Wow. Must Not Bake It All.

Wow. I found this site on a friend's blog. Yum pretty much sums it up. And if I ever visit Georgia, I need to go to the Cake Art store that she featured. Heaven.

Enjoy: www.bakerella.blogspot.com

Life Lessons in Kindergarten

There is a program at the girls' school to try and encourage and reinforce positive behavior. When a teacher or staff member observes kids exhibiting good behavior, they can give the kids a yellow jaguar. Yellow jaguars are saved for prizes. The girls' teacher keeps a box of little prizes for the kids to pick from ( think pencils, pens, party favor type stuff)

Maggie and Cassie are always super excited when they bring home a prize. I am glad that they are being well behaved in school.

About 2 weeks ago they came home and said that if they got enough jaguars they would be able to go to the Science Magic Show. They needed at least 30 and every day when they came home they would give me the total that they had.

Now, I have some issues with this. The girls are only in school for 2 1/2 hours a day. Less than half the time of the older kids. No notice came home explaining any of the details of the show or how the kids get to attend.

All we did know, was that Maggie was in tears last night as she was telling us she wouldn't be able to go. (Now, I know she is my child, but she gets these yellow jaguars nearly everday and has even gotten certificates for outstanding behavior). So, to have her in tears and Cassie disappointed, I emailed the teacher last night. The show is tomorrow.

Well the teacher emailed back and told me she was going to ask the guidance counselor to see if an exception could be made for the kindy kids and not charge them as many jaguars.

Well, Maggie was overjoyed when she came home and said that she is going to me able to go. Whn I asked Cassie, she sadly shook her head no, she only had 13. I guess they lowered the number to 20.

I feel really badly for Cassie and the other kids who do their best everyday but didn't get noticed to get jaguars (There doesn't seem to be any consistent standard for passing out the jaguars)

I know that life isn't fair, however I am a grown up. These kindy kids are 5 & 6 years old. Right at the age where they need to have the good behavior praised. Cassie has never had a behavior report ( which is when the behavior is really bad, and there are some kids in the class who are always in trouble )

If Cassie hasn't been behaving then I want to know, and not 5 weeks before school ends. So since I haven't heard that she has been misbehaving I really think that she (and the other kids who don't have bad reports) should be allowed to attend. She had 13 jaguars and the show was announced 2 weeks ago. Cut the kids some slack.

I hate seeing Cassie try her best and end up disappointed.

Tuesday Training

We had quite a day today. In our attempts to get Nate to go on the potty, I wound up keeping him diaperless for nearly the whole day. Nate added 3 more smiley faces to his potty chart! All were for pees, though we were really hoping for a poop. And the first one was just lucky. He was really excited each time, and tried his best. Tomorrow we will try again - I think that pantsless is the way to go though.

I am still doing my Shreds. Lino tried it with me yesterday-he thinks he should have started with a level 1, LOL. The past few days, my eating has been horrible. I think it may be PMS, but goodness...it has been hard to keep it in chuck.

Still have sewing to do, but that is a given. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope that all of my mom friends have a great day. I am spending the day with Lino and the kids. The sun is out, so we may head to the zoo, and then the garden center to check out some stones that would make a cute patio.

I am so very blessed to have 3 beautiful children. They are my heart. It is such a joy watching them grow from babies into the little people that they are becoming. They are smart, funny, kind, good kids, and I adore them.

I am also blessed to have a wonderful husband. Without him I would not be a mother, and I can't even imagine that! Thank you for being my best friend and for all of the support you give me on this amazing journey of parenthood.

As always, I miss my mom. I can only hope that I am as good a mom to my kids as she was to me.

Have a great day!

Friday Fun, Sun and Seedlings!

After what seems like forever of days that have been gray and rainy and dreary, we finally have a gorgeous sunny day. The kids woke up happy and we weren't rushed going to the bus stop. Yay.

I was finally able to get outside to transplant our seedlings. I have no desire to garden, but thought it would be fun for the kids to try and grow our own flowers. Morning glories for Cassie, Convulvus for Maggie, Cynoglossum for Nate and Junior Sunflowers for me. I have been saving empty Playdoh cans, thinking that they would be useful for something, and we started our seeds in them (I drilled the drainage holes myself!)

Last week we got 12 bigger pots to put them in. We will need to get some more though, we had a lot of seeds sprout! We also bought a bigger bag of smelly dirt (I mentioned I don't like to garden? lol) And this is what the girls and I did today.

One of the first scoops of dirt that I took, this is what I found:

Now, I don't know a whole lot about growing plants, but I am pretty sure that old nails don't provide any nutritional benefit to plants!

The girls brought home some adorable mothers day things, a poem with their handprint (I need to try and scan that) and a flower in a tiny pot:

Nate went with Lino to get some tires put on Lino's car. They have been gone almost 2 hours. I hope they get back soon.

I had a great workout today. I never thought I would say that about exercising. I still don't love exercise in general, but todays was awesome. I am able to more of the advanced versions of the exercises, and when I was done today I was drenched. I weighed and measured before hand, I am down to only 7 lbs away from my goal, and lost some more inches from my waist/belly area, arms and chest. Lino thinks I am becoming a smidge obsessed about tracking my food (with a downloaded program), but I told him I am not. I am just trying to get a feel for what smaller calorie intake is supposed to be, I am still eating, so it isn't like when I was in high school and would go days without eating. (My mom had thought that I was anorexic in high school. I don't think so, but I was probably borderline)

Anyhow. Time to get off the computer and go back out to enjoy more of this sunshine!

Blogging from my iPod

Well,if this works that will be fun! My dad got me an iTouch for my birthday. I was so surprised. He had asked for some ideas, so I gave him a list with about 8 different things in different price ranges. I was shocked when I opened it. Especially since he had told me he didn't like what was on my list so he picked . I love it! It is so much fun, and I have an app that I am using to track my workouts and food with.

I am doing a second round of the 30 Day Shred. I am on level 2, I love this level, I feel really worked at the end. And, other people are noticing. At the PTO meeting last night, 2 of the women asked if I was still working out, they said my jeans looked really loose (my size 8s!!!!). Yay!

The board vote went the way we had hoped, I am going to be the new VP. I am looking forward to being even more involved. I just hope that the mom I beat doesn't stop participating out of anger/spite. Although, it is her own fault; had she not tried to overthrow 2 of the other board members, they they never would have asked me to run. (and I wouldn't have run on my own-not this year anyway).

Wacky Wednesday

My morning routine was all out of whack today. Cassie was mad about the color of her shirt and really stalled getting ready. Get back from the bus stop and Nate wanted to try and go potty. Yay, I am really glad he wanted to try. However, after nearly an hour of sitting and a full glass of water later, no results. That's okay, buddy, you can try again later. And, yes, about 10 minutes after he was back in a diaper, he peed.

Nate has a music class on Wednesday mornings, and because he was trying the potty, I didn't have time to do my workout before hand. I had to wait until after we got the girls off the bus. So, I feel off kilter today.


There is a big PTO meeting tonight. Voting for next year's board members will be held. There is a lot of drama involving the current VP trying to oust the existing baord so that she doesn't have to answer to anyone about spending the funds. I have been nominated for VP to try and prevent the ousting of a great board. Our PTO does some great things for the kids, it will be a shame if this mutiny happens.

The sun has been out for a bit today. I am hoping to finally get the seedlings transplanted. I will try to remember to take pics of that exciting project :) !

PS~~ Yay for Maine for passing a same sex marriage bill today. And, New Hampshire might pass one too. That leaves RI as the only state in New England to not have adjusted its laws to allow love to be equal. (I just wrote the Senate President to ask why nothing has passed yet. We'll see if she responds)

P is for Potty

We had some minor success today. Nate peed in the potty for the very first time! He has been more than slighlty resistant to trying to go in the little potty. We wound up buying a padded seat that fits on top of the regular potty for him to sit on.

I missed an opportunity yesterday for him to poop on the potty, but today was determined to get something.

So, 30 minutes or so in the bathroom, singing silly songs, a cup of apple juice and the iPod playing games, and Yay! He peed. He was so, so excited to draw a smiley face on his potty chart. Then, we called Lino at work so Papa could say Great Job. For us, his first potty chart has 8 boxes on it. A pee gets one happy face, poop gets 2. Once he fills that chart, we will get him a small prize and do a chart with more boxes.

I have mentioned before, how I am not opposed to bribing my children in certain instances. This first potty occasion was one of them. When we were trying to talk Nate into even trying, we told him for his very first time we would take him (right away) to get an ice cream. Well, the other day one of the girls mentioned Chuck E Cheese, so....you guessed it-despite my efforts to talk him back into Friendly's, we wound up at Chuckies. The kids had fun though. The girls were super cute, when they got home Nate told them his news and they both gave him huge hugs and were just as excited for him as I was.

I know it is just a first step. About 20 minutes after he went, he pooped in his diaper while I was doing my workout. It is progress, though and I will take it.

My big plans for sewing today, didn't happen. (due to our unexpected field trip) I need to make a prototype book bag for a school program (due tomorrow night, so I will have to get that done) , I have the girls outfits, Nate's shirt and my skirt to finish. Those are all on the to do now list. Then, there is the list of things I would like to do: more things for Etsy (tote bags, crayon bags, crayon rolls, baby things, etc...endless actually), some stuffed bears to donate to a shelter that takes in victims of sexual/domestic abuse, and some other things that I have seen in my sewing magazines....a never ending list of want to do's.

Update

Fortunately, Maggie is feeling much better. I still had her take the anti-inflammatory medicine, just to be sure that she keeps improving.

I hope (need) to do some sewing tomorrow. I have so many projects that need to get done. I am hoping that the kids play with each other better tomorrow than they did today.

I will try to take pics of my projects. And, if it isn't raining, I need to transplant the seedlings.

Sunday

We didn't have too much planned for today, just some minor errands. I am currently waiting to see if the Motrin helps Maggie's neck. Apparently she was trying to do a handstand and Nate bumped her and when she got up she hurt her neck. (that was the best info I could get from her)

She is able to move all her parts, though she said it hurts to look all the way up to the ceiling and all the way left. If the Motrin doesn't make things better in an hour we will be heading to the Urgent Care place.

***

A cute kidism from last week. We were running errands on Lino's day off and had stopped at McD's for lunch. As we were leaving and backing out of the parking space, a girl backed out too, and the cars bumped. Lino was clear before he went, so we figure she didn't see us. (and not her first time, too, as evidenced by the other dents on her back bumper).

Anyhow, Lino called the police to file an accident report for the insurance companies. As we were waiting, Maggie says "I hope we don't get arrested" I laughed, and said "No, honey, we won't get arrested" She says. "Oh. Well I hope we aren't on TV"

Apparently we have had COPS on too many times.

Easter pictures.

From Easter. I made the girls dresses. Unfortunately, it was freezing that day. They wouldn't hear of wearing something else, so we used the sweaters from their Father-Daughter dance dresses. Nate had his sleeves rolled up, just like Papa did.

Happy May

Wow, April went by really quickly! Easter, Lino's birthday, school vacation and then my birthday, too. We have been busy.

I have also been keeping up with my workouts. I have done a workout every day. Some have been tougher than others, and I had a slight setback with my eating habits that was caused by Easter candy (I am completely unable to eat only 1 jellybean) But, I am back on track and seeing continued good results.

We went to Old Navy last week so I could try on some jeans. The last time I bought jeans was back in August/September and had to buy size 14's. Ugh. I was so mortified by that. Really was. Anyhow, I took some size 10's into the fitting room, and just to see how close I was, a pair of 8's.

I was thrilled that the 8's fit!!! I know it may be due to vanity sizing and the fact that no 2 pairs of jeans fit the same way, but Idon'tevencare!!!! I went back and scoured the shelves for every pair of 8's they had to try on! I found a few more that fit and picked the best pair. I only bought the one, because I am hoping that in a month I can get into some 6's!!!

I have even been able to fit into some shirts that I haven't been able to wear since before the girls were born! It is amazing what this has done for my self esteem. And, since I can fit into my own shirts now, Lino can have his back!

I still have a bunch of sewing to do, and pictures to post. The kids and I planted some seeds, and we are super excited that most of what we planted is growing! (I have absolutely no desire to garden, so this is a big deal for us! )

But for now, I need to catch up on chores. Yesterday was my birthday, so I didn't do everything that needed to be done. And, if I can keep busy, I may not eat too much leftover birthday cake :)