Two weeks

We are down to the wire. Two weeks of kindergarten left before sweet, spontaneous summer break awaits. 

This year has been a whirlwind.

My plate has been continuously full and I've been spinning it, along with multiple other plates, also full. These last few weeks the plates are flying.

We're going out with a bang.

Class parties. Army spouse events. Coffees. More class parties. Volunteer work. Church stuff. Teacher appreciation stuff. Mother's Day. Vacation plans. Camps? Vbs? Swim lessons? Races? Play dates. Birthday parties. Running. Literal running. 

My calendar has been scribbled and xed and marked to bits that it's barely hanging onto the nail on the wall.

Some days I feel like I'm barely hanging by a thread myself.

I missed the last day to send James with ice cream money to school. I even had it up on that calendar, between "carry food and teacher gifts to school" "field day" "Jason comes home from the field" and "run 2 miles". It got lost in the written clutter.

It's not a big deal. We have ice cream at home, plenty. And he's had enough from school. But there was enough significance of it being announced as the last time this school year he'd be able to get it and seeing his friends buy it that made him temporarily forget all the upcoming trips to the ice cream shop and just get mad at mom.

There's no guilt trip like a 6-year-old-given guilt trip.

But that's long-forgotten now, thanks in part to farmers market Popsicles.

Now I just have to will myself to make it through the next two weeks (a week and a half by the time I finally publish this) and I can reward myself (and the kiddos) with a morning of sleeping in and an impromptu weekday trip to the beach!

Riley's first day of preschool

Riley's first day of school was a rollercoaster! He woke up excited--he'd been waiting to start his own school after watching brother go to Kindergarten. 

We dropped James off and drove around aimlessly, killing time before his school started (they were an hour apart--later on we just went home between drop off on his school days).

It was about that time that the nerves started to set in. He looked a little less excited and a little more scared.

We pulled in to the school parking lot, realized I forgot to take a picture at home, got one by the car and headed in.

We found his classroom, he dug into the puzzles on the table.

I took a bunch more pictures, signed him in, gave him a good-bye hug and then full blown panic set in. Tears, screaming, the works.

He'd done so well at his last school, but this was new school and new kids and new teachers he'd never met before. 

Eventually he calmed down and I waited out in the hallway a minute to make sure he was alright. I reluctantly went home and started researching homeschooling.

Poppy came home and took his leap pad.

After I picked everybody up (from a very successful day of school) we got froyo as a treat.

Nap time worked out pretty well, too.

This post has been sitting in my drafts for nearly a year. 

We've been busy.

First day of Kindergarten

It's here.
School.
Kindergarten.
My big boy got up half-excited, half-nervous-wreck.
He went through his morning routine chart I made him, squinty-eyed and sleepy. While I scrambled eggs, he brushed his teeth, got dressed, made his bed.
He ate more than I thought he would--all of his eggs, half of the blueberry muffin.
He told me he was nervous.
I pulled the lunchbox out of the fridge and put it by the door with his backpack.
He put on his socks and shoes.
He tucked OE the otter up under his arm and submitted to my photo requests.
Jason recorded a short, pep talk video on his leappad and left it out for him to watch.
He watched all 8 seconds over and over while I got the other two and myself ready.
It was time to go.
He was ready.

We live probably less than 10 minutes total from the school. We sat in the car-rider line for over half an hour. All of us who took the correct route ended up waiting forever for the parents who were in a hurry and played dumb, going through the roads they weren't supposed to turn on or drive down during school drop off/pick up hours. There was one crazy lady who came up out of a subdivision over there who cut in front of the car in front of me, flew through the 4-way stop and literally RAN INTO the crossing guard! Like ran the side of her giant van into him and RAN OVER his foot! He was trying to yell at her to slow down or maybe not run over him but she ignored him and just flew through there. It was bananas!!
As we got closer to the school (and further from the crazies), James started getting panicky again. He said (for probably the 20th time this morning) "I'm really nervous, Mommy". Riley, being the supportive brother that he is piped in and told James, "If you get nervous just talk to God." Wise words, Riley.
They had us park out in the field to walk our babies in for their first day. So when we finally made it to his classroom, it was 5 minutes after start time.

His teacher was talking to another mom when we went in and hung up his backpack about how crazy it is the first few days each year and that it'll settle down in the car rider line (sure hope there's no more hit-and-runs!). She saw the anxious looks on both our faces and was very reassuring. She welcomed James in and showed him his desk. He sat next to another little boy who I could tell would make a good friend for him. I gave him a goodbye hug (or three) and left the room.

The house was too quiet and I was ready to go pick him up 2 hours later.

And that's with two children still in it! 

After a very productive day for me and the younger two, we went to pick him up (much earlier so we wouldn't have the same car rider line drama on the way out!). The first thing he said when I was getting him in the car was, "It was GREAT! I want to stay here!! I don't want to go home!"

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and told him how much I missed him all day.

He told me that the little boy sitting next to him likes Lego: Legends of Chima, too and they're friends now.

He got to be line leader on his very first day!

Some other kids cut in front of him while he was line leader and they got in trouble.

Those kids do not like banana danimals yogurt and said it's disgusting.

Banana danimals is not disgusting, it's good!

Clearly it was a full day!

So proud of my big kindergartner.

Weekend getaway

Jason's Astronomy assignment, the end (kind of) of his grueling July hours, and the last weekend before school starts prompted a mini-vacation.
After staying up late cleaning, packing a suitcase, snacks, and pool floaties, we got up early Saturday morning to head to Jacksonville. Starbucks-fueled.
Our first stop was Cracker Barrel for pancakes. Poppy stole the lemon off my water and made a variety of hilarious faces...

Another hour drive and we made it to the zoo!

Zoo train

James saw this tiny little marmoset and kept going on about how cute the tiny monkey was.

The animals were as tired and hot as we were. These monkeys were hiding out in a shady corner like sleepy teenagers. They wouldn't even look at us!

James found his spirit animal: the otter. He was so proud! He said, "It looks just like OE!" (his stuffed otter)

Afterward we headed to the MOSH museum. Jason took the boys to a star show in the planetarium (for one of the papers he's writing). Poppy and I explored the museum. There was a really cool dinosaur exhibit with video games and computers. The giant dinosaur skull replicas totally freaked her out though. She'd take one look and run away as fast as her little legs took her!

After the show, the boys wanted in on the video games too!

We found our hotel (eventually), had a lot of drama (they booked us into a single bed room, charged us for a roll-away bed, blegh), and spent a little time in the pool. The kids loved it.
After we pruned, we headed to find the beach and dinner. First stop--Eastwinds!

Even if it's not the little beachside motel with the pool and patio-faucet anymore, its still nostalgic to see the name written on a sign. Like a grave marker. Happy to bring back the memories, to know that buried under the giant condo building its in there somewhere. The beach is still there. Its the same beach I dug holes in, found a crazy looking dead fish with teeth on, made sand sculptures with my cousins on. It's the same foamy water that Grandaddy hovered me over, dipped my toes in, when I was as little as Poppy is now. Time stands still.

Our good ol' Dairy Queen is still there, too. I remember being little, out on one of those umbrella-covered tables outside our motel room and hearing all the grown-ups talking about going to get blizzards. I thought (and probably said out loud) "it's going to snow in Florida??!"
We stopped there for dinner (ice cream).
James was so tired (he was the only one who hadn't had a cat-nap in the car), he was about to fall asleep in his dip-cone.

We were all wiped out. We folded out the roll-away bed and the crib and tried to figure out sleeping arrangements.

And discovered the fun of jumping on hotel beds.

And turned Poppy's crib into a ride. There was so much stomping and giggling going on, I'm pretty sure we annoyed the hotel enough to make up for the hassle.

In the morning we snagged some breakfast downstairs and headed out to the pool before checkout.

When we checked out, the hotel lady was super rude and put a huge damper on things. I had a fruitless call with Priceline about our experience. So Jason got me some Starbucks to chill out.
We got to the beach parking lot next to Eastwinds (I had really really wanted to spend some time on my old stomping grounds and it just wouldn't have been the same if we had to go to a different spot) and it was filled up. I prayed for a break, for peace with all the hotel drama, that we could get to that spot on the beach. And sure enough, at the end of that lot two brake lights lit up right ahead of us. We got the spot!!

That's Eastwinds Condominums right behind my sand-baby.

The boys were braver than they've ever been in the water. They kept asking to go out, deeper and deeper. They jumped through waves, put their faces in it, let it wash over their heads. Riley wanted me to hold his arms so he wouldn't float away while he jumped.

Poppy was (as usual) brave herself. She kept running toward the water, heading out to the deeper waters with her brothers. No sitting in the shallow end for this girl. She's a water baby.

We had an amazing weekend together. It was so wonderful to get to spend time with each other, a change of scenery, try new things, remember old things. It was the perfect way to end summer vacation.

4th of July (three weeks late)

I just realized I never posted for July 4th.
Jason bought us a grill for our [awesome!!] backyard, so we grilled out burgers, made some fries, pasta salad, and too much food. We planned on watching the fireworks from the yard (our new neighbors let us know the view from here is spectacular when we first moved in), so we waited around in the yard for dark to set in. It had been sprinkling a little, so I tried searching online to see if they were going to cancel the show when I discovered that the town fireworks show wasn't even happening till Saturday. So we put on the crappiest clothes we could find and hightailed it to post to watch the fireworks there from the car.

We started out in the car. Then in the back of the car. Then we decided that we might be able to see better if we walked a little closer to the field, still dressed like homeless people.

It was a really great show and luckily it was dark so hopefully no one saw us.

It was really late when we got home so we didn't get to light the sparklers Jason got us till the next night.

That was also the night I caught some kind of virus.

So Saturday was spent mostly in bed, popping Pepto, and sipping gatorade.

Jason was stuck on daddy-duty and took the boys to the park for the Independence Day festival. They got their faces painted, went down the water slides, jumped in bouncy houses, and brought me some homegrown tomatoes from the farmer's market.

They ate pizza (I had crackers) and we lit the sparklers. Then we sat out on the treehouse platform and watched the fireworks from our back yard.

The view was spectacular!!

Science projects and checking off the bucket list

A week's worth of three sick kids has landed us in cabin fever territory. No playdates, no small group, and no church today.
Time to get creative!
I put my [time suck] pinteresting to work and we pulled out some borax, glue, and food coloring.

GAK!!

Flashback to third grade science! I had an awesome teacher, Ms. Staggs, who loved science projects. We did everything in that class--moldy sandwich experiments, manicure-pedicure day, restaurant day, paper mache' pinatas, and gak. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing. Mine was blue. It dried out or got thrown away for one reason or another and I wanted to make it again so bad. I think I tried dumping some glue and Gain out in the kitchen with no luck. I pined for the boxes of borax in the laundry aisle at Food Lion.
Making it with the kids totally took me back. I helped them stir and mix colors. Then when we were done, I bounced that rubbery, slimy goodness all over the table. And stretched it into snakes. And showed the boys how to squeeze it properly to get a real good fart noise out of it.
The slimy part was a little much for Poppy. She whined at it like she does when a dog barks too close to her face. Eventually she realized how awesome it was, too.

I picked up some chalkboard paint and a sample tub of Valspar (toasted pumpking--swoon!!) at Lowes this weekend and taped up a good spot in the playroom.

The chalkboard wall was a big hit!

Riley went straight to work filling it up as soon as the paint was dry.

Per our summer bucketlist, I found a good recipe for bubbles (several actually, all mixed together). Luckily it wasn't a bust! I tried making a giant bubble wand using a wire hanger, but it didn't go so well. I searched the house for something to use and voila! Canning jar lids!!

Who knew??

Poppy was more interested in giving herself a beard with the bubbles. [excuse my naked child in the background]

Terrible picture, but this was her beard. She also tried washing her hair.

It all went really well till she dumped the entire bucket of soapy water on herself/her brothers/everything. 

Did I mention the recipe called for corn syrup?

Backyard camping

Daddy finally had (most of) a weekend off so he bought [an unnecessarily large] tent, a couple flashlights, a lantern (that ended up nearly catching fire), and s'mores supplies to take the boys camping in the yard.
As soon as he was off work, he set up "camp" and lit the firepit.
The boys of course insisted that we do the hotdog roasting since it "takes too long" and they didn't want to get smoke in their eyes.

Still-sick Poppy was a hysterical mess. Torn between not wanting to be left out of the fun her brothers were having and feeling like $hit, she just wailed and whined and screamed the entire time.

Except when I gave her a little chocolate from the boys' s'mores.

Pitiful.

I took her inside to give her a bath (while she screamed). Got her dressed (while she screamed). Gave her some medicine (while she screamed some more). And finally rocked her to sleep (no screaming, just exhaustion).
Between all the screaming from the baby, whining from the boys (it's hot! Can we get a fan? I don't want to pee outside, there's bugs!), and swearing from Jason and I, it was quite the glamorous experience.

Eventually the baby was down and Jason's phone stopped ringing (work of course), so the four of us went out to the tent in the dark with our flashlights to tell ghost stories and read Jason's old Bill Wallace novels.

I totally rocked the ghost stories.

I think we only kept the neighbors up till 11. I brought all the sweaty boys wet towels to drape on their faces, Jason took a couple glasses of water out, and I convinced them to pee in the yard when I shined the flashlight down and told them to aim at the light on the ground. Riley refused to turn his flashlight off.

I slept inside to check on Poppy and wash all the bugspray off (in the bed and air conditioning--no shame). About an hour after they were down, I peeked out the window and there was no movement--just a single flashlight beam shooting straight out the side of the tent. 

At 3:30 I heard Riley crying in the hallway. He said, "Daddy made me [sob] come inside [waaaahhhh]". I took him to the potty, then led him back out to the tent. I woke Jason up and asked why he sent Riley in. 

"I told him to go out in the yard and pee so he wouldn't pee his sleeping bag."

Clearly, Riley takes after his Daddy and has no idea who he is, where he is, or what's going on when he's woken up.

Everyone went back to sleep.

Around 7, they shook Jason awake and told him, "DADDY DADDY it's LIGHT outside!! It's awake time!!"

And they all came in and had cinnamon rolls to celebrate staying out there the whole night.