Bento Friday

Madeleine's teacher has some really fun rewards that the kids can earn this year. My favorite is that they get to have lunch in their room with her on Fridays if they haven't moved their stick off of green all week. So far, we're 2 for 2 with Friday lunches with Mrs. Lawson. When I told Madeleine this morning how proud I was of her for not moving her stick all week, she quickly informed me in her best know-it-all voice that "It's only the 2nd week of school. AND I didn't move my stick all year last year or in kindergarten (true!)." Well, I'm still proud of her and I love that she's getting a weekly reward for her good behavior.

What to pack for her lunch is something I actually think about a lot. It's hard to come up with healthy lunches and have variety. (Poor Matt on the other hand has a PB&J 90% of the time!) So, this year I ordered a bento box to try and make her lunch different sometimes. She loves when I use it! Here's her lunch for today -- not pictured are the 2 caprisuns & squeeze yogurt. (and if you haven't tried the fiberone brownies they are sooo yummy!)
Of course, her lunch is never complete without a note. :)

Happy Friday!!

Sippy Snatcher

Charlotte loves anything that belongs to her brother and sister. She loves running from them. Put those together and you have her new favorite game. She grabs whatever they're playing with as soon as they put it down and takes off running, laughing with each step, squealing with delight! Harrison & Madeleine aren't quite as enthralled with her game, it's more of a pest to them. But, Charlotte continues to do it.

Earlier this week, I caught her just after she'd snatched their sippy cups. She was alternating drinking out of each one and loving every second.

One bad thing: She's FAST. It's hard to catch her and she puts up quite a fight to keep whatever is in her grasp. It sure makes for some fun days at our house!

Monday Madness

Well, today was the first day that we were back on our "busy" schedule and I wanted to properly document it.

We had a great week last week with Daddy being home every night. I tried to really really enjoy it because I knew this week was coming. So tonight was the first night that I was back to being on my own on a regular basis. During the semester Matt is gone anywhere from 3-5 evenings during the week either in class, teaching a HU class or studying/working late.

Our day got off to a rough start. Harrison woke up around 4am having wet his bed. It's a rarity that this happens, but when it does it's not a little trickle--it's a tidalwave. Unfortunately by the time I'd taken him back to his bed and found this out, we'd woken up Madeleine. So, Harrison & I bedded down in Madeleine's bed and Madeleine took my spot in our bed. Another night, another round of musical beds. :) The whole ordeal had gotten Harrison good and awake. It was after 5am by the time he got back to sleep and I knew he was going to be one cranky boy tonight.

My first evening alone in awhile wasn't not my best. I think I'm just rusty and spoiled from the summer. We'll find our groove, but lest anyone out there think I have it all together, let me share a bit of our evening.

It was a little after 4pm when we got home from getting Madeleine. We'd planned to go to the pool, but it was drizzling so we ended up staying home. Boo. The kids were more than a little disappointed that we had to cancel the pool, although it's not like we haven't been to the pool much -- we've been every day except 1 for the past 2 weeks! This disappointment along with the crazy night added up to some cranky kiddos. They fussed and played off and on for the first hour at home. Then we started dinner. I'd planned for us to make pizza -- something fun for the evening. Wellllll, first Harrison grabbed the olive oil and slung it all over the kitchen. Not easy to clean up, that olive oil! Then Charlotte got ahold of Madeleine's chocolate milk and dumped it all over herself and the floor (that I'd just finished mopping up olive oil off of!). We were going downhill fast.

We quickly got the pizza in the oven, set the table, and got ready for dinner. Pizza is a favorite and they were hungry, so this had to be good. It wasn't. The kids didn't like our homemade pizza and I kind of have to agree with them. It was gross. So much for buying the "healthy" crust at the store. Next time, it's fat and grease all the way!

I had to try and end our evening on a good note. So, they had a good ol' bubble bath in our tub and then we all played legos until bedtime. They had milk and graham crackers before bed so no one went to bed hungry after the bad bad pizza. We ended our night with snuggles in bed.

And, just think. I get to do it all over again tomorrow. Good thing I love my job!

Hanging on to Summer

Even though school has started we've been spending every afternoon at the pool. I'd thought we might go a few afternoons, but it's the kids first & only request each afternoon, which is fine with me! We've had the best summer at our pool and I'm sadly ticking off the days until the pool is closed.

We've been so spoiled living so close to our pool. It's so easy to come home in the afternoons and change and be at the pool in a matter of minutes! I think that Madeleine needs to burn off that extra energy from sitting so much of the day and they all play so hard when we're there! We started off the summer without anyone knowing how to swim and now Madeleine is swimming on her own and Harrison is almost there too! I'm so proud of them both!

Jumping in. This is one of their favorite things to do. I think Harrison has done approximately 3,000 jumps this summer. And, just this week he's started jumping in the "deep" end and then swimming to the side.

Charlotte is going to be our dare-devil, I think. She'll wade out into the water until it's up to her nose and even then she's still pushing my hands away. She's also started jumping in with help and will do this over and over and over. She's seen brother & sissy do it and so, of course, she has to do it too. I'm hoping she'll be more confident and comfortable in the water and be an early swimmer.

And, she's so cute in her swimsuit! I loooove those chubby legs!

Madeleine has become quite the little fish this summer. She still lacks confidence, but she's getting there and she's getting braver all the time. She's gotten really good at swimming underwater. It still sends me into a mild panic to look out over the pool and not see her. I have to remind myself that she's underwater and wait a minute for her to surface. :) But, I'm so proud of her.

I wanted to add this one last picture from last night. I haven't been putting Charlotte in a swim diaper lately because she won't teetee in the pool. She always waits till we get home and put a diaper back on her. Friday night she waited till we got out of the pool but couldn't make it home. :) Oopsie!

Sweet Second Grader

Monday, August 15th....

Seems like I was just writing about the last day of school, and yet here we are again, back at school. Madeleine was very excited to be going back to school this year. She was excited to see her friends and get this school year started. Me? Not so much. I've really enjoyed summer and having all my babies home. However, the last couple of weeks I could tell Madeleine was ready to go back and start learning & having a schedule again.

The first morning of school went great. Harrison actually got up at 6am on his own and Charlotte was right behind him. I had to wake up Madeleine, but she popped right up and got dressed quickly. We left extra early that day because parking can be a bit of a nightmare on the first day & I had some things to deliver for the PTO breakfast before school started.

Here we are in the parking lot on that morning.
She'd lost a top tooth the night before so she was proudly showing off her gap-tooth smile! :)

Sitting at her desk. I'm planning to fully document each first day for as long as she'll let me. :)

Madeleine & her teacher Mrs. Lawson.

After helping to host the PTO kindergarten breakfast, and running several errands, Harrison, Charlotte & I headed home. When I asked Harrison on the way home if he missed Madeleine, his immediate response was "nope!" But, when we got home I could tell almost immediately that he was going to miss her a lot! They have played together constantly this summer and I'm just not quite the fun playmate as she is!

To pass the time, Harrison and I made our traditional first-day-of-school chocolate chip cookies for her. The whole time I kept thinking that this was the last year I'd do this with him and that this day is the start of my last year at home with him. I shed a few tears that day, not over Madeleine being gone, but over it being the start of the last year I'll have Harrison at home. Next year is going to be tough.

And, before I know it, this little girl will be heading off to school too.

Madeleine had a great first day and was quick to tell us that she LOVED 2nd grade! Yay! This year she's riding the bus to Matt's school so I had to wait even longer to hear about her day, but it was so worth the wait! She's had a great week and I'm so happy that she's loving school this year. :)

Back to School Night

Last Thursday was the Back to School Picnic at Madeleine's school. It's the night we finally get to find out which teacher we'll have for the school year and then get to enjoy dinner and catching up with school friends.

We were so excited to find out that Madeleine will have Mrs. Lawson as her homeroom teacher this year! Matt has worked with her on the FPS Math Taskforce and we were hoping we'd have her for Madeleine's teacher this year! Yippee! When we got to the room, Madeleine found her desk and a little goodie bag Mrs. Lawson had made for each child. :) While Matt & I filled out some info (our expectations of the teacher and for our child), Madeleine dug through her goodie bag and read the letter Mrs. Lawson had written to each child. I still love watching Madeleine read! She could read the entire page-length typed letter all by herself!

The picnic that followed was great -- for the second year in a row we used Backyard Burgers and it was yum-my! After 3 days of rain and weeks of record-breaking temps we actually had a beautiful evening. Perfect for the kids to play outside.

It's amazing what a difference just 2 years can make! Two years ago, we went to the back to school picnic and knew NO ONE. Literally. Not one single person. We ate by ourselves and met a lot of people; we wound our way around the school looking for Madeleine's classroom and hoped that we'd made the right decision on a school. And, this night -- just 2 years later -- was completely opposite. I spent the evening helping to serve the meal, Madeleine was hugged over and over by kids that she knew, we helped other new parents find their child's classroom, we hugged and talked with our favorite teachers, we caught up on summer events with friends and we felt so at home. What a difference 2 years makes, huh?

The Big 1-0

Last week, Matt and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. It's still amazing to me that it's been 10 years since that special day. In many ways it seems like just yesterday we were in collage & dating. But, mostly, it feels like we've always been together and I can't remember what it felt like not to have Matt in my life.

Since we don't have any family in our part of the state, we'd decided to just wait and celebrate our anniversary a couple of weeks late during our August Marriage Builder Date Night.

And then, sometime things just fall into place so perfectly. The Friday before Matt was to start his new job, my Dad called and offered to keep the kids and give us some of his points to stay 2 nights at the Crowne Plaza in LR. Matt and I had just spent the morning cleaning the house & I'd actually managed to finish all the laundry. We didn't have anything planned for the weekend. It was still early enough on Friday to let us pack, get down there and still have time to enjoy the evening. So we did.

Within 2 hours of the offer, we were packed and headed to Little Rock! Can you tell we were excited??? We had a great car trip without any stops which is a rare occurance even though it's just a 3 hour trip. We arrived a little before dinner and unpacked the kids. We stayed and had some yummy BBQ with my mom & dad and got the kids settled before heading out. We've been dying to see the last Harry Potter movie and had pretty much given up hope of getting to see it in the theater, so we were psyched to get to spend Friday night at the movies. While we were waiting for the movie to start Matt & I were trying to remember the last movie we'd seen together -- we decided it was the previous Harry Potter which has been awhile. After Harry Potter we headed to the hotel. My parents had checked us in earlier that day and after making a quick room switch because the potty wouldn't flush (bad bad bad!) we settled in for the night. I think we slept an amazing 11 hours uninterrupted!!! We slept past breakfast so we got up the next morning and headed to one of our favorite spots for a quiet lunch.

Then we headed back to Mimi & Grandads to see the kids. Charlotte was ready for her nap and I was happy to rock her to sleep -- I'd missed my baby! Then we packed up Madeleine & Harrison and took them to the hotel to swim. This hotel has an indoor/outdoor pool with a "tunnel" you swim under to get from one side to the other. The crazy part is that I had a birthday party at this same hotel when I was little! We pretty much had the pool to ourselves and the kids swam for almost 2 hours.

** On a side note -- in all the crazy packing we'd forgotten our swimsuits (not the kids) so Matt got some new swimtrunks and I sat this one out and watched.

Matt under the "tunnel"

We packed the kids back up and headed back to Mimi & Grandads to drop them off so Matt & I could go out to a nice dinner. Just after we got back, the sprinklers came on and they had such a fun time playing in them -- fully clothed, of course!

Matt and I decided to try Copelands for dinner. We had the best meal and ate so much. :) We had a great waitress that recommended some yummy foods! About 1/2 way through the meal, Matt told me he knew our waitress and she played basketball for UALR and blah, blah, blah. (I'm not that big into sports so most of it went over my head). But then he told me that she was from Cabot and her family actually lived 2 houses down from us when we lived there. Crazy small world. So, the next time she came over he started talking to her and told her where we'd lived and that he had taught there and asked about what she was doing now. She was so excited that someone had recognized her! She autographed our bill and took really good care of us. :)

Apparently that was also National Cheesecake Day so the cheesecakes were buy one get one free so of course we had to get 2! We got a white chocolate raspberry and a hot fudge sundae cheesecake. Both were amazing! I'm now trying to talk Matt into going back there for our August Date Nite because I'm still dreaming about that cheesecake!

It was so fun to get dressed up and have a nice night out! After dinner we headed back to Mimi & Grandads to pick up the kids and bring them to the hotel for the night with us. As much as our kids love staying in hotels, it seemed unfair to stay 2 nights without them. We got back to the hotel and Matt & the kids went swimming again before a late bedtime. They were so tired! And it was an early morning with church the next day.

One of the most wonderful parts about the weekend was it just happened to be a weekend where my dad was preaching! Such a treat! I would love for Harrison to follow in his footsteps one day -- which is post entirely on it's own because he truly has the makings of a preacher. :)

After church, my mom cooked a yummy lunch and we had a long visit with Sugar & Uncle Stewart.

I think Grandad may have found himself a new friend. :) Charlotte sat in his lap and finished off all his mashed potatos!

It was such a wonderful, unexpected weekend! I'm so thankful to my parents for not only giving us the nights in the hotel, but for watching our little brood so we could have some time to ourselves. I'm such a worrier, so babysitters are rare at our house (i.e. never) and it's always such a treat to have a meal, or in this case meals, where Matt & I can eat and enjoy talking and taking our time. Alone time is precious when you have 3 kids! We needed this weekend probably more than we realized and again I'm so so thankful that my parents gave it to us!