Birthday, Summer and other schtuff

I'm officially in the 30 club...Now that I'm 31, I'm no longer just a newbie, I'm officially making my way to 35 err 40. I'm not sure how this happened so fast, one day you're in your 20's just getting along with all the new changes, marraige, babies, dreams coming to fruition and then BAM! Suddenly, you're the age your mom was when you remember thinking how OLD she was and how that was eons away and truly, you're invensible and that probably won't every happen to you anyway. So here I am, 31, with a soon to be first grader and a soon to be SEVENTH GRADER, going on 9 years of marraige. Wow. I remember being a kid wondering why it had to take sooo looong for that next birthday to arrive...now they just sneak up on me and before I know I'm ANOTHER year older. Time flies when you're having fun I suppose.

Well, the kids are on their first official day of summer break. Yesterday was an interesting experience. I drove Alex to his last day of Kindergarten, his last day with the most precious teacher on the face of the earth, and the last day for me to ever have a kindergartener. I was reflecting back to the first day of Kinder and remembering how uncertain I was that this was the right thing to do. It was probably the hardest day of school I had all year. I did so well, dropped him off virtually tear free...and then I hit the doors leading out of the school and BAM, the emotions took over like a storm and that was all she wrote. The floodgates opened and I felt like I'd just left my soul in that Kinder room with a bunch of complete strangers.

Ironically, the ride to school yesterday was quite similar. Emotions were in full swing, but this time it wasn't momma, it was my little pumpkin. He fought back tears the whole way to school and eventually he lost the battle and wept for his Kindergarten year coming to an end. It touched me to see how special this year has been to him, and to know that I did make the right choice by sending him to public school. He had an incredible kindergarten experience that I know has set the foundation for so much that is yet to come.

Miss Ash, well, as thankful as she is that she can temporarily shut off her alarm clock, she's as equally forlorn that she'll be missing her buddies...girls AND boys. She's changed so much this year, so much that sometimes it's hard to tell if this really is the same little girl I sent off to sixth grade some 9 months ago. I'm so proud of all she has accomplished, despite how hard it is to let go of this little girl. I went to her awards ceremony, where she received awards for all A honor roll, UIL Spelling, and UIL Math. She's an amazing growing girl and I'm still trying to figure out how to hold on to what I know I must begin to let go of. I would like to hold on to this time and refuse to let go, because I can clearly see what's on the horizon, and quite frankly, it scares me to think of what comes next. It feels like our grip is slowly releasing, and as normal as I know this is, it's much harder than I ever imagined it would be.

Since I started this post a day has passed, the kids are now in Florida with Nana ready for their Disney trip at the Animal Kingdom Resort. Mark and I have a week to ourselves. I think we've spent more time asking each other what we should do with ourselves than we have actually DOING something with ourselves. We went to Burger Tex, off Airport for lunch, the burgers were certainly not what I had anticipated, dehidrated beef is really what we ate, next time we'll go with what we know is good and just make the trip to Top Notch...but we were alone and that's what matters, right? We made a trip to Target to pick out a book, since the one I just started just wasn't working for me. I found a book on my "To Read" list, The Bell Jar, by Slyvia Plath. I've spent the last hour or so sipping a rita and reading my book out on the back porch in a lounge chair with the soothing sound of my dripping water fountain settting the mood. Mark's in the livingroom listening to Lyle Lovett and Bonnie Rait live. It's only 8:30 on our first of 7 nights alone.


That's all for now, I'll update with more of our kidless week soon.

...The Brave.

This morning Alex woke up with a mission. He came to me and said that he wanted to learn the National Anthem. I'm not sure where this came from, despite all of my inqiries, and I suppose it doesn't really matter. He asked if I would print out the lyrics so he could practice. I did; he did; and therefore, we were a little late to school, but that's ok, because now my son has a new dream. He took the lyrics to school and is going to ask his Kindergarten teacher if he can sing it to the class, and then his plan is to convince the principal to let him sing it during the morning announcements. From there he plans to practice enough to be invited to sing at a baseball game.

Where did this child COME from? His genetic path has wandered off course a bit. For that, I am thankful.

Little mathmatician

Alex is LOVE, LOVE LOVING his GT class, in fact on the mornings that he goes to GT he pops out of bed, gets ready for school as fast as he can and talks about how excited he is the rest of the morning. I'm so, so happy we had him tested. He's enjoying the reading GT class, but math is his favorite right now.
This week in his GT Math class, he's adding and subtracting 4 digit numbers like a pro! I'm just amazed that they're doing this at a kinder level. It really shows me that they're in tune with the kids on an individual level and progress accordingly. His love of math is really shining through.. On the way to school this morning he was multiplying numbers out loud just for the heck of it (no prompting by me) and out of no where he throws in "35 plus 35 is seventy". I asked him how he figured it out and he says "well, 30 plus 30 is 60, and 5 and 5 make 10, so that's 70, so that means 35 times 2 is seventy!" I'm just so proud of him and how much he's really grasping these math concepts, not to mention the FUN he's having figuring it all out.

Gifted and Talented Boy

After days of testing and evaluation, Friday, were were given notice that Alex has qualified for the GT program. Testing was intense, in fact, Alex came home on more than one occasion telling us about how kids were crying during testing because it was so difficult. Thankfully, he wasn't nearly as stressed out as most of the kids; otherwise, we'd have skipped it all together. I must say, there were times when I had second thoughts about having him tested because of some of the stories I was hearing. However, now that I'm seeing the results, I feel much more comfortable about our decision. His scores are incredible. The kids were given a test called the Stanford Achievement Test where they're tested on a wide range of subjects, namely Reading, Mathmatics, Vocabulary, Comprehension, Geography, Political Science etc. The test included verbal and non-verbal elements. Out of the 220 possible correct answers, he answered 207 correct.

We are so proud of him!

We made it!

The kids had their last day of school on Wednesday. Up until today, it seems like we've been sprinting to some imaginary finish line, and somehow we've finally made it!

After years of hearing about Ashley's class parties and wishing he could be a part of them, Alex was finally able to experience the excitement and anticipation that being in school at Christmas time brings. Ironically, this was Ashley's first year to NOT have that experience. Middle School comes with it's privelages, but also has its drawbacks. She did give out little gifts to all of her friends and recieved many herself, so that made the week a little more festive, but I still think she missed elementary a lot this week.

Alex had so much going on at school this week it was hard to keep up with what to bring, and where to be. On Tuesday his class made Gingerbread houses in the morning and in the afternoon they had their class party where they made scarves, snowflakes and handprint wreaths. Periodically, one of the kids would break out a Christmas song and before long the whole class was singing and working on their creations. It was so fun to be a part of it all. Mrs. Ayala made it so special for the kids. It's so obvious how much she loves her children. She has the patience of a saint and the biggest heart you can imagine. She's been teaching Kindergarten for over 20 years and it's obvious that she brings the experience of all those years to school with her each day. This week was all about FUN. She made sure of that. There was no rushing, and she made her best effort to keep the day as open as possible so the kids could just enjoy. They spent well over an hour making their little gingerbread houses and she was right there encouraging them to eat their candy and lick their fingers and just have fun. She is so awesome!
Wednesday was pajama day and OF COURSE sweet Mrs. Ayala was dressed in her Christmas P.J.'s and houseshoes to boot!



The Dad's Club opened car doors in Santa Hats:

"I'm STILL six"

After singing Happy Birthday to himself everyday for a week and anticipating this special day. Alex is SIX! This weekend we had Alex's 6th Birthday Party (which I'll get to shortly) and according to him, he turned six on the day of his party because "why else would we put a big 6 on the wall??" After debating and explaining, I finally decided to just leave it alone and let him be 6 a little early because even though I know he gets it, I refused to argue with this FIVE year old. Fast forward to this morning. Daddy and I wake him up singing Happy Birthday, we finish singing and I sit down on the bed in the dark and give him a big hug and ask him "how old are you?" I'm thinking how exciting it is to finally be able to say you're a whole year older right? That's how it always is, they get so excited to hear themselves say it, what better way to start the day. This headstrong little booger replies "I'm STILL six".

On Saturday we did a Halloween costume party complete with pumpkins, games, ghoulish treats and witches brew. It was a big success and probably one of the most laid back, fun parties we've had to date. I guess I'm finally learning how to ENJOY the party as opposed to running around like a mad woman trying to make everything perfect.

As soon as most everyone had arrived, we all got to work on our witches brew. The kids had a BLAST helping with our concoction. They especially enjoyed adding the hand (a frozen rubber glove makeshift mold) and dry ice.


After snacking on witches brew, fingers, spiders, and apple bites Mark told the story of Hal O Ween.After each gooey part of the story, the kiddos would go reach inside the box and feel the gooey parts of what was left of Hal. Ashley did an awesome job of preparing each body part and making sure no one looked inside the box. This turned out to be one of the most exciting activities of the day. The kids got a really big kick out of touching the gooey body parts and trying to guess what each really was.






After that we moved on to pumpkin decorating. Everyone decorated a baby pumpkin to take home with them with stickers, glitter glue and whatever else we had in our craft box. The kids all did a super job and managed to keep their costumes mostly clean. Hmmm....no wonder the costumes were so clean...lets take a closer look at Mr. Matthew. Hey buddy, you're off juuust a tad.



And then there was the haystack scavenger hunt, and cake cutting. Most of the kids stuck around for quite a while playing in the backyard since it was an absolutely gorgeous day.

Living La Vida Loca

La vida es muy loca! Pero, la vida es muy bien, tambien!

I have so much to update!

First of all, I haven't updated about my trip with a group of my girlfriends to Canton. We took off on a Saturday morning at 7 am and had a weekend full of relaxation and shopping. It was an all around awesome trip. There were 6 of us, and we were all such a perfect mix of friends, we had an incredible time together. We're already chomping at the bit to get back. What's Canton? Well, Canton is this teensy tinsy town of about 5,400 that holds "Trade Days" or as it was formerly known "First Monday", on the weekend before the first Monday of each month. I like to refer to it as a flea market on steroids. It's the oldest flea market in the United States and I'd have to say it's probably one of, if not THE, biggest as well. You could shop for 3 days straight and still not see it all. Here's an interesting little tidbit I pulled from Wikipedia: "In the past, due to the success of First Monday, the city of Canton had no property tax, however, as of 2006, that is no longer the case." WOW!

Right in the heart of all the shopping is a what we Texans call a "mountain". Its literal definition is probably more like: large hill, but here in central Texas, it's a mountain. The Mountain is a well known hot spot in Canton, with the cutest little shops and Bed and Breakfasts ever. When you're on the mountain, you're back in the early 1900's and occasionally you'll hear gun shots, or see a reinactment of what it was like back then. We stayed in a little Bed and Rest right in the heart of it all, called Flat Creek Mountain Bed and Rest. This place was A-Dorable!!! After we got done shopping, we all sat out on our covered deck that looked down the mountain, and right on to a little stage where they had live music and dancing at night. (And a mens wet T-shirt contest that was in full view, but I'll skip that and leave it to the imagination) The trip was a blast, and I'm so, so anxious to go back. Nana, you would LOVE this! Next time we go, I'm kidnapping you and bringing you with!

As for miss Ashley, she's doing great in school and staying busy with more homework than you can imagine, which means *I* now how more homework than you can imagine. We sit together each afternoon and do math homework together. We sit at the table with a book between us and we both do the homework together. Ashley really enjoys this one on one time, and I am REALLY enjoying that she's not up until 11 struggling to stay focussed. She actually looks forward to doing her math homework now!

Last weekend, Ashley went to her first overnight camp with her good friend Ciara. They were at Camp Penielall weekend, where they swam, rode horses, learned some archery, and they even got to ride a zip line! When Belinda and I went to pick them up on Sunday, neither were ready to go home. After hearing all about it from Ash, Mark and I decided that we're going to go do the family camp in the spring.

Mr. Alex is trucking right along in Kindergaten, loving every minute of it. His teachers adore him *almost* as much as I do, and have done an incredible job of keeping him interested, and stimulated. He's the teachers "helper", and has done a super job helping the other kids in the class to read. He has a love for reading that I truly believe has come from the encouragment from his teacher. Before Kindergarten, reading was not at the top of his priority list (understandably so), and just last week he came home from school telling me how much he loves to read. I'm so proud of him! Alex is not participating in anything exracirricular right now, which is just as well considering all the changes he's gone through with starting school. I think we'll probably just wait until spring and sign him up for baseball again. He still talks about baseball alot, and tells me he's going to be a baseball player when he grows up.

Mark is continuing to work his rear off at work. As if working 50 hours a week wasn't enough, he is also running some sort of community involvment group at work. Right now he's working on the Susan G. Komen race. Although I'm not sure what exactly his group is doing just yet. (Sorry Mark, we'll have to talk later) He's still doing Meals on Wheels once a month, which is also part of his community involvement at work. On top of all that he's joined the Dad's Club up at Alex's school. This group of dads is such an amazing group. They used their big guns to help unload and distribute the cookie dough from the fundraiser, they held a family game night where familes could come play all sorts of PE type games like kickball and basketball. And each Friday the dads open car doors for all of the kiddos being dropped off, and after they're done with that they collect all of the recylable paper from each classroom and take it to the recycle dumpster on campus. Mark is really enjoying being involved up at the school, and of course watching him open car doors with his "dads club" badge makes my heart go pitter patter.

Mark and I just finished our 2nd season of coed softball, and have just signed up for another season which starts in about 2 weeks. Most of the people on our team have kiddos, and they all look forward to Friday nights up at the field. Most nights we have to DRAG them home.

As for me, I'm doing great. I volunteer at the kids schools on a daily basis, and serve on the executive board for both PTA's. I run the student store at Ashley's school on Monday's, which is a lot of fun. Ashley has been right there with me EVERY Monday, helping me. We really enjoy that special time together. I am so, so fortunate to have a husband that works so hard for us, and a job that allows me to make my family my priority.

The job is going well. I work with an awesome group, whom I learn from everyday. I go in around 10, and get off around 2:30. Perfect hours, perfect job, who could ask for more!

Oh, and one more little thing. I'd like you to say hello to my little friend the Palm Trio 700wx. As soon as I get use to this thing, I have ZERO excuses for being forgetful. Scary thought.

The bathroom is coming along nicely. We're SO close to being done. Yesterday, the plumber installed our shower head, and we got to take our FIRST SHOWER!!!!!! All that's left to be done is texture, paint, a few light fixtures, a few plumbing fixtures, a toilet, and some small touchups.

The wood floors came in, but unfortunately, they were not the ones we ordered, so we're back to playing the waiting game again. We've been told that they will have them here Monday and will be able to begin. I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, we're living in a construction zone and have been for waaaay too long. We're more than ready to be done with this.

Yin and Yang

I've said it probably a hundred times, but this morning I received yet another confirmation that these children are about as different as two people could possibly be. Our fashionista Ashley spends each morning primping in front of the mirror, making sure that the outfit she picked out the night before is the right one for the day...and it usually isn't, and neither is the next two or three that she tries on. She makes sure each hair is in it's proper place, necklace and earings match properly. Belt and other sparkly accessory must reflect light in the proper direction in order to acceutuate each article of clothing. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Aaaand then there's Alex.

I made the mistake of pushing the snooze button one too many times this morning. As a result, I had no time to spare and Alex did not wake up to a coordinated outfit laying on his dresser ready to go. Instead, I left the task up to him....with slight hesitation I asked him to pick out his own clothes. From the bathroom I can hear each article of clothing in his drawer being either unfolded, pushed aside, or strewn across the floor, in attempt to find whatever it is that this boy is searching for. A few short minutes later he yells that he's ready. Great! No fuss, no hassle. Ha, I wish. He walks in to the bathroom where I'm fixing my hair, dressed in a long sleeved shirt from last year, possibly the year before, which is fine, except for the fact that it's so short that his little belly is peeking through the bottom, and the sleeves are an unintentional 3/4 length. And for shoes, he has on the famous brown leather slip ons that have created more than their fair share of arguments due to the fact that they can NOT be paired with shorts because of how absolutely ridiculous they look. They are a semi-dress shoe and just don't work with shorts. Of course, they also aren't working with the 3 inches too short wind pants he's chosen today either. Had he not been on his way to school, I probably would have let him get away with his choices, afterall, he did look pretty cute in a "that's my precious little boy" sort of way. However, I decided to forego the phone call from the school counselor telling me how to obtain assistance from the local clothes closet charity and asked him to change. He put up a small fight, and showed me how he could "do this all day"... as he pulled his sleves down over his palms and held them with his fingers in effort to make the sleeves appear long enough. No, no, no honey that just won't work, you have to write and play and use your hands, right? So reluctantly, he ran off to change clothes while I continued fixing my hair with a little cloud of guilt looming over my head. He's 5. I love his innocence and how he doesn't care what he looks like. He's just the way I wish the rest of the world could be, carefree.
So anyway, he comes back, this time a tad better. He walks in straight faced, wearing jeans, another long sleeve shirt (that actually fits), the good ol brown slip ons AND five (yes 5) hats stacked on top of his head. I just didn't have the heart to object and sent my little boy off to Kindergarten looking like a clown dressed for winter. It was an interesting walk down the looong hallway full of moms and dads walking their perfectly primped children to class. It was hard for me to keep a straight face, and I'm sure it was even harder for them. So today our little Alex is sitting in his Kindergarten class 1 foot taller, in more ways than one.

I can't wait to see each chapter of this guys life unfold...there's just no predicting what's going to be on the next page.

First Day of School

The kiddos had an excellent first day of school and both came home happy, hungry and exhausted!

The morning started off great, Alex wound up in Sissy's bed at some point during the night, so instead of Ash waking up at 6:30 and Alex at 7:00, they were both up at 6:30. As soon as Alex was coherent enough to realize that it was morning, his body went in to silly convulsing spaz mode while yelping, "TODAY'S KINDERGARTEN!!" Ash was a little less spastic, but excited none the less. Alex ended up picking out a new first day outfit than the previously planned one. Definitely not something I'd pick for first day material, but I was a good momma and reluctantly bit my tongue. I continued to bite my tongue when he decided he would fix his hair as well...which ended up being some sort of faux mohawk with pointy bangs. By the time we got to school it had made up it's own mind and turned in to more of a sculpted bed head "do".

We finally made our way to school, parked, and then Daddy, Sissy and I all took mr. over-excited Alex down the hall to his classroom. We were all so excited, but no one moreso than Alex. This guy has been waiting for this moment for so long, counting down the days, asking questions, talking about his own NURSE at the school, and the playground and the busses, and lunch, and all the wonderful stuff that he's seen Sissy have all these years. It was finally his turn. And on that walk to his classroom, Alex and my emotions seemed take opposite courses, his began to peak, and mine began to flatline. Suddenly, all the teachermomkid voices around me sloooowed down and somehow morphed in to hollow warped unidentifiable noises. Alex's classroom is close to the end of a loooong hallway, and all I could think of was "this is it, we're almost there". I snapped out of it and I was ok, Alex was ok, we were all ok...that is, until my sweet, tiny little guy took his ginormous backpack off and struggled to lift his this ridiculously overstuffed thing(that happens to be TWICE his 5 year old size) up to the hook designated, "Alex". Then...it all hit me at once. In a few short minutes, we'll turn around, and walk out of the school withOUT our Alex. Ahhh! So, basically, the eyes got a little too full and I had to do some lamaze breathing outside his class before I could go in so my sweetie didn't have to see me sad. While I was in the hall forcing oxygen in to my lungs, I was later told that his teacher gave him a great big welcoming hug and was so excited to see him. I missed a photo op for TEARS!!!! I'm just so thankful that he has a touchy feely teacher, because that was one of my biggest issues...who's going to hug him if he's sad, or what if he gets hurt. Well, my mind is now at ease, because I know his teacher will give stand in momma hugs when I'm not around. After my sob fest in the hall, I was able to gain a smidge of composure and walk in, give him a hug and leave. It was a blur. BUT it's OVER!!!


Taking Ash to school was the complete opposite. I'm pretty sure it was MUCH easier on us than her. I really think it's a huge shock walking in to a school where every kid is quite obviously older than you, and they don't think twice about staring you down as you walk in. Talk about uncomfortable! After we found her locker (yes, she allowed us to come with her) and she was able to focus on something other than her surroundings, she was able to chill a little. I continued to ask her if she wanted us to leave, because I was so worried that our presence was doing more harm than good, but she assured me that she wanted me to stay and even walk her to her first class. On the way to her class we spotted a friend and at that point, she gave us permission to leave. And that was that. We were successful at getting our two big kids off to school for their first day. Finally, I feel like I can relax a little. The build up to this day has been huge, so the relief is feeling just as huge.




Update:

We're now on day 3 of school and each day has been easier, although I do have to say, today marked the first day that both kiddos were less than thrilled to have to wake up. In fact, as we walked Alex through the front door of his school he whispered to me, "man, I sure wish I was still in bed."

Here we go.

Sleep well sweeties

Twas the night before school days, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The backpacks were hung by the exit with care,
In hopes that school morning soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of school friends danced in their heads.
And me with my tissues, and daddy with his remote,
Had just settled down, for a short summers sleep...

Ok, so I don't have the time to actually finish this, afterall, the alarm will be sounding at 6:15 am and I do need my rest. However, I did want to post something on this quiet night. This is Alex's last night to lay in bed wondering what Kindergarten is all about. And Ashley's last night to wonder the same about middle school. It's so bittersweet. Both of my babies are growing up so fast, much faster than I had ever anticipated. But there's no stopping time, that's for certain. Ashley has her outfit picked out, and all the accessories to boot. Alex picked out his non matching outfit, which I promplty corrected. Their lunches are packed, I've explained to Alex how to open his thermos and how to open his milk carton, and how he can just raise his hand and ask if he needs help. He has my phone number memorized just in case. ***Sigh**** And now all he needs is one last momma bear hug and he'll be good to go for the ENTIRE day. I'm hoping tomorrow is ok for him. I know he'll be fine, but there's a small part of me that worries that he'll be lonesome and a little frightened in this brand new place. This is the same little guy who still asks to be held and cuddled and sleeps with his "cozy" every night. But, he IS a big boy now, right? And everything WILL be ok. It will, it really, really will. And if it doesn't feel ok, maybe his "cozy" and I will keep each other company while he's gone.

Ok, I'm going to bed now, where I can get lost in my book so I don't have to choke back anymore momma bear tears.

Oh please, please don't let me cry, please let me be strong.