School Update!

Lydia and I are really enjoying preschool!  It is so nice to look forward to "working".  I was fortunate to work with really great families when I was watching extra kids but I never really looked forward to having more kids to look after.  But I do look forward to our next preschool day.  We have been in school for 2 weeks so we have had 4 classes and its gone really smoothly. The kids are fun and get along really well so far.  They love the silly songs I sing and I have enjoyed preparing projects, and circle time lessons. I feel like my schedule is working well and am so excited for all the fun activities I have planned. I read a lot of preschool blogs to get ready to teach and a lot of them said to not bother with real cutesy themes the first weeks, but to focus on routines so I have but next week we are starting apples and we will then do more and more Fall stuff.  I can't wait.  We are just meeting on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at least twice a week Lydia asks if "today is a preschool day?" and is always disappointed when I tell her it is not. I am so glad she is enjoying it and that we can do it together.

Here are our first day of school pictures:

She was so cute! And looks so grown up.  I am so glad she is enjoying preschool.

 Jared seems to be doing fine at school. I don't think he loves it but he doesn't dread it either. Most day are a 7 or above when I ask him to rate it so that is good.  I think it is still just an adjustment for him. He likes his teacher, enjoys his specials and Free choice time. I think he talks the most about PE. I typically wait outside on a bench after school and his teacher walks him over with the other kids whose parents are waiting there. There have been 2 times that she has mentioned him having a hard time getting his work done.  He also has a hard time keeping his glasses on. I want him to do his work but I also get that school is long and a big adjustment for him. He has told me that he gets distracted by the kids at his table and thinks he could get his work done faster if he sat alone. I have tired to figure out if the work is too hard for him but I don't think it is. I think it is just more than he is used to doing. It is a lot of coloring! Mrs. Franklin said that he gets along well with all the kids and they seem to like him which is nice.  He had 2 breakdowns the other day, one when he didn't get to do what wanted for Academic choice.  He wanted to do Brown Bear but his name stick didn't called in time so 4 other kids got to do it. And the other when he didn't get free choice time because he didn't finish his work.  She said he turned it around pretty quick which gives me hope because he has always been sensitive and prone to what seems like an overreaction to me. I want him to respect his teacher and understand he needs to do his work so while I was sad for him that he missed free choice time I do hope it helps him get it done in time. He seems to really enjoy PE and feels pretty cool that he is one of the few kids in his class that can tie his shoes by himself. They often run races in PE and he is often the first or second one to finish and is always so proud of himself when he is first.  I think this is in part to the races we have done at UVA. It is fun to see him excited about things at school. I went to Back To School Night this week and it was nice to be in his classroom for a bit. He spends so much time there its weird to not be a part of it.  I wrote down that I was willing to volunteer (they don't really start it till October when kids are tested and used to the routines) and hope I can soon.

I have struggled trying to figure out the best use of our time after school.  Do we go on outings, have friends over, have down time, do learning time, have alone time? I just don't know! It feels like when we walk in the door he and Lydia just start fighting with each other which I don't want to be around.  I am happy to go out on outings but feel limited in what we can do because Jared still needs to wear his eyepatch for 2+ hours each day so we have to be home by 4:30 and our house is just farther away from a lot of things than it used to be.  We had an eye appointment this week and his eyesight has improved which is encouraging.  At his first appointment his left eye was 20/300 so he basically couldn't see anything.  This week he was at 20/100.  It feels like it is going so slow.  The Dr. wants him to keep wearing the patch as much as possible and we will see him again in January.  That is still 4 more months of wearing it every day! I just have a hard time knowing what to plan. What would be best for him and Lydia too.  Maybe I will ask his teacher what she has noticed he struggles with certain things and try to incorporate them in fun ways. I miss our little one on one learning times.  And I have seen so many fun Fall ones! I just need to find a balance and make a plan. Maybe him not knowing what we are going to do is affecting his attitude since his whole life has been pretty routine up till now or maybe he is just tired!! I hope we can get it figured out soon.

We did a fun sight word scavenger hunt the other day. It was so easy to do so I will have to plan more like this. I wrote the words on Apple post its (I found them on sale for .88 cents!) and then wrote them on a blank piece of paper. I hid them around the house (I did numbers for Lydia) and had him read the word then match it to the paper. It was fun especially while wearing a Pirate costume since they hunt for treasure.

Biking, car washing and cupcake creating

Charlottesville is a great place but one thing it is not great for is riding bikes, especially little kids riding bikes. Our new neighborhood is no exception to this. We live on a narrow gravel road (not unsafe just narrow) and once it turns to pavement (about 1.5 minutes from out house) its pretty curvy and still narrow so we have had to look elsewhere for bike riding spots.  We had a a few we liked to use where we lived last year and have been trying out some new ones on this side of town. This week I had a breakthrough.  We now live 4 minute from our church building which has an amazing frequently empty parking lot.  We went over for FHE Monday night and let Jared and Lydia ride wherever they wanted.  The parking lot is down a dead end street so there is not traffic on it unless someone is coming to the church so it was completely dead on a Monday evening.  It was great.  We meet in a stake center so its a huge lot, completely level and smooth.  They had a great time.  Lydia has been asking to go back and ride again all week.  She is making good progress with her new bike sans pedals. I think she misses her balance bike but is getting better at using her new one.  I hope we can go a lot this week because there is supposed to be awesome weather and then maybe we can put the pedals back on. It was a great find and we will be frequent visitors. 

 Car Wash!
There is a well quoted line from "The Princess Bride" that has been running though my head lately. "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means"
Lately Jared's favorite (and most annoying) phrase has been, "Ahhhh. I never got to do what I want." He says it repeatedly, daily and it is so irritating. It just rubs me the wrong way because I feel like we do a lot of fun things. Maybe it is a substitute for I am bored?  Normally he enjoys low key days because we are normally out and about because I can go stir crazy being at home all day. We had soccer today and then had to move the piano so we didn't have much going on today because they cut the day up kind of weird. It was odd to not be on some outing on a Saturday.  Anyway. He was moping around and kept saying that when he wasn't even asking to do anything really so Mark came up with the brilliant idea to wash our cars.  Jared and Lydia had a great time helping wash the cars and getting sprayed.  The car wash took much longer than one normally would but I was so grateful that Mark came up with a great plan. He is a good one to have around. Entertained kids and clean cars. I made dinner in peace and will enjoy driving my clean car tomorrow. It will only be clean tomorrow because after we drive down our gravel road it will get all dusty again. Oh well.  I am glad they had fun.  Jared and Lydia got their swimming suits on and had a great time. After they finally finished the cars they spent the remainder of their time before dinner playing (sitting in) our water table which has been a great investment.  I found it at a garage sale for 20 dollars. It is a large combo sand and water table and it has been used so much the last 3 weeks. The Preschool kids love it, Jared, Lydia and their friends love it and I love it for all the easy entertainment it provides especially now that the pools and lakes are closed.

Mark and I had an impromptu date at home tonight. Our Primary class filled up their Behavior/reverence jar last week so we needed to make them cupcakes for class tomorrow. I planned on making a dozen classic white cupcakes and a dozen chocolate ones then throwing out the rest of the batter.  What did I need 48 cupcakes for? Then Mark came in and had the great idea to make some new cupcake flavors.  He loves to mix in toppings for ice cream and figured it would be fun to try it out on cupcakes too.  It was surprising how many topping options we had in hand in our cupboards. Chocolate chips, PB chips, white chocolate chips, peppermint chips, raspberry jam, Oreos, pumpkin pie spice.  It was fun to spice up the plain cupcakes.  I always love chocolate and PB and was also really happy with the pumpkin pie spice one.  It was fun.  I have been looking up pumpkin recipes so I have pumpkin pie spice on my mind.  We will keep the creative ones for our family and take the plain ones which are what they asked of anyway.  You are always in for a treat when Mark is around! 

Vanilla varieties

Chocolate choices. 

Music to my ears

We bought a piano today! I don't know how to play a piano or read music but I am going to learn. My sister Susanna is a great piano player and my Mom gave piano lessons but somehow I ended up skipping the whole piano thing growing up. I am not sure if my Mom asked me and I wasn't interested but I so wish I had taken lessons.  I would love to be able to sit down at a piano and start playing songs. Not super complex songs but to be able to open up a music book and play would be so great.  I plan on teaching myself the very basics then looking into lessons.  I know I want Jared and Lydia to take them when they get a little older. Mark took lessons when he was growing up and can play one hand but would like to learn more as well.  I decided a few years ago (I really have been wanting to play for a long time) that there was no point in taking lessons until I had a piano to practice on and the day has finally come. I am really excited. I really am not aiming to become this awesome player and do crazy songs or solos but to be able to play sounds really nice.

When we moved into our house this summer we talked about decorating and looking for a piano. Since we plan on being here the next 5 - 7 years it seemed time to finally get that piano. Mark really wanted to hang up pictures but I did not want to: 1. put holes in our nicely painted walls and 2. if we were getting a piano I didn't want to hang anything till we knew where it would be sitting, what it looked like, how big it was etc. Now we have it and Mark is excited to hang up more pictures.  I can't wait to start figuring out notes and paying scales! I hope my enthusiasm rubs off on Jared and Lydia.

We had 4 friends come help move it and are so grateful for them. I think it fits the space very nicely.

Soccer

 First Practice

We signed Jared up to play soccer this Fall.  He started 2 weeks ago and has been enjoying himself. It is the first organized sport team we have participated in and so far it has been a nice experience. Mark is his coach and our friend Tom (Lenox) is the co coach. We are going through the JAG program (military law program).  It is pretty low key and relaxed which we wanted. We had him signed up for a 5 year old team but moved him up to a 6 year old team (the person in charge asked for volunteers of older 5 year olds who could move up) because there were too many 5 year olds, the teams were huge.  He is turning 6 during the season anyway. He had his first game today as the one scheduled for last week got rained out which was good for us since we were out of town and Mark is the coach.  His team name is "the Giants".  This was not Jared's choice but he has moved on. They ended up winning 5 : 2 and Jared was pretty pumped about it.  I was happy that he (the whole team really) did a good job being good sports and not rubbing it in the other teams noses.  They were excited but not gloating.  We will see how he does when he is not on the winning team.  Its a nice venue to teach about these things.  Good sportsmanship and how to deal with losing. The season ends October 31st so its not a huge commitment. It is hard for me to have something scheduled every Saturday at 9:00 in the Fall.  There are so many fun activities and such amazing weather. I think it will be good for Jared.  We asked Lydia if she wanted to play when we signed Jared up and she was not interested. Then when we went to his first practice she asked why she wasn't playing. Silly girl.  We will see if she wants to try it out in the Spring when they do it again.

HIs blue socks make it easy to spot him. 

 Jared and Mark. 

Jared was super excited, they had just scored. I don't think he made any goals but he went the right direction and ran his heart out. 

Magic Tree house, Frontier Culture Museum and camping

I am so happy to have Fall weather coming!  So happy! I look forward to it all year.  We have not gotten to use our backyard fort as much as I would have thought because of bugs (ticks mainly I am so paranoid) and humidity but a few Sundays ago we had a most beautiful afternoon and so we went down to our fort tree house and read a Magic Tree House book.  Jared and Lydia have been really digging those books.  It is our first chapter book series and it is fun to read to them and then have them plead for me to read more chapters before bed or anytime I read really. I don't even think it is a delaying tactic. They really enjoy them. I am getting a little tired of them but will push on.  We are on #12.  Soon I will look for a new series.  We took our camping chairs down and enjoyed the book and fort.  I hope we will do it more in the next few months.

Labor Day weekend we had plans with some friends to drive over to VA Beach again and spend the day but ended up not going.  The weather had a 70% chance of thunderstorms and rain for most of the day which was really disappointing even though I enjoy a nice thunderstorm. Just not when we were supposed to spend a fun day at the beach.  Instead we met up at the Frontier Culture Museum. It is about 35 minutes way and basically has little houses that are replicas from different time periods.  We "visited" homesteads in Africa, Britain, Ireland, Germany, and the United States, (1600, 1700, and 1800 and an Indian Village which was Jared's favorite).  It was fun to see the animals and changes at the houses with the time periods.  The beach would have been more fun but we rented a golf cart to drive around and enjoyed visiting the sites.

 West Africa

 UK

 Ireland

Native Americans

Last weekend we went camping at Sherando Lake.  We met up with our friends the Lenox's and had a lot of fun together.  We had planned on staying there Friday night then swimming at the lake and hiking all day Saturday but again ran into rain. We knew it was in the forecast but wanted to go anyway. We set up camp and had dinner and attempted a campfire.  We brought firewood from our property that Mark had cut down this summer but apparently wood will not burn as well if it is freshly cut.  We had no idea so our campfire was kind of a bust.  We were still able to make S'Mores and visit around the embers. It started raining around 2:30 in the morning then stopped around 6:30.  Jared and Lydia were up for the day by 7:00.  We were fortunate to have a break in the weather to make breakfast and pack up camp. We went on a hike around the lake and when we were almost done it started pouring. It was not what we hoped for but we are glad we went.  Jared and Lydia loved using our tent and eating as many marshmallows as they could manage.

 Mark has wanted a camp stove for awhile and loved using it for the first time. It worked so well.

Waiting out the downpour. 

Preschool

 Preschool starts on Tuesday! I have been thinking about starting an in home preschool for a long time and can't wait to see what its like. We had our preschool open house last Tuesday and it went so well.  We read the story the Kissing Hand, made a Kissing Hand craft and ate a special kissing hand snack.  (Handprint sugar cookie with a hershey kiss in it-- I was going to win those kids over!) I will have 4 kids including Lydia.  2 girls and 2 boys. My schedule is set, books are checked out, the classroom is set up, the outside space is set up, parents have paid, and my first 2 weeks are planned. Its been a long process and taken a lot of time (and money!) but I am excited to begin this new adventure. Lydia is super excited too.  After our open house last week she told me that she loved preschool! I reminded her that preschool is 3 hours not the 1we just spent together. I hope she does well with sharing our stuff with these preschool kids and realizing that she won't get to just play with whatever she wants when she wants. We will have lots of play time but we are going to do other stuff too. Each morning since Tuesday she has asked me if the day was a preschool one.  We have a chain counting down but she just wants it to start. I do too!  My preschool is fairly traditional with a little Montessori thrown in for good measure but really focuses more on social skills than academics. They are 3 years old, not getting ready for kindergarten. 3 of the 4 kids are the youngest in their family so all their sibling have gone off to school so I think it will be nice for them to have some other kids to play with and somewhere set to go. The oldest little boy will turn 4 in October and the youngest girl will not turn 4 till after preschool finishes. Again, I am excited to see what it is like to teach preschool!

Mark has been so helpful with all my little projects.  I have always "worked" since I have been staying at home but my other "jobs" didn't involve making things, or set up, or spending money to do it. I feel so fortunate that I got enough kids signed up to run preschool and that Mark has been so supportive of me.  Working from home has been a real testimony builder for me. I always planned on staying at home with my children while they were little and going to work outside of the home once they were older. It was what I wanted. When I got my patriarchal blessing when I was 16 there was a part that said I would have many opportunities to help provide for my family in and out of the home. I was so disappointed when I heard that. I didn't want to have to provide for my family. I wanted to marry someone who would have a job that paid enough.  I wanted to be secure financially without needing to work outside the home. When Mark and I began dating with both of us going into education I knew this part of my blessing would play out.  We really have been blessed with opportunities for me to work and be at home with Jared and Lydia.  I never make very much money. Its always just enough to cover what Mark's salary did not. We have had so many prayers answered and know that me being able to find jobs to allow me to stay at home was a direct result of us paying our tithing and the many prayers we said about finances.  We have always been able to take care of ourselves.  When we didn't think we would have enough money more always came.  It been a huge testimony builder and starting this preschool is one more example of it.

Here are some photos of our classroom. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Circle Time space (minus the TV it's  not really part of preschool) 

Reading Center. I love these bookshelves!  Bookshelves that have the covers facing out are my favorite. I was very happy with how my ABC banner turned out. I know I could have bought one but this one makes me happy. 

Literacy Center.  

That rainbow cart is full of fun things for it. I love how these pom-poms turned out. I had never made them before and I think they make the spot look nice and cheerful. 

View from circle time area.  Looking at Block Center first then Dramatic Play Center. 

Mark helped me make these 2 boards. One for hanging pictures or papers to take home and one to hag up backpacks and coats. I love them.  They make the space feel more professional to me. I also now have a little shelf under them for shoes.

View from stairs of whole space. 

Outside space.  I love that we have this whole deck to play on.  We have a water table I found at  garage sale this weekend.  A small slide, a chalkboard Mark and I made, (its under the lattice on the far side of the picture) and our sandbox, plus some big trucks, balls and a bubble machine. The sandbox is just around the corner of the house, behind the opening between the deck and lattice.  It would have been nice to have it on the deck but I also wanted deck space for when we are not having preschool. I plan on standing near the chalkboard so I can see the whole space. I would actually like to get a cute little bench for the area but kind of don't want spend more money....

I hope we all have a great experience.  There will be some rough moments I am sure and it will take some time to get used to it but I can't wait to try it out!

happenings.

We met up with some friends and rode the trolley together. This was while we waited at the bus station. I am looking forward to my hair growing out. Its been a nice change but I really prefer it longer. 

Awhile ago we bought a new net for the basketball hoop at our house. We were excited when we saw they had a cemented in basketball hoop. Mark and I both spent a lot of time shooting hoops growing up. My family and I played PIG of course, Around the World and Poison. Mark probably played actual games.  I am sure my brothers and their friends did but I did not.  Anyway. We have a lot of great memories with our families our playing ball and yesterday we starred making some with Jared and Lydia. The weather was beautiful yesterday giving me such hope for Fall.  It was not beautiful today but it will come. I know it will. Jared and Lydia had a great time playing and Lydia made sure to look very fashionable in her new snow boots. (We found boots for both of them at DI last week, 3 dollars for snow boots!)

Jared sadly has been dealing with a pretty bad cold this week.  He seemed fine when he went to bed Monday night but he had  really rough nights sleep and was not well in the morning.  He woke up twice in the night drenched in sweat so I think he was fighting a fever. He stayed home from school Tuesday and Wednesday and took a 4 hour nap Tuesday and a 3 hour nap Wednesday. I do not doubt that being extra tired contributed to this cold.  That and all the new germs he is now exposed to. We spent some time yesterday relaxing in our hammock chairs then playing basketball and I think the resting and fresh air really helped him. I am so glad he is doing better not just because I don't like it when he or Lydia are sick but we are headed to the beach with some friends this weekend.

He was happy to go to school today.  Each day has been better then the last which is so encouraging. I am so glad he is enjoying school.  We have been doing the drop off line and he loves walking into his classroom by himself.  It is so nice to see him enjoying school after such a rough start. I have noticed that Jared really needs some alone time when we get home from school or an outing we go on after school.  I am not sure if he needs to decompress or just wants to be alone. (which I can understand) I can't quite remember why but he got really irritated with Lydia and I and told us we were not allowed in his room today.  Lydia and I went to play in her room together.
Jared said: "You guys are not allowed in my room ever!!"
Me to Lydia loudly: "We can go in Jared's room while he is at school and he will never know!"

This made Jared quite mad so he made a No trespassing sign and then put booby traps in his room! I heard him talking to himself saying he "needed something sticky to put on the trap so I would get stuck." His solution? Drip milk on it from the cup I gave him. After he played alone for awhile we were best friends again.  Tonight before bed he said that he "loved me even more then he loved Daddy" so I think we are good.

I do really enjoy seeing how he sounds out words. I love that he is trying to instead of just asking.

The other day we were down in the basement and Jared started writing a story. This is the first time I remember him doing this so I was really excited.  We have written cards to people before but he has never just sat down (Or stood in the instance) and written a story.  He did a nice job. It is fun to see him expanding his choices.  He even drew a picture at school that had nothing to do with Pirates!  He drew a cat and a dog.  Today he brought home a paper that had him fill in the question: "When I grow up I want to be...."  He wrote President of the Untied States and drew a picture of himself as president.  This was a new one to me. He still loves pirates though and spent some time a few days ago building a very fancy pirate ship with cannons, sails and sleeping quarters.  We have been reading lots of books about going to kindergarten and preschool for both of them and in one of them the main character is at school and makes sailor hats. Unsurprisingly Jared thought this was a great idea so the other day Mark made hats for Jared, Lydia and himself.

Cat at the Beach. The cat loves to the beach. the cat played at the beach. 

Cannons loaded. 

That about sums up the last little while. I need to write about my preschool open house but first I want to take pictures of my preschool. I have been working on lots of little classroom projects and getting some planning done which feels so good. Class starts on Tuesday!