November 13-18

Middle of November!!! Really? The count down has started. Thanksgiving, Jacek's birthday and then Christmas! I usually get stressed out and overwhelmed this time of year. I think a lot of people do, though. I've got an early start on shopping and birthday planning which I usually wait until the last minute for both. I think that's why I usually get so stressed out. It gets easier each year but more expensive!

This week was a very typical week for us. We have settled into our routine quite nicely.
Sunday: Bengals party at Dristy's. They played the Steelers and we lost but the family got to hang out together and that is what I truly love most.

Mondays: Baby G comes to visit. I love that little boy so much! He is such a GOOD baby! The hardest part is keeping the kids away from him. They want to be in his little face at all times.



Tuesday: The kids had school and I worked with 16 three year olds. It was a crazy day and I was so exhausted. I have so much respect for all caregivers to our children and to our elderly. I think they are under paid, for sure. The kids love when I work at their school. Even though, I'm not in their classrooms they think it's so cool that their mom is at their school. And, if by chance I pass one of them in the hallway, they scream at me like I'm some sort of celebrity. They make me feel so loved.

Wednesdays: Piano lessons and hang with Papaw, Kelita, Baby G and Michael C. Papaw usually buys some nice comfort food for lunch. This week it was Whoppers from Burger King. It's been a long time since we have had BK. We scarfed down our food and it was YUMMY! Papaw slept on the couch while we ate. He knows he can get a good nap in if we are eating.

Thursdays: The kids had school and I worked with 13 three year olds. It was a different class than I had on Tues and there were 3 less kids. It makes a big difference. I absolutely love being involved at the school. The kids are wonderful and everyone who works there is so nice and sweet. I've never met more down to earth people in my life.
                                                                
Friday: Sad face... I have to work. The kids and I enjoy relaxing in the morning and then it's off to see meemaw and Bishe. The kids love spending time with them. Jacek was looking forward to meemaw's famous bacon sandwiches.

Next week is Thanksgiving and that will give us a break in our routine. I'm looking forward to some delicious food from Dristy and Granny.

October 31st- November 11th

Happy Halloween! The kids had a great time trick-or-treating this year. Meemaw and Bishe came over and walked around the neighborhood with the kids. I think they liked it as much as the kids.


I am combining 2 weeks into this blog. Mainly because we all have been sick and have been out of commission for a week or so. Once we started to feel a little better we played in the leaves and hung out with cutie pie, baby G.




Jacek also had his first piano performance. I think I was more nervous than he was. Well, until he walked up to the piano and realized everyone was staring at him. He played Ode to Joy by Beethoven and he did so well! Ms. Anna sat with him on the bench and fine tuned everything. It sounded so nice. Jacek was the youngest kid there and that was the first time he had played in front of strangers. This was a very big deal! I thought he was going to back out at the last minute and I was OK with that. But, he pushed through his stage fright and nerves and played his best. I'm so proud of him. What a fine young little man he is turning out to be!


Overall, these past 2 weeks have been GREAT! Take it away, Jacek...
                                          

October 23-28

YAY! I got a new camera for my birthday. Thanks a billion to Tod and Bernadette for the wonderful and gracious gift. I love to take pictures of anything but mostly my babies. I was using my cell phone camera but that was starting to get old. The picture quality was not what they needed to be. This camera is amazing and I love everything about it!

This week was the same fun grind but with a new camera. For this week I am just going to post pictures and let them speak for themselves.

October 16th-21st

Another week has seemed to come and go. And another year for that matter. (Today is my birthday... woo hoo!) I took the kids camping on Sunday for the first time. I was a little concerned on how they would hold up. They had never slept in a tent before and it was a cold night. They were amazing. They did not cry once and they had the best time. We camped at Big Bone with my Kristina, Michael, Dan (during the day). Kelton and Sam. We went hiking to see the bison and then took the long way back to the car to wear the kids down even more. When we got back to camp we started the fire and made burgers and hot dogs. Jacek and Luna pulled pork BBQ sandwiches and then we all had to have s'mores. YUM! We had so much fun and I cannot wait to go camping again.



The rest of the week was the usual routine for us. School on Tuesday. Piano on Wednesday. School on Thursday. I was lucky enough to sub in Ms. Laura's room on Thursday. I got to hang with a bunch of really cool 3 year old kids. It was a lot of fun and Jacek and Luna get so excited when I work at their school.

We also played in the leaves in the front yard. Another amazing week spent with my amazing family. I truly love my life!

October 9th-14th

This week was filled with fall fun!

Sunday we went to pumpkin patch! One of our favorite things to do. Jacek and Luna rode the horse, enjoyed a hay ride, picked a pumpkin, played in the corn maze and danced to some music. I love Kinman farms pumpkin patch. They have so much stuff to do for the kids and adults, too. Also, it was baby G's first time going to the farm. He was so good! I took a bunch of pics but I will only post a few.




Monday- We took it easy and I cleaned up the house from the weekend. We played outside for a couple of hours. Jacek practiced soccer twice and was became super excited about his game on Wednesday. We had to recover from all that fun at the pumpkin patch.


Tuesday- The kids had school and as soon as Jacek came home from school he ran inside and got his soccer ball. I've never seen him so excited about something. We practiced soccer and he really impressed me. He has great ball control. He was determined that he was going to score a goal at his game. I was starting to get nervous for him.

Wednesday-We love Wednesdays! Piano lessons in the morning are always followed by a trip to visit papaw. Luna loves cuddlin' up with her papaw. Seriously, how cute are they?

We headed to Halloween store and bought the very anticipated costumes. Jacek is going to be Bumblebee from Transformers:

And Luna is going to be a piglet. A very very cute piglet!

They absolutely love their costumes and they are so excited about Halloween this year.
**The most anticipated soccer game of the year for Jacek was finally here! He was excited because Dan and his daughter were coming. Jacek adores Dan and has a crush on his daughter. He wanted to score a goal so bad just for her. He played a great game! And he scored a goal for his girl. He almost had two more goals but the ball bounced off the side of the goal. I was so proud of him and his little crush gave him a hug after the game. He was on top of the world.

October 3rd-7th

First week of October! The weather has been amazing. Monday was a lazy day for us. I cleaned most of the day while the kids happily made multiple messes. That's how it goes! We went outside to ride bikes and Rodney and Janet were outside. They were cleaning the garage and the kids immediately had to put a stop to that. Jacek was telling Rodney that he wants to play paintball. Rodney surprised Jacek and pulled out his paintball gun. I thought Jacek's eyes were going to pop out of his head. Rodney helped Jacek put his mask and helped him shoot some yellow paint balls at his wooden wagon on the side of his house. Jacek was too the moon and back with excitement.

The Walgreens story: I scheduled the kids flu shots and they were a little uneasy about it. I decided to take them to Walgreens so they could see me get my flu shot. They were running around the store like a bunch of crazy kids. People were mean mugging, for sure. They finally take us back to a tiny room and tell us to wait. As we are sitting there, Luna is trying to reach on the counter for the red bio-hazard container, where they deposit used needles. She looks at me and asks, "Lollipop?" Jacek starts laughing so hard that I couldn't help but to bust out laughing. I explain to her that those are NOT lollipops which made Jacek laugh even harder. Then she looks at me so serious and says, "Mommy, get you butt out!" I guess she thought they were going to give me my flu shot in the butt. This made Jacek laugh so hard hard that he could hardly talk. "Mom, I just peed my pants a little." All 3 of us were laughing so hard. I'm sure the entire store could hear us. Finally, the lady came in and gave me my flu shot in the arm not my butt. The kids seemed to be in board with flu shots now. That was a fun time!

Tuesday: School day! After school we played on the play ground for a little bit but Luna kept saying she was tired. She was getting aggravated that Jacek would not leave. I knew she was about to blow and we were able to get out just in time. Haha! Nikita had a volleyball tournament that Jacek and I attended. Luna stayed home because she can't sit still for too long. Nikita's team won and we are so proud of her!

                              We love some Baby G!

Wednesday: Piano lessons! Jacek is getting better and better each week. He's learning chords and he picked out the song he wants to play for his Christmas concert. At first it was Mary had a little lamb but he wants to try and work on another song. I'm so proud of him. After piano, we went and picked up my dad and we did our yearly tradition of going to the Halloween store. We all LOVE that store. Luna's always flirting with the scary gross monsters and Jacek and my dad love to try on every hat and accessory.

Jacek had a soccer game Wednesday night. I noticed last week that he was more focused but this week, holy cow, he was like a different kid out there. He took the ball away from the other team right outside of their goal and took all the way down the field and scored his first goal. I jumped up and screamed like such an idiot. I had tears in my eyes and goose bumps. It just took my by surprise. He also scored another goal before the end of the game. He had 2 goals in one game! I was blown away. He told Matt that he wanted score a goal him a goal for his birthday. I am so proud of him. He really has come such a long way. Go Jacek!

Thursday: This week is flying by way too fast! School day. I went to drop the kids off at school and the director asked me if I had plans. Yikes! They needed me to help out in the 2 year old room (not Luna's). I was ready to take it on! I had a lot of fun seeing what the kids do all day and getting to know all the children. They were all so cute and it was an honor to have even been asked to help out. Jacek thought it was really neat that I worked at his school.

Nikita had her last tournament Thursday night. Jacek and I came out to watch a great game of volleyball. Nikita's team did not win but they played an amazing game. They came in second place for the tournament. I'm so proud of Nikita!

                                          Besties!

And Friday: I tried to clean the house a little before I had to work. We were so busy all week that I slacked off. I'm mostly caught up. We are headed to the pumpkin patch on Sunday and we are all so excited. I love this time of year!

September 26-30th

Much of the same this week as last. I was sick Monday and the kids were sick Tuesday. We were feeling a little better by Wednesday so that's when our week actually started for us.

Wednesday was Matt's birthday. The kids and I wanted to make it special for him. Jacek had piano lessons in the morning. As we were getting ready to head out both kids ran downstairs and both wanted to be the door opener. Yes, they fight over who gets to open the front door. Jacek went to open it and Luna bent down and but him really hard! Jacek started screaming and I didn't even have time to put Luna in time out. We were running late. I don't understand why it seems to take forever to just leave the house on some days. Anyway, Luna was in a funk from the door fiasco and was loud and fussy during piano. I had to take her outside so she would not be so distracting. She was really not happy about that! Good ol' terrible 2s! After piano lessons, I wanted to make a video for Matt's birthday. Ms. Anna played the keys while Jacek and I sang. Luna sulked and it's actually pretty funny.

Matt loved it! The kids continued to get more and more excited about Matt's birthday. They had to color his wrapping paper, help me bake his cake and most important, help decorate the cake. It was so much fun seeing how excited the kids were. Jacek had soccer so we had to eat dinner, open presents and then enjoy some cake! We headed out for soccer and I was so proud of my boy! He played so hard. What a difference a season makes. Last season, he just wanted to joke around and play with his friends. This season, he's serious. I love watching him. He makes me so proud, for sure!

Thursday, the kids had school. They were excited to go because they missed Tuesday and it was also picture day. They're so funny! They were practing their smiles on the way to school. I'm sure they will turn out adorable! I snapped a few before school.

 

Jacek fixed his own hair. He really wants to grow it out and it's driving me crazy.  He's old enough now to have some say in his swag! Thursday night, Matt and I went to dinner and the kids hung out with Aunt Di. I think she bought them at least half of the dollar store. My kids love going to the dollar store with Aunt Di. 

Friday- We were lazy and lounged around in our pj's all morning. We watched movies in bed and it was wonderful!