Friday, May 30, 2008

What time is it??? SUMMERTIME!!!

If you have a young daughter who also happens to be a fan of "High School Musical", then I'm sure you're hearing her sing the above words as much as I've been hearing them the past week! I love summer. My daughter apparently loves summer, too! It's her first "real" summer, because she's officially on a break from school for the first time. I told her on the first day of summer break that the best thing to do during the summer is sleep in!!!! (This is really just a ploy on my part to get to sleep in, too!) So far, it's worked about half of the days..not a bad start.

We started off our summer by taking swimming lessons. Melody and Gannon have joined their friends, Emma and Owen for swimming lessons. They seemed to have lots of fun! When I signed them up, my #1 goal was for Melody to put her head underwater. Well, she did that one the first day and didn't stop there. She now jumps in from the side of the pool, goes underwater, opens her eyes underwater, and can even halfway swim for a few feet! Go Melody! Gannon didn't quite take to the water as easily as our newfound fish Melody, but he did go underwater and learn how to be an alligator on the pool steps.
Here's the group practicing their skills, and playing. Mrs. Martin is such a great teacher! It was a really good way to kick off our summer of fun.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Teachers

I've had a roller-coaster day with today being the last day of school for both of my children. Melody "graduated" from Kindergarten, which is almost as big as her first day of Kindergarten! She has grown so much and gained an extraordinary amount of knowledge in this short year. She still soaks up new information just as easily as she did when she was 2, and it's just been amazing to watch! She has truly loved her teacher, Mrs. Manguso. She's been a great Kindergarten teacher.

Gannon is now done with his 2-year-old room at preschool. Unfortunately, a decision was made to close his preschool this year, so he won't be returning to that school ever again. He will begin a new Mother's Morning Out program this Fall. He has had the same teacher for the past 2 years, so this will be a big transition for him (and me!). It was extremely bittersweet, and although Gannon was oblivious, his pitiful mother ended up shedding some tears today. I will truly miss walking through the halls of his preschool and seeing all of the familiar and smiling faces. Melody graduated from that preschool program, and I guess I just expected that Gannon would do the same. However, we anticipate wonderful and exciting adventures await us at the new school! Anyway, here's Gannon with Ms. Nicole, and his beloved Ms. Sonja.



God Bless Teachers! Thank you for being so wonderful to my children.

Potty Time!

It's that time again. Time to train a child to use the potty. I haven't done this in...nearly 3 1/2 years! I have No Clue what I'm doing, to be honest. Does anybody else feel that way when they take on the endeavor to potty train a child? It's a wonder that kids make it to Kindergarten in underwear, because I am not very talented at this whole training business.

Gannon is 2 years and 9 months old, and I have an entire summer to get him to use the potty. When he begins at his "new school" in August, I have been informed that he must be able to use the potty independently. Now, if those aren't words to freak out any parent whose child is not even remotely interested in using the potty, I don't know what is.

I'm a girl. I know how girls use the potty. I know about the anatomy of boys, and I've witnessed boys using the potty, so I know all the technicalities, but as far as TEACHING a boy how to do all that stuff that boys do, I'm dumbfounded. That is why I've asked Jamie to take over with the potty training. It's turned out that we're both on the potty wagon, so hopefully that will help.

This week I've started letting Gannon wear his "big boy underwear." He feels special because he gets to be like Daddy, except he gets to have Spider man on his underwear. I'm not a big fan of Pull-ups, so I tend to skip the middleman and go straight for the real deal. Hey, it worked with Melody, so it should theoretically work with Gannon, right??? Well, he had 2 accidents the first day and no success in the potty. Yesterday he went potty at school, even though he screamed his head off at his poor teacher the whole time. Apparently she placed him facing backwards on the potty (something we've done at home just a few times..not recently, however) and HE wanted to face forward. So he screamed, but he went in the potty. I gave him M&M's when he got home. Later that day, we put him in his underwear and while I was at work he had a small accident and then got the rest in the potty!!! It's actually really cute, because while Gannon sits on his little potty, Melody reads books to him. We have a stack of books next to the potty, and now that Melody can read it works out great! She gets M&M's too, for helping! It's really a great deal. We'll see how long this lasts, and if it works. I'm choosing to remain optimistic!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Rest on the River!


I had a wonderful, fabulous, and relaxing weekend this past weekend at Christy's "lake house" that is actually on the Elk River. Some other special ladies from my Sunday School class joined me in a weekend retreat...and we did all kinds of relaxing and refreshing things: massages, manicures/pedicures, cucumbers on our eyes, positive affirmations, and even Communion on the boat! It was amazing! I definitely found my rest in Jesus, as was the point of the whole journey.

Saturday morning it was warm enough to have a relaxation session out on the upper deck of the house, so we all (Gina and Angie here) donned tiaras and got to be Princesses. It was such a lovely feeling to know that not only am I a special child of God, but I am a princess for God, too! Melody is constantly dressing up like a princess, so I am often dubbed the Queen in the house when she's in princess mode. But, I had never thought of myself as God's Princess. What a concept! He wants me to feel special all of the time because I am His beloved child. He will always prepare the way for me so I need not ever fear what is ahead...sure does help with that worrying thing!

Our pastor, Sherill,
led us on this amazing mini-getaway. Many thanks to her, as her plate is constantly full of "to-do's", and she still gave up some of that precious time to us women.

Of course, time away highlights the things I have upon my return. I was more than happy to come home to my sweet family, even if the house was a mess!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Par-tay Weekend!

Here we are, on the other side of one of the busiest weekends of my life! It was great fun! This year for Melody's birthday we decided to give her a surprise slumber party. She's turning 6, and had been asking to have a friend sleep over for a while, so we decided what better way to break ourselves in to the world of sleepovers than to have an all-out slumber party! We secretly invited 3 of her best friends (2 girls from her Kindergarten class and one friend from when she was in preschool) to come over on Friday night. It was SO HARD to keep it a secret, but we managed to pull it off and nobody--not even Gannon--spilled the beans. I baked cupcakes Friday and decorated them like the ocean with dolphins jumping out of the water. Melody had told me she wanted a dolphin theme..back when she thought SHE was planning something for her birthday..so I did the best I could!

Melody and the girls had a great time dressing up and hanging out!

And the best thing of all......getting to play and sleep in a great, big tent!!!

Due to the fairly young age of the girls and the fact that they were sleeping downstairs in a tent, Jamie and I decided it would be best for us to hook up the baby monitor in our bedroom so we could hear if one of the girls woke up during the night. It was a first-time sleepover for all of them (other than at g'parents houses). We woke up around 6:00 the next morning to hear a couple of the girls whispering. I listened closely and heard them saying that they wanted to surprise Melody by cooking her some pancakes and having it on a tray beside her when she woke up. I thought that was the most adorable, and sweetest showmanship of true friendship that I've seen in a long time. :) Shortly thereafter, Melody woke up, but they hadn't had time to bake anything--thankfully!! So, I made purple pancakes for everyone!

During breakfast, my Mom and Dad showed up so Mom and I could resume the 2nd weekend of a garage sale. It rained last weekend, so since everything was already in my garage and priced, we decided to try again! In between crowds of folks coming by to shop and parents arriving to pick up the slumber party girls, it was a very hectic morning! We got everything and everyone situated in time for an afternoon nap, Jamie went and picked up a new couch we bought, and we got ready to go to a party at the Lew's house. We all had lots of fun over there with all of the people from the bands at church, and we came home for some much-needed rest.
The next morning kicked off Mother's Day! The kids were on perfect behavior all day, and we all had a wonderful time together. Jamie got me an iPod Nano and the kids made cards for me and got me a pig WebKinz. What fun! I felt very loved and appreciated, and the best part was getting lots of cuddles and "I love you's" from my family!

I hope if you are a mother, you feel as blessed as I do! Life is good.