early. I figured the kids would wake us up at the crack of dawn wanting to open presents!

You can imagine my surprise when it wasn't until 8:30 that they came in... Conner is typically a super early bird (up between 6 and 7) but he slept until after 7, then went into Aud's room to wake her up and read her some books. She also told me that they were having a tea party, too - it's so nice to see them playing well together (especially when at times they pick over the littlest things!).  We headed downstairs to see if Santa had come and despite some of their previous bad behavior, he made it!  Eric had broken a handle on the door of our fireplace last night and I left a note from Santa apologizing - the kids really got a kick out of that!  

The only thing Audrey had asked Santa for was some "princess chapstick" (she was so easy to buy for this year!) and Conner had gotten his special present from Mom yesterday (a remote control helicopter) so Santa didn't bring all that much... then under our tree were some other little things (Legos for Conner, which he adores, a music player and speaker for Audrey, amongst other things). They each had a "Santa Shop" at school where they could do some shopping of their own. Aud bought me some of the ugliest earrings I've ever seen and it looks like I'll have to wear them out at some point!  Later she said that her "second favorite" thing from this morning was seeing me open the earrings.  Guess we have to teach this girl some fashion sense!  Her first favorite was the Panda Pillow Pet that Uncle Andy sent from California - he really does a nice job with presents for the kids.  Although they usually involve some sort of noise (like the little electronic drum thing he just sent for Conner).

After we'd finished unwrapping I pulled out an envelope for each of the kids. Last night I put together 5 clues for each of them to lead them around in search of their last present.  Both kids were upstairs, downstairs, in the kitchen, and then outside to reach the final thing.  Audrey found her new princess bike in the little playhouse outside and Conner found a 4-wheeler (!) out back under the deck.  He and Eric (who I think is actually more excited about the purchase than Conner is!) have already been out for a long ride.  It's so nice to have the land that we do and generous neighbors who don't mind the boys playing on their land, too!  We're getting ready now to pack the kids' bikes over to a park nearby so that Audrey can try hers out. Because of the hills it's tough to find a good place to ride around here, especially when you're not the strongest rider yet (Aud).

Later on this afternoon/evening we're heading out for the week. Eric's parents bought a house down in Sun City Center, Florida (close to Tampa) and have moved there permanently (which really kills my back-up babysitter options!). The plan is to drive through the night to get down there tomorrow and then stay for several days. We'll probably start back on Saturday and make a stop on the way home at a hotel.  We don't have any big plans while we're down there - we thought about checking out Busch Gardens but it's just so expensive and we'll probably save that for a trip this summer.

Going to try and make my next update in < 6 months. :)

Summer's here!

Today was day 1 of summer vacation, and everything went great! I set my alarm to get up at 8:30 because the kids will let me sleep late (as they watch Animal Planet and eat pop tarts) and then we got a move on. I set up some "weekly tasks" yesterday that included some cleaning, picking up, academic work, mail-getting, animal-feeding, and tv watching every day. The kids were really excited to check things off their list this morning (and not get behavior strikes that take away the tv shows!). After we did some chores around the house, we packed a lunch and headed off to Coney Island for a while. Fun!

After a short while at home (where the kids rested, changed clothes, and did some reading and writing) we headed off to dance (Audrey), baseball (Conner), and softball (me). Busy night!

Audrey has a new favorite hairdo... She told me that she wants it like this everyday. I'll update with a picture when I get a chance.

End of the year!

It's so hard to believe, but we're nearing single digits on how many days of school we have left! Me and Conner, at least. Audrey's down to a mere 4 more days! It's been so chilly this week (rainy and in the 50s) that you'd never think that it's the middle of May. We did have a hot spell last week.... I'd much rather it stay cool until June 3rd. Then I'm all for the heat! School is just miserable when it's hot.

Audrey brought home her last progress report today, and her teacher had some really nice things to say.

"Thank you for sharing Audrey with us this year. She is such a warm happy child. As you look at her progress note, remember these are skills we would expect students to master before they enter kindergarten - and Audrey has another year in preschool. Audrey has mastered most of these skills."

Nice, huh! As for the "warm, happy" part, you can obviously tell that her teacher isn't here at bedtime!

New pictures!

I just uploaded some pictures from my camera and thought I'd go ahead and post them!

Yesterday Eric found a little snake in the woodpile.  He got it in a bowl (without touching it, because he's terrified of snakes and screams like a little girl) and brought it inside so we could figure out what it was.  We narrowed it down to a couple of options but never decided one one.  The one thing that we do know is that it's nonvenomous.  That's a good thing.

The kids dyed Easter eggs yesterday afternoon.  We had enough for 7 each, which was plenty!  They both stayed interested the whole time, didn't get bored, and we don't have too many eggs to eat now.



Conner's baseball is in full swing now (ha!).  He has practice on Monday and Wednesday from 6:30 - 8 and most games fall on Friday nights starting this week.  He's also playing spring soccer, but that just means we have a game on Sunday afternoons (no practices).  The team is actually 2-1 right now, which is crazy because in the fall we only won one game all season.  It's been a nice change!

Audrey had a funny comment the other morning in the car.  She said that the Easter Bunny was going to come on the tutu.  I asked her a couple of times to repeat what she was saying to make sure that I was hearing her correctly!  (I was.)  It took us a while, but Conner and I figured out that she was saying "2-2" because at school they have a calendar with an Easter basket (or bunny, I don't know) on the 22nd.... No, that's not Easter, but it was the day we had off of school for Good Friday.

We had a little bit of an adventure this past Wednesday.  Some strong storms rolled through Tuesday night and an electric pole (or two or three) were knocked down by some trees, which caused us to lose our power.  The worst part was that on Wednesday afternoon the kids and I weren't able to get in the house after school - I didn't have a key and the garage door opener wouldn't work (obviously).  We hung out at Wendy's for a while so we could grab something to eat and Conner could do his homework.  Luckily Eric ended up having a key in his truck so we didn't have to break in to the house.  Lesson learned!  I should probably keep a key in my car.

Conner's becoming quite the reader!  He just read that paragraph that I typed while I was typing it.  He's doing awesome!

Audrey was "reading" the Bible to me the other day. "Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom there lived a man named Jesus and he had a sign that said welcome to church."


(April 5, 2011) 

The red belt!

Update!

We just got home from the doctor for Conner and Audrey's annual checkups.  Can you believe they're 4 and 7 now?  Crazy.  What's weirdest for me to think is that when Conner was 4, Audrey was 1.  What a different life it was!


Both kids checked out great!  Here are the details:
Conner is now 54 lbs and 48" tall (both 50th percentile).  He should be tall enough to ride some of the big rides at Kings Island this summer - something he's been looking forward to!  I talked with the doctor about how he's still sometimes wet at night (he's still wearing pull-ups); she seemed to think it's something he'll grow out of and gave a couple of suggestions for what we might to do help that along.  (Notice the lack of front tooth?  He lost #3 this week!)

Audrey is 43 lbs and 42" tall (both 90th percentile!). (Conner was 41 1/2" and 40 lbs at 5 years old!!)  She's definitely a big girl (but proportional).  She had to get 5 shots today and was utterly miserable; we actually sat for a little bit just so she could cry and try and feel better.  I told the kids we'd stop at Dunkin' Donuts on the way home - somehow a donut made her arms stop hurting so much!  My only concern about Audrey was her hearing - there's a lot of times when we're talking to her and she's responding with "What?  What?"  It turns out, though, that her hearing is fine (shocking) and it's just her being stubborn/goofy (I have no idea where that comes from!).


We've been busy lately (surprise surprise!) but I'm hoping things will start to slow down soon.  Right now we have one more week of karate (Conner will end his career as a red belt... just a couple of belts away from black, but I just can't do it anymore), one more week of swimming lessons (a friend has been taking Audrey) and baseball's just getting started. Audrey still has dance on Mondays for an hour after school which won't end until school gets out. Soccer's going to start up for him, too, but it's just a game on Sunday afternoons (no practice during the week).  I've also been taking some fitness classes at Conner's karate school which will end in the next week, so we'll basically be going from 5 activities amongst the three of us down to 2.  Ahhhh.  There are actually nights when Conner's upset that he didn't get a chance to play with his legos because we're constantly on the go.  That makes me sad.


We're all on spring break this week and ready to do some relaxing!  The kids are going home with Mom and Dad for a night and I have plans to do some shopping/lunch/movie with a friend (who's also sending her kids to grandma and grandpa's!).  Other than that, I was hoping that they'd have a chance to get outside and play, but it's supposed to be cold - they're predicting 1 - 2" of snow tonight!  Not quite the spring break I envisioned.  But with only 9 weeks of school left, summer's definitely in sight.

Sick Day

I hope this isn't a preview of what's to come, but I've been home from school 5 days with Audrey sick this year. I"m holding on to the idea that it's just because she's starting school and still getting adjusted to all of the "bugs" that are there.

If you'd told me 24 hours ago that I stayed home with a sick kid, I would have assumed it was Conner.  They stayed Saturday night with Doug and Marge; while there, Conner developed a 103+ temperature.  By the time we got to him Sunday after church he was feeling "awesome" and while he didn't have his normal energy, he seemed ok.  Audrey and I have been fighting colds for over a week now (they're just hanging on!) and haven't missed any school, but Eric and I woke up this morning around 2:30 with the sounds of her crying.  I knew it was because she'd thrown up - there was just something to the tone of her cry.  Unfortunately, it wasn't a one and done deal... I'd get her changed and cleaned up, then she'd throw up again.  And again.  It was probably 4:00 before it was all over, so our fate was sealed.  Another sick day.

I really don't mind staying home except that today is the day that teachers recommend student's classes for next year, so I had to sit and put together a list for my sub of who should take what.  That took a bit of time.... and I still had to do my normal sub plans.  But hopefully we'll get some rest today and will both feel better tomorrow!

We had both kids' parent conferences at school last week and both are doing great!  Conner's testing at the second grade math level (the highest in his class) but has trouble with not taking his time and reading directions on tests so his current grade doesn't reflect that.  He's really doing well with his reading, too!  Audrey's teacher gave her a kindergarten readiness test (even though she has another year of preschool) which she did great on.  The only recommendations made were that we work with her to clean up her writing.  When Conner was this age, he had just learned to write his name; Aud can write all of her letters and knows most of their sounds, too!

Aud's birthday party was a hit - we had 8 4-year olds here and kept them busy with decorating hats and aprons, making pizza, and decorating cupcakes.  I'm not sure how much food was actually eaten, but I think they all had a good time.

Decorating the cupcake

Audrey's pizza

Decorating her hat

Opening presents

The crowd

We're taking a few little boys bowling this weekend for Conner's birthday (I can't believe he'll be 7 tomorrow!).  He only wanted a few of his friends there, so we're not doing the "formal" bowling party but are planning on going bowling then for pizza afterwards.  Should be fun!

Snow Day!

Today I woke up twice before 5:30 AM (well, three times if you count me getting up around midnight to take Audrey back to her bed).    The first (second) was a phone call around 5:15 from New Richmond saying that they were cancelling for today.  The second (third) was a surprising call from Forest Hills saying that they were cancelling.

We'd had no snow.

Nice, huh?

I"m sure they were worried about what was coming, and with good reason because it started snowing soon after the phone calls and at 11:30 we're close to an inch with the bigger amounts still promised this afternoon.  I think we could legitimately be looking at another day off tomorrow!  Or at least a delay.  Seeing as how Monday was MLK Day, it could make for a nice 2-day week!

Conner's had a couple of funny things to say already today....

1.  While sitting down to eat his oatmeal (that he requested):  "There's nothing like oatmeal for breakfast on a cold day!"  And then he ate two bowls.   Really?  Whose kid is this?

2.  I'd been talking with Aud about how her birthday is in 2 days and she's going to be my big 4-year old.  So then Conner started talking about being my big 7-year old.  Has it really been 7 years since this?

I asked him how he got to be so old, and his response was, "It's a long story."

Funny.

And just so I'm not neglecting someone, here's a pic from when she was born.

Today's status

Conner reported that his day today was "good and bad."  (Uh oh)

The good was that he was green.  Although he's ventured into yellow several times, green's been a bigger trend here lately.  That's a good thing.  (Green = good, yellow = warning, red = bad)

The bad was that he got punched in the nose.  (And that's how he put it!)  He said that he was picking up Jimmy's glue stick lid for him and Jimmy punched him.  I guess Jimmy didn't want the help!  Conner said that it hurt but he was ok (and it didn't bleed).

I was somewhat surprised that his teacher hadn't sent a note home about it, but then he called just a little bit ago. He supported everything Conner'd told me about it and said that Mr. Bailey (the principal) is going to talk to Jimmy tomorrow.

Mr. Chandler asked me if Conner had told me about his Dibels results yesterday.  I totally blanked on what that was for a second until I remembered him telling me something about it at our conference earlier in the year.  From what I understand, it's basically a test to see how well the kids are reading - both for speed and accuracy.  The goal right now is to be at 20 wpm and 40 at the end of the year.  The kids read three passages and their score is the median (middle) value.  He said that Conner did amazing!  His first score was 26 wpm and his median score was 33 wpm, but he had a high value of 45 wpm!  I'm super proud of him.  They split into reading groups earlier in the year and Conner's in the middle one (which I admit rubbed me a little wrong) so it was awesome to hear how well he did on his assessment.

(And now I wonder if this will affect his reading group.)

And three more months have passed....

I'm thinking that facebook is what's keeping me from blogging here.  I'm so bad.

To try and make up for that, here are some pictures. :)
First, my notable statuses from the year:

A December collage:

An October collage:

Conner pulled out (yes, himself) tooth #2 yesterday.  I made him promise not to pull out any that aren't loose. He's a crazy one!