First day of 2nd Grade

new 025, originally uploaded by Smith Family Pix.

Abbie wanted Daddy to take her to school on the first day. Today is day 3 and it seems to be going well for her. Now, if I could just get my act together! Only 9 more days until the boys go back :)

Abbie's first day of 2nd grade

I missed my favorite Staples commercial this year...It's the most wonderful time of the year!! Abbie was nervous about school today. She has 2 boys in her class from last year and that's it. None of the girls. She knows a couple of girls through friends and one girl joined Abbie's brownie troop at the end of school last year so they really didn't get to know each other then.
We had a teacher change 2 days before open house. I'm actually quite excited about Abbie's teacher this year. She's from here and Tim and I went to school with her and her husband. She just finished her master's degree and seems well organized and communicative. My main complaint from the last 2 years is that I felt like I didn't know what was going on. I'm not a "No news is good news" kind of mom. I don't want to find out about possible issues by reading Abbie's report card.
Today they brought home kid version day planners-SO COOL! I love it! On the company Website it says this version is for Kgarten. But I think 7 is a better age. I don't think Abbie would have been ready to learn the concept of a day planner 2 years ago.

Fourteenth Anniversary

On the 24th Tim and I celebrated our 14th anniversary. Wow. I'm sort of speechless. Tim wrote me a very sweet card. He's a good card-picker, not so much with jewelry, but good with cards. And he gave me a day at the spa! I can't wait to use it, but I want to wait until I really feel like I need a break. Right now I'm pretty good so I don't want to waste it! I got him some shirts and I gave them to him last week.
I commemorated the day by taking the kids to Portrait_Innovations and had portraits made of them together. It's the first time I've had them done with all 3 of them. 18 months and this is the first time, whew, time has really flown by.
Then we went out to our favorite restaurant, Bonefish_Grill.

Cooper Turned Four :)

My sweet boy is Four years old! He is very polite and kind of shy. He still loves his trains and trucks and can play with them for hours without a peep. He started soccer this week. I think we'll all enjoy it more when it is cooler outside.

Last weekend we kicked off Cooper's 4th birthday weekend with a family dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Lots of fun! Cameron was once again the entertainment for the evening. He ate a whole bowl of cheese dip with his hands. He was covered in cheese from his forehead to his elbows. This photo was in the early part of the meal.

Sunday we celebrated with the rest of the family and then on Monday we finally had the "real" party, the one with the pinata. It was so hot that day that it took the kids all of about 5 minutes to crack it open, grab some loot, and high-tail it back inside.

Cameron's milestones

Yesterday was quite a day for my little man. Every time I turned around he was doing something else that I told myself I need to document.

I got him out of bed in the morning and he ran down the hall towards the kitchen saying "Waa-Faa" (waffle). It's his favorite breakfast of all time.

When we got dressed I put the boys in their soccer ball shirts in honor of Coop's first soccer practice that night. Cameron kept pointing at the ball on his shirt. I was repeating "Ball" and also doing the sign for ball and he did both back to me several times.

Abbie taught him to dance. He was so funny bouncing around and stomping his feet. She said she heard him say "Dats" but I missed that while I was getting the camera which, of course, had dead batteries.

Cooper did a great job at his first soccer practice. I was really proud of him. But Cameron was the one that really surprised everyone. He sat patiently in the stroller for about 10 minutes and when I finally let him out he went straight for a soccer ball and went dribbling down the field like an old pro. I couldn't keep him off the field or out of the goal. I wonder if this will hold his interest throughout the season. We'll see.

After we got home it was time for baths and bed. When I was in Cameron's room he walked up to his dresser and touched the Train pull knobs and started going "Choo-Choo". He went and got his Thomas book and flipped through it saying "Choo-Choo" over and over. I did the sign for book and he did it the best he has ever done it.

He's growing up so fast and and learning so quickly now it's making my head spin.

Abbie the drama queen

A little over an hour ago, a sniffling Abbie quickly exited the playroom and went into her room where she continued to whimper for a minute and then she came back out. This was the conversation

Me: Are you okay? Are you crying? What's wrong?

Abbie: It's just... that... Troy and Gabrielle broke up and I can't believe it. It was awful. You should have heard them.

I couldn't help but laugh but I sucked it back in and tried to assure her that there was plenty of time left for them to get back together (which they did) before the movie was over.

(In case you don't have a pre-tween-ager, Troy and Gabrielle are characters in the Disney movie High School Musical. High School Musical 2 premiered tonight and I let her stay up late to watch it.)

Orientation Week

Orientation Week is finally over. 18 hour days for Tim. He's used to working long hours but not while being force fed the volume of information they went through this week. I know he came home at night and slept in our bed but we basically considered him to be out of town. Cooper thought he actually was on a business trip. Out the door by 6:30, not home until 11:30.

Now we can start trying to get settled into the "regular" school schedule, every other Friday and Saturday for the next 17 months. That's the easy part. The hard part is going to be study time. It will be hard when he's home but not really home because he's got to study. I think the kids will understand...eventually. The program director shared an anecdote: one student made a deal with his kids that when daddy was wearing his ball cap, i.e. his Thinking Cap, then that meant he was doing his homework and he could not be interrupted. I thought that was cute. At least we have the basement and Tim can hole himself up down there out of reach.

Here we go, off into MBA land. It's going to be a long tiring trip but we'll get through it.

Random Thoughts...

• 10 days until Cooper turns 4. Last night he told me he wants a pinata at his party. He wants a "Cars" pinata and he would try to find out which store had them for me.
• I thought we were going to get a trampoline for Cooper's birthday. Tonight on the local news they had a story on the dangers of, you guessed it, trampolines. Now I'm having second thoughts.
• I measured all 3 kids today. Coop and Cam are pretty much the same at the 18 month mark.
• I went to get my hair done today. Low-lights this time to cut down on the blonde. Not liking it right now.
• Cam is getting more and more "interactive" every day. Today, I blew in his hair a little and he turned to me and blew back at me. He started blowing on his food too. We were playing trains in his room this morning with the door closed. I put the train in the tunnel and said, "Who's there"? He got up and went to the door and knocked on it.
• His favorite thing to say is "Where'd go?, there is." He says it pretty clearly too.
• I asked Cooper again why he won't sit down on the floor to put on his underwear & pants. This time he said, "Because I don't want to get hair on my butt like you and Daddy".
• The other day I heard a ruckus in the playroom and then some crying. Abbie came and announced to me that she hurt her penis.
• Cameron loves vacuum cleaners. My regular vacumm has the air vent in the front and I have a really hard time vacuuming because he stands in front of it to feel the "wind". I have to run from room to room and he'll chase me and try to get in front of the vacuum. Guess he'll have to go to the playroom while I vacuum. Or I'll just give him the stick vac. He thinks it is his. This is the look you'll get if you try to take it away:

August is speeding by already

August 6th wow. This is going to be a busy month...

Tim has already started a prep class before the official first day of MBA school starts on the 13th. Orientaion week. A full week of "class" just to get you ready for the real thing. The week culminates on Friday the 17th with several student/spouse events, one of which is a seminar to prepare you for what your spouse is getting into. I'm beginning to see a pattern here...duh...and it makes me a little nervous. The next 18 months will be interesting. Maybe I'll get the chance to meet some other wives and we can make the best of it together.

I joined a gym last week. Tim has dropped 35 pounds in the last few months and I have been wanting to jump on his bandwagon, ha-ha, but just haven't felt like I was ready to make a committment to an excerice program. I finally felt a change come over me (no not the change) and now I am ready to be healthier. I know a lot about what I should be doing to maintain a healthier lifestyle. I am trying to get more fruits and veggies and "superfoods" into our meals. But I find it far too difficult to exclude goodies from the menu. I like to eat. I like food. I like cheese and chocolate and ice cream. It's a good thing that I also do actually like to excercise. I just find it too hard to do it in the comfort of my own home. I have to get out of the house and go somewhere (air-conditioned) away from the dirty bathroom and the pile of laundry that continue to haunt me. I was going to wait until the kids were back in school but I was ready now!
Cooper will turn 4 on the 20th. My big boy. He's so sweet and laid back. I look at his big blue eyes and those long eyelashes and he just melts my heart. This picture is from 2 years ago but it is still one of my favorites of him.

Tim and I will celebrate our 14th anniversary on the 24th. I'm proud of that. Not just proud of the number but proud of us and our journey. We were so young (20), so broke, and so naively determined. We had our goals and we just set about achieving them-together-oblivious to the fact that many people fail somewhere along the way. Of course there have been some disappointments but I, ever the optimist, believe that things happen the way God intends for them to happen. It's up to us to learn from the situations He puts us in and take each lesson learned with us to the next thing on the list.

Abbie's school starts on the 27th and Open House is the 22nd. We should get the letter telling us who her teacher is the week before that. Abbie is hoping for this one teacher that she really likes. I haven't made a big deal about it to her. I think there are only 5 2nd grade teachers and I hear they are all very good so my opinion has always been that whatever teacher we get is the one God meant for us to have. I'm learning more as a parent each year too. I know from the last 2 years what I didn't like about those teachers, so I think I'll be a bit more outspoken this year.

So that about does it for the month of August. If I don't make it back to my blog in the near future at least you'll know what I've been up to!