The start of school and the transition has truly gone really well. I was nervous, but all the kids seem to be doing well and are getting to know kids in their classes and grades. Most days Ava Jane and Emerson come home tired and tuckered out, but often say that they had a great day at school. I'm thrilled that this year, all three of my boys are getting to continue taking lessons with my sister in law. Peyton is enjoying playing Start Wars theme songs and Emerson is loving getting to play the piano in general. He is such a musical little guy, its no wonder that he is having a great time during his lesson! Thanks Molly for you patience as you teach them each week!
Since the start of school, life has been in full force and a bit crazy. With the change in schools for my kids, my routine has been turned completely topsy turvy. It has taken a real conscience effort to keep my kids and their schedules straight, including constant phone reminders to pickup and drop off at certain times...and to be quite honest, there was one hurried moment even this week when I was shopping at Target with Ava Jane and Lachlan, talking on the phone, and planning to eat a quick bite of lunch with my sister, when I realized that I was in fact late to pick up Emerson from half day Kindergarten. When I arrived I felt just awful, his sweet teacher, the one, lone teacher, standing graciously with her one, lone student...was just a day in the life! Emerson kept saying, "Mom, where were you? I thought something bad had happened!" Poor little buddy--I'll try to get it together!
(Here is Ava Jane, requesting a picture of herself at Target as I looked around in the clothes department.)
In the years Adam has worked at the Heart Hospital they have alway put on the Heart Summit, which takes place over a Friday evening and all day Saturday. The last few years the inspirational speaker at the opening dinner has been Houston Nutt, Erik Wahl (a phenomenal speed artist check him out on Youtube) and then this year, with the Olympics going on, they asked Ronan Tynan to come and speak. I'd never heard of Ronan, but learned quite a bit of history that night. Born in Ireland, his accent alone was mesmerizing, but his story was truly inspiring as he shared many difficult challenges in which he triumphed. He was in a tragic car accident that ultimately culminated in him choosing to have his legs, both legs, amputated below the the knee at the ripe age of twenty! He learned how to walk with prosthetics and within the year he was winning track and field competitions. He went on to represent Ireland in the Summer Paralympics and won 18 gold medals and set 14 world records. He decided he wanted to become a doctor so he set his mind on that and achieved his goal as an Orthopedic Sports Injury doctor. As if that wasn't enough, he'd always enjoyed singing, so with some encouragement he studied voice and entered a competition similar to American Idol in his home country and won! I'm not one who just loves classical music or opera, but when he sang that evening, he had everyone's undivided attention, it was fantastic! Tynan has sung for many esteemed people, from Ronald Reagan to George H. W. Bush at his 80th birthday. His speaking kicked the Heart Summit off to a great start.
The sink in my bathroom was quite stopped up, but at the encouragement of my Father In Law, I tried Thrift. I'd never heard of it before, but he said it worked magically, and it did! All you need is a small kids cup full of the little shards of Thrift. You stuff it into your clogged sink and then pour boiling hot water SLOWLY into the drain then watch it bubble and sizzle. Literally within minutes, my water was flowing perfectly. (Side note--two days after I unclogged my drain, I was cleaning the house. I had my hands full of dirty towels and grabbed a pen laying on my bathroom counter top. Being that my hands were full I poked the pen into my mouth and was going to just put it in my pen/junk drawer in the kitchen. Immediately I had a weird taste in my mouth. Right away I began freaking out because I had used the end of that pen to push the Thrift down into my drain just two days prior. And if you look carefully, the bottle clearly states that it is POISON! So I dropped the towels, ran to the kitchen sink where I proceeded to spit and rinse for about a minute straight, then guzzled cup after cup of water per the instructions "if ingested" on the back of the bottle. I sat on my sofa trying to decide if I'd been poisoned or not as I began to feel dizzy and sweaty all at once. Twice I picked up the phone to call Adam and twice I hung up feeling stupid. Clearly, I'm still here so all is fine, but I did have thoughts that something terrible might happen. So that was a definite LOW.
Adam and I serve together in Fellowship Kids at our church and this year he has taken on the role of Captain Braveheart on the HMS Gospel (His Majesties Ship) in the second grade area of FSK. He loves throwing his voice and getting to dress up, so this little gig is right up his alley. He's using a Scottish accent, similar to the Captain on the ship in the movie Jaws...he is thrilled to be able to do this this year and I must say the kids are enthralled with him and hang on his every word so far! (Below is a little clip from several Sunday's ago, you have to click on the small picture and it'll take you to the video.)
We are in the process of cleaning out our attic, under the house storage and some of the over run closets in my house, so this weekend we are having a garage sale. The after effects of cleaning out is wonderful but the process is one sweaty and all around just plain not fun experiences! Here's hoping for a good turn out and for all our stuff to grow legs and wander off to someone else's home.
With the advent of half day kindergarten, I am able to pick Emerson up Monday, Wednesday and Friday and get to spend nap time with just him. Lately we have spent a good bit of time in the back yard dribbling the soccer ball and working on kicking it into the goal. For both he and I, its been sweet because we've gotten to have one on one time with no distractions of other kids.
He even had his first practice yesterday and it went way better then this past Spring.
This was him running up to me at the end of practice saying "that was so fun Mom!" I'm so glad little buddy, you did great! He was one happy kid!
High:
Another real "high" is my monthly Supper Club. We rotate houses and whoever hosts is the one to do all the cooking and cleaning, which is no small undertaking, but doing it just twice a year with ten other months to just show up and enjoy a delicious meal and meaningful yet fun conversation with great friends, is truly such a treat! Here's most of our group, Jennifer and Brian, we missed y'all!
No comments:
Post a Comment