First day of school

Here are my three monsters getting ready to catch the bus for their first day of school. The twins are headed for Kindergarten and Ethan is back for 1st grade. Don't they look sharp!

Ethan was the ultimate big-brother, showing those twins the classrooms and letting them in on all the secrets of getting by. "That's Mr. Geigher. He is SO funny. He is always doing crazy things. That's the line lady at lunch. She's mean. She ALWAYS tells you to hurry up and eat." He was so proud of himself being able to be the big man on campus.
Austin was a little worried before we left for the bus. He pulled me to the side and said, "I'm a little scared for all the new kids. They are all strangers. But maybe if I play with them someone will want to be a friend with me." Sweetie.

And look at my baby girl. That bag is practically bigger than she is. This one was not worried at all about school. At least, if she was, she didn't let on.

And there's the big yellow bus taking all three of my babies away from me. I nearly cried. Okay. Maybe I did just a tiny bit when we got home. I mean, I might have misted up a bit. Don't tell anyone.

On a lighter note, yesterday during lunch I tried several times to capture a very annoying fly. Discouraged, I left the table and told the kids to hurry up and finish their lunch. They conspired together for about 10 minutes and brought me back to the table. "Look! A fly trap. He'll see the bread and then go in and we'll zipper him up!" Clever monkeys. Doesn't Alaina look especially sneaky?
A closer look at their ingenious plan.
A few days before school the kids were running around being super heroes. Note the super hero stuffed animals joining in the fight to save the world. They even have their own capes.
And finally, here is a picture of Robert putting Alaina to bed. He likes to teach by example.

It's been one of those days...and it's only 3 o'clock.

Last night Ethan didn't sleep. Bad dreams. By the third wake-up call it was 3 a.m. and I made Robert switch beds with Ethan. By five o'clock I gave Ethan more compressions and pulled out the Benadryl.

Ethan woke up at 5 after he started to wet the bed. Guess the Benadryl made him too sleepy to completely wake up first.

After making up a new bed and getting back to sleep Ethan slept until 8:30.

His bus leaves at 8:30.

Meanwhile I got the twins ready and started to clean up the house. We jumped in the car at 9:20. Second day of school and Ethan's late.

During the mad rush to get him there I get a call for a showing. Although we gave ourselves a 2 hour window the realtor decided he wants to come in a half an hour.

I panic.

We start racing home and they call back...change of plans. No showing.

I decided that I better get the house perfect in case we get another call for a showing while we were out today.

I'm halfway done with the house at 10 and get a call for Austin's Speech therapist. His appointment was at 9:30.

At 11 I pull up at the park for the twins bike-riding play-date. I'm an hour late. See that? Those are my twinnies sitting on the bleachers with no bikes. Or water. Or snacks. I get comments like, "you look a little stressed." Could it be the Muppet's hair-do. The mismatched outfit? The black bags under my eyes that don't want to stay open? It's a mystery.

At 12:30 we head home for lunch. I decided to first shop for food since we have no food at home.

Austin is thirsty.

No one called to look at the house.

An hour and a half later we pull up to pay. Looks like I left my credit card in my shorts. My other shorts. The ones in the closet.

I rush home to retrieve it.

Alaina informs me that she skipped breakfast to watch a cartoon. Poor thing hasn't eaten a bite of food all day.

Austin is still thirsty. (I know 'cause he's told me 30 times.)

We head back to the store, get back in line and finally pay.

Now, at 3:20, the kids are fed and I allowed them to actually play in the house. Groceries are put away. Dinner's in the oven. Ethan gets home in 15 minutes. I'm daydreaming of my bed.

What are the chances that we'll get a call for someone to see the house now?

A few more from my sweet Austin.


***Warning *** A little Potty Humor to follow.

Robert had taken Austin to the bathroom at Sam's. They went in and Austin settled in for the long haul. After a fair amount of grunting with no results, Rob asked, "Come on, Austin, what's taking so long?" A few more grunts later Austin replied, "I can't go. (grunt grunt) It's stuck. (more grunting) It's stuck in poo traffic." A few minutes later is was a verifiable pile-up.

Another frantic morning of trying to get the house ready for a walk-through found me up on Austin's bunk bed wildly throwing the sheets into place. Austin saw his half-crazed mama and asked a perfectly sane question. "What are you doing?" I couldn't resist being snide. "I'm making your bed. What did you think I was doing?" And with a total lack of guile he cries, "Mama! I'm soo-oooo IMPRESSED!"

And here are a bunch of extra summer-time pictures for you. That's right, just you! Lucky blog reader. :)

I've been so busy with getting our house ready to sell that I have completely neglected my blog. I have managed to jot down a few things the kids have said throughout the month. I also decided to take some pictures of the kiddies to show how big they've been getting. However, Alaina thought it was a personal photo shoot and managed to get into almost every picture. Every few minutes she'd say, "take a picture of me now." and pop another pose. What a goof-ball.


Austin

Whether Austin is filling up a cup up all the way or if he is reaching up to the top of furniture, he always uses the phrase "to the tippy top." (or "tippy, tippy top!" if he's really excited.) It makes me want to hold on to my little boy as long as I can. I know those cute little phrases will disappear completely soon enough and it makes me sad to think of it.

When I told Austin he couldn't take his stuffed dogs into the store he cheerfully said, "That's OK. I have lots of dogs on my head. I'll just use my imaginationing."

We were at Lowes Food's. I was checking out some spices and ready to head down the cereal isle when Austin yells out, "Take it to the limit!" Then looking up a little sheepishly at his own outburst he giggles, "all the time..." With the mixed up lyrics it took me a second to get what he was doing. Apparently, somebody was listening to the lite rock music they were playing in the background. We got a few more impromptu renditions of the song during dinner. Guess he's an Eagles's fan.

I was telling everyone about how when g-pa was a boy they only had radio. Then, when they finally invented TV, it was only in black and white. Austin, being a TV connoisseur, thought about this asked, "Oh...so then, did they paint it?"

Alaina

Alaina was playing with Ethan who was trying to boss her around. She maybe the smallest of my babies but she will not be bullied. She pointed to Ethan's chest and said with conviction, "If you want to play with me, you have to give me respect-ing!"


After I brought in all the groceries from the heat outside, I sprawled out on the floor to rest. Alaina plopped herself down next to me. "When I'm really really hot I like a glass of water and ice and that ALWAYS helps me cool up. Does it help you cool up?"

Ethan

Ethan and I were watching an episode of America's got talent when a little boy came on to dance. I didn't see it and asked him, "is that a boy or a girl." Ethan blurts out..."it's a boy! Little girls ain't good for nuthin!"
Ethan says the most thoughtful prayers. I don't usually like to post them but this one is too good to be forgotten. I got up and immediately wrote it down so I would get the wording right. "Please bless god to help us make everything wonderful. Bless that Alaina can be a good artist-er. Bless Austin can be a good draw-er. Bless Ethan can be a good artist of legos. Bless our soldiers can protect our country and bless that the other soldiers not to destroy our country. :)

Okay. After a worst-scenario discussion with Mom, I've finally decided to make my blog private. I've mostly avoided doing this because of laziness on my part and I also didn't want to add extra steps to get to the blog. However, since I write about my kids and home in such detail I guess I would be smart to put up a little barrier between us and a random crazy who may be lurking on the site. But for the rest of you crazies...I really want you to come back. So please feel free to ask me to add you to the list.

I'm not actually sure how to set it up or how it works but I'll be working it out in about a week. I just thought I'd give everyone one a heads up.