2011 Week 12

Spring is definitely here. At one point temperatures hit the 80s! That had us scrambling to pull out the shorts and flip flops. And also had me wondering how I'm going to handle the summer if it's this hot and it's only March. Of course the spring weather was a tease and cooled off again toward the end of the week.

We spent the week just trying to get things done around here. I bought a paper shredder and Kaitlyn helped me shred the stack of paperwork that has been sitting there since I changed out the files in January.

And the whole neighborhood started to focus on their yards. A couple of my friends/neighbors went in together on a load of mulch and seeing how much work they had ahead of them I pitched in to help. What I intended to be just a couple hours assisting them turned into a three day long neighborhood work party. It was tons of work, but now both their yards look fantastic and so does mine, since they had way too much mulch and the final afternoon we started in on my yard so we could use up the rest of it. And I have to say, big projects like that are so much more fun when you have friends working right along side you.

Tyler thought the yard party was great. Digging in the dirt is his favorite thing, of course. And the neighbor has some great Star Wars toys in her garage that he and our neighbor, Hanna (the only two in our little group of friends that aren't old enough for school and have to hang out with the moms all day) loved playing with. (in the photo, Ty is the one in the middle with the red shorts and the "storm trooper" helmet)

We also tested out our sprinklers in order to find all the heads so we wouldn't hit them when we install the fence. And sadly, we found some leaks and other issues that had to be dealt with. The contractor's landscape guy had to come back three separate mornings and add two more sprinklers, but I'm fairly certain we now have fully functioning sprinklers that cover all parts of the yard. Bring on summer! (ok, don't really bring on summer. I actually like Spring quite a lot)

2011 Week 11

What a fun-filled week! Sam bought a motorcycle and couldn't stop grinning the night he brought it home (need to snap a photo and post it soon).

We took the kids to the North Carolina Zoo on Sunday. Great weather, fun family outing. But boy is that place HUGE. All the exhibits are pretty big and they have all kinds of space between each one so our feet were really really tired by the end of the day.

The emu stood there for there for the longest time just staring at people. It was pretty cool. Tyler favorite animal was the alligator. The polar bears and the seals were the most active and the most entertaining to watch. And Kaitlyn liked the...ugh I forget what she liked. Note to self: ask her and update this! :P

Tyler's view from the back seat. I handed him my phone so he could play a game on the way home from one of our marathon errand/shopping trips and the little monkey must have figured out which ap ran the camera.

This is another one I'm pretty sure Ty took. Can you tell what he loves to play with most?

And there's our poor guy the right after he fell off his bike. He's very good on that thing, but sometimes things like that happen. He wasn't hurt badly, but did have quite a few patches of road rash. The worst of it was a big scrape on his wrist that he completely babied and refused to use the hand at all for a couple of days. Kaitlyn gave him the Donald Duck sticker to cheer him up.

Looks like it's the week for photos of/concerning Ty. I thought it was so cute when I walked in the kitchen and saw he had pulled everything for his breakfast out and lined it all up on the counter - milk, Sprite, cup, bowl, spoon, Fruity Pebbles... The bar stools were still in place by the counters where he had drug them over so he could reach what he needed. Mr Independant.

Tyler got some early St Pat's Day fun at story time at the library Wednesday. Story time here is so well done and so much fun for the kids - this time even more than usual.
We finished up the fun week with St Patrick's Day on Thursday. The kids opened up the package from grandma (that she left behind when she was here) the night before because I knew she had green shirts for them, along with some other fun stuff. And of course the leprechaun visited and played a few fun tricks like turning the milk green and leaving the kids some fun stuff.

The neighbors were in a goofing-off mood too, as we found ourselves still standing in the middle of the road talking a full 2 hours after the bus pulled away with the kids. So the four of us and the little kids basically spent the rest of the day together - out to lunch and running errands in tandem. It's a slow way to do things, but sure makes life a lot more fun.

2011 Week 10

Spring Soccer! We had our first dose of it on Saturday. The kids were SO excited to get started, and it was a nice day for it. It was Tyler's very first time in anything other than dance class (with Gma) and he did a fantastic job. He was right on task the whole time and really enjoyed himself. He was pretty funny to watch too. Then spent a lot of time taking turns kicking the ball into the goal and every time he was up he would kick the ball then throw his hands in the air and do a little dance. Then he'd turn around and dance his way back to the end of the line to patiently wait for his next turn. (he's the one in the red shirt, in case he's hard to spot) (Ty is sitting on my lap right now and his comment on the photo is "I so awesome-est!")

Kaitlyn was even more excited for soccer than Tyler. She had to wait all the way through Tyler's 1 1/2 hour practice and it was almost more than she could handle. She played on the playground for about 30 minutes then every few minutes after that she was back by my side asking how much longer until her turn. But finally she did make it to her turn and she had a blast. I have to say, I am super-impressed with the guy that is in charge of her age group. He had some really fun and creative looking drills and games for them to play.

Do you see Kaitlyn there in the middle? It was hard to get a good shot of her but she's the one in the center with the navy blue pants and the yellow jersey thing over her turquoise shirt.

While Kaitlyn was taking her turn with soccer, Tyler was playing on the playground - part of that time spent with our 9 year old neighbor (3rd grade - that's 9 right?), Sam, who does a good job of playing with Ty and keeping an eye on him. It was much appreciated since it was hard to keep my eye on the soccer field and the playground at the same time. My neighbor Eileen (Sam's mom) said she and her husband were laughing their heads off watching Ty make his way around the playground - first trying to get himself on the swings and once he was on them he couldn't get it to swing, then making himself dizzy going round and round the digger thing and flopping headfirst onto the sand and just laying there flat out to catch his breath/balance.

Let's see, what else was noteworthy this week? Well, I decided I really wasn't happy about Kaitlyn's dance class only learning 1 count of 8 in the entire last THREE weeks of class. No warming up, no across the floor, no nothing. Really not happy. Called the owner of the studio and didn't get a good response from her so I pulled Kaitlyn out of dance all together. Good thing I had already been looking at other options for next year.

Tyler is my little buddy every day. One day I sent him upstairs to grab some socks so we could go to the grocery store and he didn't come back downstairs. I found him on the floor of the hallway at the top of the stairs like this

Poor guy must have been VERY tired. So I left him there and let him sleep it off and we did errands later.

Ty and I also got some fun play/errand time with some of the neighbors - an impromptu "hey does anyone want to go to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast?" invitation from my neighbor, Shanna, at the bus stop that I was glad we accepted. 3 moms, 3 kids - a much more laid-back, fun approach to small errand running. We dropped off one vehicle to get it's oil changed and all piled in the Yukon to go to breakfast. Then we hit Walmart, picked up the vehicle, and helped Shanna pick out paint samples at Lowes. Even the kids were easy to manage because someone was always free to help one or buckle a seatbelt while someone else parked the cart. Plus the 2 preschoolers had a buddy to keep them company and that made them happy too.
I'm having fun getting to know the people in the neighborhood and happy that we picked the subdivision we did. With everyone being new to the neighborhood, we all go out of our way more than the usual to make friends and get to know each other. There are plenty of kids and most of the moms I have met stay at home too, so that works in my favor. Days like yesterday make me think we just might be settling in and making a place for ourselves here pretty well - and more quickly than I had dared to hope for.

2011 Week 9

You know how life likes to just knock you around sometimes? And all you can do is just hold on and ride out the storm? Well, the past week was a bit like that for us. Tyler spiked a fever Thursday night and had the poor guy was pretty miserable all day Friday. Just as his was backing off, the cold hit Kaitlyn but with her it always goes straight to her lungs and she coughs and coughs and coughs. Luckily we now have the inhaler and meds to deal with it when this happens to her, so while it was a rough day for her while we tried to get the coughing under control it really did only take about a day for things to start calming down for her. Which of course was when I started to feel under the weather - mostly sinuses and a pounding headache that lasted 4 days.
Moms don't get days off though, do we? So while feeling icky I still had to take the car in to be inspected and serviced (end of the month and it had to be registered aaaaah!) and run errands on Monday. And Tuesday morning we had a check-up for Tyler at the base (so we could get the paperwork for his application to a preschool program). Ugh. Stupid base medical system. It was easy enough to get an appointment at our clinic and the wait time wasn't bad. But the doc could only to so much then sent us to another clinic to get his shots and then we had to hit the big hospital complex for the hearing/vision screening at their peds clinic. What a mess - even by 9:00 AM all their big parking lots were full at the hospital and I had to hike from the back of the last parking lot to the FRONT of the hospital, carrying Tyler who was refusing to walk because his legs hurt from the shots. We got right in to see someone, but still - what a pain in the rear the whole thing was.
I also dealt with making sure some mostly minor repairs were done on the house during that week. And I think that weekend we also managed to do some projects on the house. Sam installed the rain gutters on the front and I painted the front door.
Then just when I was starting to get my energy back and feel better, I ended up helping a neighbor with a project (final report of some sort for her college class). Ah how something as simple as saying "oh yeah I know how to scrapbook I can help you for a couple hours" turns into not only a run to Walmart for supplies and an evening scrap session, but another ENTIRE day with her at my house working pretty much non-stop on the thing. So much for productivity for the week, although I must admit that I didn't actually mind the scrapbooking or having her there for the most part. She's new to the neighborhood and it was a good chance to get to know her a bit (even though her kids are a bit of a mess with her 5 year old daughter being spoiled and whiney and her son accidentally hitting Tyler's finger with a shovel. My poor little boy now has a black fingernail).
We made it through but that's one week I don't care to repeat any time soon.


The kids still managed to have fun though :)