Blogs that make my day...

My friend, Tammie, left this for me and I'm so honored! From what I understand, I have to nominate 5 other blogs that Make My Day. Unfortunately, I can't nominate Tammie even though her blog is one I check daily.

1. Sandra, Tammie and I met while waiting for our daughter's. I've always kept up on Sandra's blog in lurkdom, then on Tammie's when she started blogging. Loving their posts sparked my desire to start my own blog. Not so much for everyone's else benefit, but I watched as Sandra and Tammie created these wonderful memories of day to day events, I wanted to do the same for my kids.
   
2. Jen's Semester Abroad is my niece's blog. She's studying abroad in Germany and, by the looks of her blog, having a blast! Funny, though, I don't see many books or studying going on in most of her pictures! :)
   
3. Super Mommy. She takes great pictures and her girls always look so sweet! If I were to get my sweeties to pose that nicely for a picture, there would be one frazzled mom and 100's of wasted shots just to get one as nice as hers! Her Jade is from Elise's SWI.
   
4. Becki Party of 5. Her Addie is also from the same SWI as Elise, as well as 2 bio children (one about Carson's age). It's nice to see families that "look like ours." She seems like a person I'd be likely to hang out with in person!
   
5. And, because I'm vain and need some humor in my day, I'll admit to check TMZ daily as well. (OK, I do check some other newsworthy sites as well, but this one always makes me chuckle in how far folks will go to get a glimpse or story about a celebrity).

Thanks, Tammie!

Now, could someone please explain why blogger keeps squishing my paragraphs?!?

Kindergarten Graduation

Be warned...more obnoxious pictures of my kids. But, heck, you made the choice to visit my blog! :)

And, I have to apologize about the quality of the pics. I didn't want to lug my big camera to work with me. Perry had my #2 camera but he forgot it. So, I was left with my least favorite (but newest...sadly) camera. (Yeah, I'm a bit camera obsessed....too bad I don't have the talent to warrant the obsession!)

Elise HATES to be center of attention so I wondered how she'd do during the time when each child stands on the "stage" while teacher talks about them. True to form, Elise refused to look at the audience and kept her eyes on her teacher or the side wall (so she didn't have to look at the audience). We did learn that she hopes to be a dentist when she grows up. News to us!


Elise's considers Darien her boyfriend. In truth, he is a good friend and a sweet little boy. Because they line alphabetically by first name, they are always together. They sat together during the ceremony and just chatted. It was so cute.

And here she is singing a rendition of the Adams Family theme song.
And in the end, they blasted Celebration and the kids all started dancin'.
Yup, it's official...she's now a 1st grader!

And where was Carson you might ask. Absolutely, positively did NOT want us to pick him up from school today. Riding the bus was just fine with him.

School's out for summer!

What a great time of year! The school year is over and everyone can relax a bit. I always love seeing how my kids have grown and changed over the past year.

Here is Carson on his first day of 3rd grade last summer. He still had such a "little boy" look to him.
And here he is today. Not so much a "little boy" look anymore. :( It's been a rough school year for Carson. Lots and lots (and lots) of homework (and we often had to agree with him that the homework load was a bit intense for 3rd grade.) Trouble with motivation, especially with homework! Carson, for the record, Mom and Dad already passed 3rd grade (in fact, we've passed 18th grade when you take into account grad school) so we're NOT really as dumb as you think.

The other big change this year (besides the enormous appetite, lovely fashion sense and the need for daily showers!) involved noticing girls and claiming a "girlfriend." In 3rd grade! He even came home today with his "girlfriend's" address. Not really sure how that will help him since he lacks, um, a driver's license. But, the 2 girls he has liked this year both move to new schools next year and they won't meet up again until high school. I think there will be plenty of other girls between now and then...and I'm sure I'll be equally UNprepared for each one to come!



And here is Elise on the first day of Kindergarten last summer. For the life of me, I could not get a smile out of her. She was one nervious nelly about going to school. She HATES new situations. And even though she had been in a pre-K classroom in this school for a year, this qualified as a BIG CHANGE.

And here she is today. She has made some good friends and kids in the class really seem to take good care of her. One boy in particular is, let's see if I can get the wording straight..."totally in love with me."

Elise has grown more confident in herself and her ability to communicate with others. She's all girl. She loves, loves, loves learning. She gets excited when she sees her sight words in everyday settings. She already seems to have a strong ability in math. While she watched us struggle with Carson's homework, she anxiously did her worksheets every night and was disappointed when she didn't have "homework" of her own.

My big fear this year was how she would do socially. Being naturally shy and having a speech disorder (which often makes the shyness more pronounced), I was worried about how she'd get along with her classmates. She had a great group of kids in her class this year and we couldn't be more pleased with her widening circle of friends.

She also HATED getting in trouble. She only had her "clip" moved twice during the year (both times the teacher was giving her a warning for talking too much...go figure!) Heck, Carson would often have his clip moved 2x a day when he was in kindergarten so I'm pretty darn impressed! I doubt I'll ever get a call from her principal. :)

Perry has to go into school for a few hours tomorrow, so summer break for the family officially starts at noon tomorrow. :)

And, I started a flex time schedule today for the summer. In exchange for extending my hours a bit daily (which I often do out of hide anyway), I get one full day off each week to get in some much needed family time. Truth be told, I've always wanted this type of schedule. I love my job, but it's often hard in the summers knowing I'm the only heading out to work each day (although, honestly, some days, that's a pleasure!)

Here's to a great summer and some great family time.

Last day of school, but such sad news

Today is the kids' last day of school. Elise's kindergarten graduation is this afternoon. I'll post pictures of the kids later today. I love looking at the difference between the first day and last day of school pictures.

When I dropped Elise off this morning, I learned that another kindergartner had died over the weekend. I don't know any details, other than he simply didn't wake up one morning. I just cannot imagine the pain the family is experiencing. Instead of attending their son's kindergarten graduation, they are planning his funeral.

Please keep this family in your thoughts and prayers.

Selfishly, I'm grateful that he was not in Elise's class, but was in the class next door and the classes often did things together.

The Pool is Open!!!

Much to the kids' delight, we've finally opened our pool and it is ready for swimmin' fun!



Elise in her pink shades, new swim vest and pink sparkly flip flops. Stylin' as usual.


Elise is just a fish when it comes to water. She has no fear. She's trying to make waves with the boogie board.

And Carson is just a spaz in the water! He had a friend with him and they certainly burned some energy in the pool.

After supervising the kiddos in the pool, I decided to tackle the horror behind this door. This is what you see when you enter my house. I was inspired by my recent (and only) trip to IKEA. Who knew the nearest store is the one I stopped at...4 hours from my house! I thought surely there would be one in St. Louis, but no such luck. I had to resort to Target for some organizing supplies.

This is the nightmare that lurks in my front closet. Drives me nuts!

And this is what it now looks like. We'll see how long it lasts, but I'm a happy camper to have it cleaned out and organized. We ended up with a huge bag of trash and a huge bag to go to Goodwill.

Watch out, I'm in a mood to pitch and organize. Wonder how much more I can get done before this mood leaves for a while!

One lost doggie

Our attempts at finding Trixie's family aren't going so well. We've left a description of her with all the vets in town, all the shelters, animal control. We keep checking the lost board at our local pet stores and newspapers. We've posted an ad on Petfinder.com. No luck. :(

Someone has to be missing this beautiful and sweet natured dog.

Mollie wasn't too happy about Trixie's appearance last weekend, but they've become quick buddies. While it looks like they are in fightin' mode, they are really just playing. All of our dogs have always played this way and they end up covered in each other's slobber in the end (gross!)

And lest you think Trixie has an upper hand because of her size, Mollie's does her share of instigating and keeps running back to her own little hideouts. Mollie would torment Sneakers in her desire to play when we first brought Mollie home.

Trixie is quickly becoming a member of our family. I don't know how long to hold out hope that her orginial family might show up and claim her. If we don't hear anything by next weekend (she'd have been running loose for 3 weeks at that point), we'll get her to the vet to start the official process of making her ours (registered in our county, microchip, vacinations, etc.)

Lots of people have speculated on what might have happened. We live in a college town and some folks wonder if she was dumped by college students. I truly believe she was a family dog, not a college kid dog. She's too good with kids to not have had some exposure to them. Others have heard stories of people in foreclosure having to dump family dogs. That might make more sense. Our subdivision is off the beaten path, nice houses, lots of dogs, big yards. Maybe someone thought a family in our subdivision would be more likely to take her in.

We're all quickly falling in love with this dog. I would never deny her the opportunity to go back with a family who is missing her, but as time goes on, I would also love to her stay with our family.

There once was a time...

...when I really enjoyed travelling for work.



I've decided those days are long over.



I had a meeting in Chicago today. The drive up and back took longer than the meeting itself (which, frankly, was a waste of time.)



But, here's the biggest highlight of the trip:

I got to see my #1 year old nephew. I was a bit curious about the empty baby pool in their living room, but it serves as his "lounge" for when he watches Veggie Tales. Is he not the cutest kid?!?

Here are a few other highlights:

• I drove by my first post-college apartment and favorite Dairy Queen (back in the days when I could visit DQ without ever thinking about the calories or having any regrets!)

• The meeting was held very near the college I attended so it was fun being back in my old stompin' ground.

• I drove by our favorite college liquor store (we had to sign a pledge in college saying we wouldn't drink, so I have to be discrete about admitting to this!)

• I visited my first ever IKEA! After getting headed in the right direction to head home, I got off the highway to grab a bite to eat and discovered a huge IKEA store. Figured I'd just run in and experience it firsthand. HOLY.COW! Loved it! I'll be keeping that store in mind next time we re-do a room!

• Discovered that it SUCKS to have a driver's side window that won't go do down when having to stop at a million toll booths in the Chicago area (with Chicago drivers being oh-so-patient behind you).

• I was glad to hear that Elise's big worry about me being gone was who would do her hair! :)

• It was wonderful sleeping somewhere knowing that I could sleep through the night without a kid waking me up.

• It was fun spending some time with my sister-in-law without our husbands around. She's such a great and energetic mom.

• I was french kissed by my brother's dog (not willingly, I'll add!)

• It was shocker to realize the last time I'd changed cloth diapers was on the above mentioned brother.

• I rented a book on tape so I actually feel like I accomplished "reading" a book during the incredible drive across Illinois.

• I saw more dead deer than I've seen in a few years.

Now that I'm home, I'll get to cleaning up the mess this crew made of the house while Mom was gone. Sighhhh....

And...on the Trixie front (dog)...no one has claimed her yet. It's looking more and more like she might become a permanent member of our family. Elise has lengthened her name to Trixie-Pixie. My brother thinks the whole Trixie name sounds like a porn star even after I reminded him that 9 year old boys without knowledge of porn stars came up with the name (I think he clearly has unresolved issues).