week in review

This week went by fast.

My parents came up Monday (Ike's birthday) and stayed until Wednesday. It was nice to have them here to visit. I think Ike loved it! My mom would play with him the whole day while the other kiddos were at school. Joe sleeps until I wake him up around 11:15. So Ike had lots and lots of books read to him, played just about every game in the house (even if he had no idea how to play it) and just soaked up grandma as much as possible.

Max and Sam are starting to get into the early to bed, early to rise mode. Not that they like it or anything though. Max gets up about half the time before I go to wake him up. Long, long ago he used to be an early bird. Right before he started K he started sleeping in more. He was my alarm clock. Even when we had to be in Pre-K in the AM, he was the alarm. I never set it. Max was always up around 6. Times change though! Thankfully.

Joe still goes to sleep very, very late and sleeps in. Even when I try to get him to bed earlier it just doesn't work. He is a night owl. Next year will be shocking to his system!! "what, there is an 11 AM???"

Ike has a personal alarm of "mommy got up, I better go find her." He generally sleeps with us (along with Joe). He senses when I get out of bed and comes to find me. There are nights I lay him in his bed and he stays the whole night. Some days he is up early and others he sleeps in. If he is up early he gets cranky and takes a nap later on.

Sam is a night owl by nature. It takes her awhile to get to sleep and awhile to wake up. But we are doing it.

Max will have an insect collection project due next month. This week I have been looking for insects. I did see a locus on the window but can't bring myself to kill it. I will just watch for a dead one. I'm not one to kill bugs. I will kill ants (if in my house!), roaches, brown recluses (found at my parents house) and mosquitoes. That is about it. I let spiders live and would rather take other bugs outside and release them than to kill them. I did get a big black cricket today and stuck him in the freezer. I felt bad for the guy (well, actually I think it was female). I like bugs. I think I will have more fun with this project than Max will! I am hoping this weekend we can find some cool bugs.

This weekend we are going to the grandparents house to celebrates Ike, Sam and my nephews birthdays. My parents have a pool which collects tons of bugs. I am hoping to find a few that are not water-logged yet. Dragonflies love the pool.

Sam's b-day is Sunday. I will (hopefully) be posting pictures of her that day, like I did for Ike.

Have a fun weekend everybody!!

3 years, really??

Three years ago today I was getting ready to have my forth child. My second daughter. I looked like this...

I go into the hospital to be induced. For some reason my kids do not like to enter the world on their own. Well, maybe if i waited long enough they would but I'd rather not be pregnant forever! Joe was about 2 weeks after my due date. I had mentioned to my OB that we were hoping for August 23rd. We had a June 23rd baby plus a June 29 and August 29. August 23 would fit perfectly. And 2 June boys and 2 August girls was even more perfect, right? My OB said she thinks she can make it happen. I didn't mention it to her because I wanted to be induced but I was good with it! My due date was the 27th (same as Sam's due date).

We go the hospital, actually having a name picked out for this child. Which was a first for us! Granted, we had just picked it out. We were prepared. I had all my girly baby clothes out and the pink bedding, etc. I get pitocin and get the show on the road. Around 4:30 that afternoon, my smallest baby, weighing 7 pounds 14 ounces, was born. My daughter.... until I saw she had boy parts!! The first thing out of my mouth was, "It's a BOY!" Just a little shocked! We love him just as much though.

But since it normally took us the entire pregnancy plus a day or two to come up with a name, we had our work cut out for us! We wanted a name that had a 3 letter nickname. we could not come up with that name so IKE it was.

My little guy right after he was born.
Max was instantly in love


I think Sam was somewhat disappointed in being scammed out of that sister she expected but loved him anyway!
Joe finally decided to check out this new baby taking his throne away.

Ike is all boy. He is messy...

He climbs

He loves snakes (and worms)
My big 1 year old.
He is somewhat a drama-king
Not a daddy's boy
Unless daddy might be carrying him up high!
My handsome little guy at 2 years old
And now closer to 3 years old. He's still messy!And still a daredevil

But he is ever so cute!
Happy 3rd birthday Ike!

That dreaded R word again

Why do some of my favorite actors/actress' have to use the R word? It drives me crazy. It seems like I have been hearing it more on TV recently.

Here is one right now that is going around....


Take the Pledge to end the word.

I like to watch Top Chef. I DVR it and watch it later, when I get a chance. Last weeks or maybe more like a week and a half ago, I was watching it and someone said, "that looks retarded." Yeah, talking about food. Not sure how food can be "retarded" but whatever. I am usually shocked when I hear that word being used. I rewind it and put on closed captioning. Sure enough, that is what he said. I turned the show off.

We happen to be part of a large ratings group, to which I cannot share details about here, so what I watch really does count. It counts for millions. The DVR stuff counts towards rating but only for 1 or 2 weeks. I plan on finishing the show well after the ratings will record. I do this with almost every show I hear that word used. I usually don't watch it anymore though.

The roast of David Hasslehoff had something real similar. My hubby DVR'd it so I watch about 10 mintues of it. The host, talking about someone else, said, "sometimes he acts like he has an extra chromosome." Or something close to that. I turned it off.

It makes me mad to hear it on TV. Our kids watch TV and I don't want my kids ever using that word. It is one thing to say it but then for the editors and producers to actually air it is another.

It was also used on The first 48 (the murder solving show). But in this case it just made the killer look more guilty and stupid, in my opinion. The killer, not knowing what else to say, called the detective Retarded over and over.

When will people learn the word is not nice to those who really are mentally retarded or mentally challenged or have intellectual disabilities (take your pick)? Pick another word people!! Or better yet, keep your mouth closed.

hungry?

Why must I tell Joe not to eat the nunchuck?? There seems to be a little chunk missing off the Wii nunchuck.

Silly boy!

pros/cons of school

There are pros and cons for starting school.

The bad.... Getting up early!!
early bedtimes
homework (although not yet) ... fingers crossed there won't be much this year
The daily schedule
remembering who has what that day (PE, library, all that good stuff)
getting snacks, lunches and water bottles ready every morning
waiting for the kids to come out of school... Joe gets out at 3:30 and Max and Sam at 3:40 at different doors and with a ton of people everywhere. (although, I think this will get better as the weeks go on)
Trying to rush Max to get ready in the morning..... He has one speed.. Max speed, and it ain't fast!
Hounding the kids to brush their teeth, go the bathroom, find their shoes, etc. every morning
Missing them during the day
waking up Joe so he has time to get ready for school that starts at 12:30!

The good...
the daily routine (yes, that is bad and good!)
going shopping with only 1 child in tow
Kids aren't here to to trash the house in 2 seconds flat (although, I can give Ike credit here and say I have faith he can do it!)
No fighting all day long (but they do make up for it around 4:00)
early bedtimes
knowing they are learning more things every day

Fun with webcam

My laptop is Dell (in case anyone has missed me complaining about their customer service!) and has a webcam with some special little features. They are fun to mess around with. The kids love it. Ike was having fun doing this and Sam did too.

Although, Ike was getting mad at me because i was putting the "wrong" stuff on him so he is frowning in a few...

Ike with an army helmet on...

If Ike were to grow out his hair, and bleach it, he may look like this...
Or he could go for a good fro...
Ike with some shades....
He liked the dark night ones...

Sam has some crazy hair now...
What was I doing during all this? I was surfing of course!

Sam and School

Remember the end of last school year that Sam was struggling? We had a meeting at school and the resource teacher (special ed) thought the whole thing was kinda crazy since Sam got a 80% and a 90% on her year-end tests. I do know she is behind regarding peers though. She will be going into 2nd grade this year. We are supposed to meet sometime after school starts to see how things are going. I feel she will be behind again.

Since school has been out I have worked a lot with her. She had weekly spelling words and tests, she had math she continued to work on from school and math I gave her as well, and reading from books she had already read from. I ordered several books from Amazon that are the same ones they used in 1st grade. I had her pick out a story a week and if she did very well then we moved to another one. I also had her working on Explode the Code books. She wasn't a big fan of those. I had handwriting tied into those books and with spelling. I would have her write sentences using her spelling words. I had 3 different 3-ring binder full of work plus more.
During our time at the grandparents we did not work as much as I wanted. Really we did almost nothing. The beginning of the Summer we started off strong and now at the end of Summer I would say not so strong.

Today Sam was having a friend over. She was going to be over at 1:00. Sam asked me all morning, "How much longer?" and "How many more minutes?" I finally told her to go see what time it was and figure it out. I knew it was somewhere around 12 or after. She came back and said, "it's 11:17 or 11:18." First I'm thinking, really, she could even read the clock? So I asked her which clock she read. It was a digital one and yes it does have the right time. I have no idea how she came up with 11 anything! I went along with it and asked her how much longer. She lost interest.

I few minutes later I came in from watering my plants and it was 12:30. I told Sam it was 12:30 and asked how much longer until 1:00. She had no idea. We got the clock out that she made at school (you know a paper plate with 'hands' on it). I had her put 12:30 on the clock and try to figure out how much longer.

She almost acted like she had no idea how to use a clock. (yes, we worked on time during the summer but it has been a few weeks) After she guessed 1 hour and 7 minutes I gave her the simple rules of time. It took her over 15 minutes to figure this out. Oh My Gosh! Does she really not know--has she forgotten this already? Or does she just not care? She was doing pretty well with time before. Same with money. It's been a few weeks and I have a hunch she will be clueless again when I make her work on that later.

I do think she has improved in Math. She is stuck right now at a certain level of "Rocket Math" but I know she can get past it. Spelling is so-so. Basically the same as what she did at school. She can remember them short term. But later on she will miss them again. This week her spelling words are 10 of the color words (blue, purple, red, etc..). She is working very hard on them because there is a new zhu zhu pet just waiting to be played with. This new little pet came out last night to sit and 'play' with her other one but she was not allowed to play with it yet. She took about 5 or 6 test yesterday trying to get a 100% The best she got was 70%.

Here is something interesting though. Yesterday Sam had a friend over (different friend). All her friends are almost a year older than her. Remember Sam is the youngest in her class. This friend was telling me she got a new bike- a 2 wheeled bike. She just learned to ride it. Sam had that mastered before 1st grade and is now riding a bike with gears. This same friend also said she just learned to tie her shoes. Sam did that during the first few weeks/months of Kindergarten. I know several of her friends that are just now (or very recently) learning to do both of those things. So Sam might be behind academically but in other areas she has been well past them. I of course acted excited for the friend that was telling me the new things she learned. On a side note, Max can't do either of those. I try to always get him velcro shoes so he can have independence.

I hope it all just 'clicks' for Sam and she gets this stuff figured out. And if not, I hope she can get help at school, one-on-one. One reason I dread school this year, besides having to wake up so early, is all the stinkin' homework. Sam had SO much work last year. I am so hoping this year is better. It's hard to add extra stuff (to either introduce it or reinforce it) when she works on homework ALL evening.

One more week from today....

tomatoes

While gone visiting the grandparents Pete was in charge of my tomato plants. He does well with this. He, for whatever reason though, does not pick the ripe ones. I'm not sure why because he does like tomatoes.

Here is just one bowl of tomatoes. I had another one as well. Plus a couple peppers.

The last week

The title that goes both ways! This is our last full week of Summer break. And this post is to tell you about our past week.

We went to visit the grandparents for a little over a week for the 2nd time this Summer. We had fun and it was great to spend time with family before school starts back up. Pete came down for a long weekend then went back home. His parents were out of town the first half of our stay.

The kids and I hang out at my parents house, swam and went shopping. The kids have all turned into fish this summer. Joe and Sam had swimming lessons right after school got out but not sure they did anything. They may have helped Sam some. But since Joe did not want to go the last week and they could barely get him IN the water, I'm guessing they did nothing for him!

The first time to my parents pool this year Joe and Ike held on with death grips to Pete or I. Not anymore!! Max is the only one that doesn't go jumping in under the water.

My parents pool--nothing too fancy but it sure is fun!
It is not too deep so Max and Sam can touch. Joe cannot.

My jumping daredevils.. Sam and Ike.

Joe also was doing this but at the time did not have his arm floaties on so he was hanging out with Pete staying safe!
Ike--- not afraid anymore!

Sam and Ike going back up to jump in

My sweetie pie Max

Hanging out at the grandparents also means they get to overload on cheese-balls...

The kids (except Max) love those huge barrels of cheese-balls from Sam's club. They ask me to buy them when we are shopping there and my answer is always, "NO!" Those are special for grandma and grandpa's house.

They also got to eat chocolate donuts at grandmas house.

Here is my goof ball Max...He is the one who took those last few photos. I am borrowing his camera because mine has died. Which he lets you know in this video of Sam and Ike jumping into the pool....




And one with Joe joining Sam and Ike...


And one with Sam and Ike jumping in together....


(it was getting foggy because I just brought the camera out to the very HOT air from being inside the nice cool air conditioned house)

Sunday evening Pete, me and the kids went to fair. It was fun but expensive! By the time we got there the animals were all gone. We saw sheep but that was about it. I asked a fair worker about it and was told most the animals leave Sunday night and a new group comes in on Monday.
So we looked around and then rode the Farris wheel. The Farris wheel for the 6 of us cost $30. Yeah, $30 for a few minutes of riding a big wheel around! I told you, expensive! We then let the kids each pick one more ride a piece. They all liked their rides they picked. We shared a funnel cake and the kids scarfed it down. We even made Max try a teeny tiny bite. It was torture but he finally did it.

Once my in-laws got back to town my sister-in-law came into town with her 2 girls. They are Max's and Sam's age. The kids LOVE hanging out with them.

The first day they were there we went to the fair. This time we got to see animals. Plus being at the fair always bring out some very freaky people! The kids all got to pick a ride. Found out Sam does NOT like roller coasters. She came off crying. She went with her cousin, who did fine. Max picked a spooky house ride. I went with him. Glad I did because he may have freaked out at the darkness and very loud buzzes they try to scare you with. He did fine though with me. We got ice cream and called it a night.

The next day was a big day. We were going to see Peter Pan in Branson. Branson is only about 45 minutes away from Springfield (where the grandparents live). While there we also planned to hit one of the outlet malls. I got plenty of stuff to prove it. I just love Ralph Lauren and Gap outlet stores. Also hit Old Navy, which sadly did not have much I thought I couldn't live without, Stride Rite and a couple others. I could have gone into a few more but it was starting to get late. You know, because the kids closets aren't already stuffed enough!!

Peter Pan was very neat. The kids all really liked it.

Next day the kids helped grandma make applesauce from all her apples from her tree and just played. They didn't want to leave. We went back to my parents house, swam, ate dinner and got going. It takes about 2 1/2 -3 hours to drive home. We got back home around 10:30 that night.

It was a fast, but fun week. Now we have to try and adjust our sleeping schedules to school time. Lord help me! We generally go to bed between 12 and 2 then sleep in. But very shortly bedtime will be 9 and Max and Sam will be getting up shortly after 7 am!! I dread it. Joe will be going to afternoon Kindergarten so it won't effect him as much. But it will help if it's up before the time school will be starting!

My sweetie

Max trying to get a photo of me and him so I helped him out. He's my sweetie!