Sunday, June 21, 2009

Happy Father's Day!

Our day started off in an interesting way; I couldn't find Zoe. At some point last night, she started crying, so I had to go and get her. This seems to be the norm these days. She rolls around in our bed, and we don't get a whole lot of sleep. Anyway, I woke up, and realized that Zoe was no longer in our bed. Her pacifier was still there, and I wondered if Darren had put her back in her room, or if she had rolled off the bed and was sleeping on the floor. I looked around, and realized that she was not in our room. The gate to downstairs was open, and I wondered if she had gone down there.

First, I decided to check Zachary's room. Zoe loves to go in there, much to his dismay. Zach was still asleep in his bed, which was a surprise. He's usually an early riser. There was a little girl, sitting on the floor in his room, coloring. She is obsessed with coloring and writing on things, and it appears that she found a yellow highlighter. I didn't look around too much to see what she had decorated; she does have highlighter all over her arms and legs, as well as her pajamas.

Zoe seemed happy to see me. When I asked her to come to me, she got up, left her art supplies, and allowed me to pick her up. What a little stinker!

I don't know what we are doing today. I am going to cook a pork roast in the crock pot for dinner, but besides that, we don't have any plans. We had talked about going to Galveston to visit Darren's dad and go to the beach, but with Zachary's injuries, we're not sure the water would feel good for him. We'll probably just hang out here and relax, which is fine.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Attempting to get a photo together


DSC_2134, originally uploaded by alanaransley.

I was trying to get some shots of the kids together, but Zoe decided that she didn't want to do that today. We started on the swing, but as Zoe moved around the driveway and front yard, I instructed Zach to follow her around and smile, in case she would happen to stop and pose for me. It didn't happen!

Monday, June 15, 2009

To Do List

We made a lot of progress yesterday in cleaning and putting away the mountain of clean clothes, but there are so many little projects that would make my life easier that I need to tackle this summer. The only problem is the only time that I have to do these things is my two-hour window during Zoe's nap each afternoon.

I put her down, zoom around the house straightening anything that was taken out that morning, then try to get as much done as I can while she sleeps. Once she goes to bed at night, I have to straighten everything that she got into since naptime. It's hard to get very far ahead of her. I can't load the dishwasher when she is awake, because she will either try to close it, take things out, or play with the silverware. I also can't do laundry, because she will try to slam the dryer door, or take clothes out of there. I sure hope this stage ends soon!

Projects that I want/need to tackle:

  • Cleaning out my bathroom cabinet
  • Cleaning out the linen closet
  • Cleaning out the office, which includes organizing the CDs, my schoolbooks and notes from this past year, and my unused scrapbooking supplies
  • Get caught up on putting pictures on my computer/Flickr/Facebook/this blog
  • Finally opening the USB record player that I bought a while back, and putting my records on iTunes
  • Taking pictures of and selling the baby stuff that is currently in residence in my dining room
  • Packing up Zoe and Zach's clothes that they have outgrown. No idea what to do with it after that.
  • Cleaning out the garage and finally parting with lots of my teacher stuff
  • Going through all the kids' school papers from the past year and paring down what we are keeping
I think that's a good start. Maybe since I posted it on here, I'll actually get it done. However, this is the fifth summer that I've had this blog, and I have yet to make it through an entire list. We'll see...

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Picture Post

Zach at his school's Author's Tea. The kids from his class each presented stories they had written in class to their parents. It was really cute! There were round tables where the students sat, and at each place, there was a biography and photograph of the author. After the presentation, the parents were encouraged to collect autographs of all the budding writers. Refreshments were served, as well.

I worked in Zachary's classroom for several weeks to type the stories of the kids and print them. The kids would choose a color for the cover, draw a picture to illustrate the story, then I would bind them by using a machine they had in the library. All of the stories had to be "page turners", so I had to use a really large font for some of the students so their writing would stretch for more than one page. The kids loved to see what they had written in a notebook turn into something that looked relatively professional, and could be shared.

My little diva! I decided to set up a sprinkler in the front yard for the kids, but Zoe was not very interested in getting wet. She found this little chair in the garage, and wanted to sit there and watch Zachary play in the sprinkler. I am determined to turn her into a water lover, though; it's too hot here in Texas to not swim!

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Summer's Here!

The last week of school flew by for us this year. We started it off with a Cub Scout swim party, and Zach made friends with some boys in the neighborhood to play with in the afternoons.

I worked as hard as I could to get the house clean while Zach was at school and Zoe was at daycare during the day. It was nice to have that freedom, but with that freedom came the knowledge that it was short-lived. I had nursing school orientation last Wednesday, and that was scary, but enlightening. The next two years are going to be really hectic for me, but hopefully worth it.

Back to Zachary...I went to school and passed out popsicles to all of the second-graders on Tuesday. We had way too many left over from the Cub Scout party, and they were taking up precious freezer space. I was glad to get to do that for the kids. Thursday morning, I went to Vogel to visit my friends there, and found that I don't miss it nearly as much as I thought I would. It was kind of strange to know that a whole class of students has come through there, and I don't know any of them. I did get to see a few former students from last year, and enjoyed that.

Thursday afternoon, I went to Zach's school to help with his class ice cream social. The kids enjoyed the treat, then went across the hall to another teacher's classroom to watch a movie. I took Zach home a few minutes early, and he hated to go. He was glad the year was over, but sad to be moving on to a new teacher next year. It's so hard to accept change, especially for Zach. What's nice is that we have a neighborhood school, so everyone lives in close proximity to one another. It's not like where I grew up, everyone lived all over the city, and didn't see each other outside of school. Most of Zach's friends belong to the local pools, so we'll see them around this summer.

Friday was Zoe's last day of daycare until August. I am sure she will miss the routine of school, but will enjoy being home with me. I will enjoy saving money this summer! I think I will put her in the campus daycare when I take my summer class, since I only have to pay for the hours that I am in class. That will be a big savings for us, plus I will have her with me on the drive to and from campus.

Friday evening, we went to the newest local pool to swim. It's so nice; it has a lazy river, pool with a zero-entry and play structure, and a big water slide. It's great for the whole family, but is really busy during the day. We like to go in the evenings, since we burn so badly, and it's much less crowded then. One of Zach's friends came to meet us at the pool, and he and his mom ended up coming over for dinner and Guitar Hero (and possibly margaritas) afterward. Zach spent the night at his house, then played with friends the rest of the day. Sunday, Zach left to play with friends that morning, and ended up spending the night with them. He didn't come home until after they went to the pool yesterday afternoon, and played with them again yesterday evening and today. He's having a great time, and enjoying his new freedom of riding his bike down the street. I hope the boys continue getting along; it's so nice to not having him mope around the house because there's nothing to do.

We don't have any big plans for the next couple of weeks. I went for my first allergy shots today; I'll be getting three at a time, every four to seven days, for the next three to five years. Friday, I have my physical, bloodwork, and immunizations for nursing school, and we have a pool party Saturday. We'll probably head to Lafayette for the weekend on the 26th to help my parents move into their new office, and my sister and nephew are coming to spend a week with us for July 4th. I love not having something to do every single day!

I am trying to hard to keep up with the housework, but this is my first experience with two kids to clean up after. I can't let a whole day go by without cleaning something, because I have to stay ahead of the kids and the messes they make. There are certain things that I can only do while Zoe naps, so I try to utilize that two-hour window each day as much as I can. I just want to get far enough ahead of the kids that I can get out my scrapbooking stuff without feeling guilty. I don't know if and when that will happen, though.