What do you do all day?

So, the title is that all-too-often phrase some stay at home moms hear from time to time (although no one has ever said it to me; which must mean that I don't know any stupid people, because only a total clueless person would ever ask that question to a SAHM :) But, I digress... :)

So, here's a glimpse in pics: not really in order, though :)


This is how I manage to prepare a dinner... kids stay busy with the Keurig cups :)

on weekends, family might come to visit!

and in the morning, after Lucy has left for school, the boys watch Cat in the Hat (a favorite of theirs!) while I attempt to clean up the tornado that was breakfast.

Jack's position:  t'he he he

and we have play dates with friends, where we are obsessed with counting down the minutes until we get...POPSICLES!

another "X"

I enjoyed lunch with Lucy at school today.  While eating, she fessed up to earning an X already that morning  (Lunch is at 10:33, so it didn't take her long :(

It was because of talking again - specifically, talking in line. 

We've tried a variety of punishments when she arrives home with an X for that day.  She's had playdates canceled, extra chores assigned, and time spent alone in her room.  Today, I tried a new tactic.  I typed up a letter Lucy was to copy on her own, as long as it took her (which was about 45 minutes, turns out), and then deliver to tomorrow to her teacher with a verbal apology as well. 

I'm hopeful this may be effective, because I'm learning with Lucy that while she's clearly careless about trying hard to remember the rules, she does feel shame.  When we were walking back to the classroom after lunch, I commented to her teacher - while Lucy was right at my side - that I heard about her new X.  Lucy immediately got all pink in the face, and eyes a little glassy.  She was clearly embarrassed and felt bad.  It's like in a favorite story of mine that we often read, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, when Lilly has to write an apology letter to the teacher.  We'll see if there's improvement...

Anyone have any suggestions?  :)

Lucy's a Dasiy!

Well, it finally happened...we've signup up Lucy for an extra curricular activity.  She's a Girl Scout!  Particularly, a "Daisy."  Her troop meets at school every other Friday, after dismissal.  I went to the first meeting last Friday because I wanted to check out how things work and order her uniform.  In the future, however, Lucy will just go to her meeting from her classroom, and I'll pick her up at 4 o'clock.  Super convenient, and I really appreciate the thoughtful scheduling.  (i.e. not at dinnertime as so many sporting activities seem to be.)  The mom leaders did a super job of organizing a meaningful meeting and incorporating the new Daisies with the girls who were in the troop last year.  Check out all that they did:

To learn each other's name, they played a neat game where they threw a ball of yarn to each other, calling out the other girl's name before throwing to them. 

They ended up with a cool web, and when one girl tugged on her part, all could feel it.  The moms used that as an example to show that all the girls were "sisters" with each other and how they were all connected together.  Sweet lesson.

Daisies earn petals as the complete their activities which teach them a variety of things like honesty and respect, helping others, using resources wisely, etc.  Each petal color represents one of the values, and here, the girls made their own Girl Scout Law keychain.  They had fun adding beads to their string and talking about what each color meant.  I really like what Lucy is (hopefully :) learning!  :)

Lucy had a great time at the meeting, but you may notice here that she is wearing quite a pouty face.  What had happened was this:  the meeting was wrapping up and I pulled Lucy aside to tell her that as a reward for having her first week where she earned all five "good behavior" stickers, we were going to go to the movies right after the meeting with some friends to see Finding Nemo 3D.  She was so excited, but then quickly asked if Jack was coming.  I told her yes, and well, she was super sour.  We took this group shot right after our conversation, so she was in major pouting mode about her brother also getting to come along to the movies.  Guess she didn't really listen to what the green petal was about, being "considerate and caring"!  LOL!

End of group.

Everybody turn!  :)

Boys' New Room

Lucy's hot pink room is now a navy/dark blue color, and "construction" themed for Connor and Jack: 

I love, love, love the blue walls, and without having to try too hard, we had to buy only very little to finish it up.  Each boy already had their little "everywhere chair" from their first birthday present from Lady and Papa.  I already had the fabric to sew their window valances - left over from an upholstery project (4 individual triangles draped over each other.)  And the "curtain rod" was a piece of wood I found alongside the road where new houses are being built in our neighborhood.) 


I found the bedding at the Pottery Barn outlet in Atlanta, and from there, I did what any mom who wanted to find some fun, creative ideas for completing the room - I hit up Pinterest!  :)  I found an adorable idea of using a wooden pallet as a headboard.  While there were a few wooden pallets along side the road, they were filthy.  As usual, I got lucky at Habitat ReStore downtown and found a very clean, very large wooden pallet for $10.  A light spray with the hose to remove the dust, a light sanding, a quick cut into two pieces, and voila! wooden headboards.  I LOVE how they turned out!

I like the vertical headboard, but it needed something.  I took two old decorative wooden pictured that don't match any of our rooms anymore, covered them in white fabric I already had, then played around with the wooden blocks.  I was able to make the words, "lift," "dig," "haul," and "boom."  After stealing two toy cars from the boys, I glued together a fun construction scene for each boy's headboard.

dump trucks, cranes, and cement mixers, oh my!  :)

We had planned to go ahead and move Connor, but after the conclusion that I need to have surgery on my knee, we're going to keep him in his nursery because it's on the same level as our bedroom.  It's already going to be challenging enough to keep up with him on crutches, there's no way I'm going to add getting up and down the stairs anymore than I have to :)

Checking in on our rebel kindergartner

So, Lucy is well into her fourth week of school, and fingers crossed, this will be the first week she earns all five of her "good behavior" stickers!  :)  The good news is that she totally loves school!  She comes home each day eager to do her homework, and she'll actually share details of what happened at school that day.  Girl loves to talk.  And that is precisely the problem that's been getting her big, fat "X"s on some days  (When I say "X" here's what I mean.  In her go-home folder, she has a sticker chart.  If she behaved well that day, there's a sticker in the box; if not, the teacher writes an "X".)  The first X - on day 2 of kindergarten- was for talking in the hall.  The second X - week two of school - was for talking in a no-talking zone, and the third X - during week 3 (see a pattern here?  :) - was for lying down on the floor during story time (And she even received a warning the first time she did it.  Her explanation of "But I forgot" just doesn't cut it!)  (We had a long, very firm talk about that one.  As a teacher myself, I consider that completely disrespectful and unacceptable.  I asked her how she thought it made her teacher feel that she lied down on the floor when she was trying to read her a story.  And explained that if one of my students had done that when I was reading to them, I would have thought they didn't care about what I was trying to do for them.)  

The light bulb clicked and I think she understood her wrong doing.  This lying down on the floor happened on her last day before we traveled to St. Louis for a family wedding.  So, Jason and I told her that since she couldn't pay attention to her teacher during story time that she wouldn't be allowed to "pay attention" to any dvd's on the car ride.  When Jason and I were deciding how we should punish her, we braced ourselves, anticipating that enforcing this "no dvd" punishment would likely mean hell for us on the car ride.   But, surprisingly, she didn't complain or whine once.  She took it like a man actually :)  I was expecting nine hours of whining, especially once Jack cued up his dvd, but she never did.  She actually got quite into her drawings, and drew lots of pictures; sweet little people with heart-shaped heads and curly hair sprouting out.  

While I've been disappointed that the breaking the rules started right out of the gate :), I'm not worried about it, because I know that with consistency at school and at home, she'll eventually get it that her teacher and Mommy and Daddy expect her to behave well and there will be consequences every time she chooses to misbehave.  

I blame this defiance completely on her father!  ;)  I would have quaked at the knees even thinking of misbehaving as a child.  My parents only needed to look at me firmly and I corrected myself.  Jason...well, he didn't operate that way.  I'll leave it at that :)

Here are some pictures so you can see all the fun she's been having:

The drawing is a self-portrait.  And I think it's hilarious that she sees herself in school with long wavy hair and wearing a pink ballgown!  :)

Writing rhyming words:  "pig in a wig"  I love the red flowers flanking the pig (who apparently has a human skeleton shape :)  When looking through her work, Lucy was excited to show me the pig's "pink high heels."  :)

This was her first craft she did in Kindergarten.  Cute...



And this I love...This was the first book she ever checked out from the library.  "Mama's Day Surprise."  Aw, heart flutter... :)  I think it's a fun tid-bit that the second book she checked out was another Bearenstein Bears one, "New Baby."  Lucy is me, completely made over.  She already talks about how when she grows up she wants to be a mommy and have lots of babies.  Isn't it funny... :)

And she went to art at some point during the first week.  Here was her first art assignment.  They were learning about different kinds of lines.

Kindergarten is turning out to be just as much fun as we thought!  I love doing homework with her in the afternoons, and I'm very proud of her eagerness to learn.  We'll keep working on that mouth of hers - HA!

Connor's a "blankie-man"

Just a fun comparison...Lucy never cared for lovies, blankies, or stuffed animals.  Still doesn't.

Jack took three years before he began to show a particular preference for his quilt and lovies.  He's not dependent on them, but if he sees his quilt near his bed, he'll scoop it up and go to sleep with it.

But Connor, he was all about blankets and lovies from the start.  This kid sleeps with no fewer than four blankets.  Usually he pulls them over his face and leaves them there.  Bothers me, but anytime we remove them from his face, the next time we check on him, the blankets are over his face again...  Here, he's lying on his quilt, green one against face, blue one scrunched up behind, and then there's the blanket I laid on top of him.  His lovie is somewhere buried in there.  :)

When you pick him up after a nap or in the morning, he wants to bring two blankets with him, and it's always the silky blue and green one.  The "gender neutral" quilt I made him - which has some floral patterns on it because I just knew he was a girl :) - just gets love when he's in the crib :)

Another funny quirk I just discovered two days ago.  So, at meal time, Connor was furious about something and fussing at his plate .  Like, screaming directed at his plate, which had some strawberries on it among other things.  Lucy was clearly annoyed by the sound, and she tried to shut him up by throwing one of her strawberries on his plate.  Hers were whole strawberries, whole strawberries that Connor promptly took a chuck out of as soon as she tossed it on his plate.  Now, Connor loves strawberries, so I was perplexed as to why he wasn't eating the strawberries that were on his plate, but would eat Lucy's.  Well, I finally made the connection that his were cut up and hers weren't.  Oooooh, he won't eat the "baby" strawberries!  This was confirmed when I scooped away the cut up ones and replaced them with whole ones.  He giggled immediately, and happily started eating away!

Today, Connor and I met up with my friend Susie for lunch, and I made the mistake of absentmindedly cutting his sandwich into chunks.  I was immediately reminded as Connor thumped his plate.  :)  Connor is by far the most particular of all our kids.  Clearly, he's trying to tell us he's such a big boy!  :) Love it!