We made it back from our trip, and I'll speak for both of us and say that we are refreshed and ready to head back to regular life. I've never been so glad to see my kids! A full week without them was almost too long, but my husband and I were very much in need of some extended time to be just the two of us and to remember what that feels like. A refreshed marriage spills into the other areas of your life, you know?
I'm working 2 full days this week, Ender has 2 piano lessons this week, and we have plans to get to the library at some point. I also need to restock the kitchen with a few things that we didn't need while we were gone- milk, eggs, yogurt, etc.- all the stuff that goes bad when you're gone for a week. I'm going to try to get out the door first thing tomorrow morning and get those few things back to the house before work. As for the house, I worked my tail off the 2 days before we left to get the last boxes to the basement and get the house generally clean. I'm feeling pretty good about that! I have our laundry to do from the trip, but the boys' laundry is already done thanks to my thoughtful mother who ran their clothes through this morning before picking us up at the airport.
My goal for this week is just to spend about 20 minutes a day keeping things picked up and tidy since we left the house in great shape before the trip. If I can do that and keep up on the laundry and dishes I'll be a very happy girl.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
About Me
Borrowed from Rockin' Granola . . .
1. What is your occupation right now? I own and teach at a music studio. :)
2. What color are your socks right now? I'm barefoot, like I am all summer long!
3. Whare you listening to right now? Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie in the background (hubby is watching it)
4. What was the last thing you ate? McDonald's for dinner last night- we're leaving to have brunch in a little bit! We're away on vacation, so meals are a little odd right now. :)
5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes- That was actually my first car that I owned all on my own (I was 19). I had a 1984 powder blue Audi... in 2001. It was a terrible car. In the winter I had to tie the driver's side door to the passenger door to keep it closed because it would get so cold that the latch wouldn't work properly.
6. The last person you spoke to on the phone: My sons. Like I said above, my husband and I are away- just the two of us!- for a conference, so the boys are with my in-laws right now. We talk to them several times a day. I miss them so much!
7. How old are you today? I'm 27.
8. What is your favorite sport to watch? Ice Hockey. :)
9. What is your favorite drink? Hard: I'm a Margarita girl. Soft: Raspberry Iced Tea
10. Favorite Food? I love salsa and chips. I would eat that all day every day. Yum!
11. What is the last movie you watched? We're watching the fifth Harry Potter movie right now, but the last new-to-me movie I watched was the new X-Files movie.
12. What is your favorite Season? Summer. I'm so cold a lot of the time- it's the only time I'm warm!
13. Cherries or Blueberries? Cherries.
14. What is on the floor of your closet? At home thats where we keep all of hubby's and my shoes lined up. Also right now there's a few half-full boxes- 1 for maternity clothes, 1 of my pre-pregnancy clothes I had started to sort through again, and 1 for donations- I thought I'd finish sorting all that before we left for our trip, but it just didn't happen. Plus I'm a little embarassed to admit that I'm just now getting to sorting out my maternity clothes when my "baby" is 13 months old in a few days! I haven't worn them in ages, but also haven't taken the time to box them up.
15. What did you do last night? Well, we spent all day yesterday in a conference hall and we finished at 5:45. We called our boys to say goodnight (time difference made it bedtime for our older one, little one was already asleep), went to dinner, came back to the hotel and went through notes and things from the day. I worked for a little while, read, spent time with my husband and we both crashed early.
16. Plain, Cheese or Spicy Hamburgers? I like hamburgers with spicy things on them- Pepper Jack cheese, etc.
17. Favorite dog breed? I really don't know- I've never really been around dogs. My mother was allergic so we weren't allowed a pet and I didn't really have any friends with pets, so I don't know!
18. Favorite Day of the week? Well, we're busy every day of the week, but I'll say Friday. I only teach for an hour on Fridays and we have no other scheduled plans so that's the day we try to do more fun things- special outings or crafty mornings or lots of baking. It's my most flexible day. :)
19. How many states have you lived in? Five. :)
1. What is your occupation right now? I own and teach at a music studio. :)
2. What color are your socks right now? I'm barefoot, like I am all summer long!
3. Whare you listening to right now? Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie in the background (hubby is watching it)
4. What was the last thing you ate? McDonald's for dinner last night- we're leaving to have brunch in a little bit! We're away on vacation, so meals are a little odd right now. :)
5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes- That was actually my first car that I owned all on my own (I was 19). I had a 1984 powder blue Audi... in 2001. It was a terrible car. In the winter I had to tie the driver's side door to the passenger door to keep it closed because it would get so cold that the latch wouldn't work properly.
6. The last person you spoke to on the phone: My sons. Like I said above, my husband and I are away- just the two of us!- for a conference, so the boys are with my in-laws right now. We talk to them several times a day. I miss them so much!
7. How old are you today? I'm 27.
8. What is your favorite sport to watch? Ice Hockey. :)
9. What is your favorite drink? Hard: I'm a Margarita girl. Soft: Raspberry Iced Tea
10. Favorite Food? I love salsa and chips. I would eat that all day every day. Yum!
11. What is the last movie you watched? We're watching the fifth Harry Potter movie right now, but the last new-to-me movie I watched was the new X-Files movie.
12. What is your favorite Season? Summer. I'm so cold a lot of the time- it's the only time I'm warm!
13. Cherries or Blueberries? Cherries.
14. What is on the floor of your closet? At home thats where we keep all of hubby's and my shoes lined up. Also right now there's a few half-full boxes- 1 for maternity clothes, 1 of my pre-pregnancy clothes I had started to sort through again, and 1 for donations- I thought I'd finish sorting all that before we left for our trip, but it just didn't happen. Plus I'm a little embarassed to admit that I'm just now getting to sorting out my maternity clothes when my "baby" is 13 months old in a few days! I haven't worn them in ages, but also haven't taken the time to box them up.
15. What did you do last night? Well, we spent all day yesterday in a conference hall and we finished at 5:45. We called our boys to say goodnight (time difference made it bedtime for our older one, little one was already asleep), went to dinner, came back to the hotel and went through notes and things from the day. I worked for a little while, read, spent time with my husband and we both crashed early.
16. Plain, Cheese or Spicy Hamburgers? I like hamburgers with spicy things on them- Pepper Jack cheese, etc.
17. Favorite dog breed? I really don't know- I've never really been around dogs. My mother was allergic so we weren't allowed a pet and I didn't really have any friends with pets, so I don't know!
18. Favorite Day of the week? Well, we're busy every day of the week, but I'll say Friday. I only teach for an hour on Fridays and we have no other scheduled plans so that's the day we try to do more fun things- special outings or crafty mornings or lots of baking. It's my most flexible day. :)
19. How many states have you lived in? Five. :)
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Laundry
I was reading over at Rockin Granola about her quandry with laundry. I've tried many systems over the years and the thing that works for us best right now is to do each person's laundry on their own day. My little guys aren't big enough to do their own yet, but Big Kid helps bring laundry to the laundry room, and he likes to "help fold" - which usually means that he pulls out an item and says, "Mama, you should fold this one." Thanks, son.
I used to gather everything up every day and tried to do a load of laundry every day. That worked until the younger one got so tall that the boys are now just one size apart in clothing! I would spend each load of laundry checking tags on their clothes to see which child the item belonged to, and I got tired of that really fast. I already hate to do laundry, so that just agravated the hate!
Now I do each person's laundry on a certain day of the week- no more sorting or checking tags and the laundry gets put away all in one room instead of 3 different bedrooms and the linen closet. I do my husband's laundry twice a week since his work clothes come home really gross, and he's wearing at least 2 outfits every day.
I'm sure that this will all change in September when I start working my regular hours again, but for now it's working well.
I used to gather everything up every day and tried to do a load of laundry every day. That worked until the younger one got so tall that the boys are now just one size apart in clothing! I would spend each load of laundry checking tags on their clothes to see which child the item belonged to, and I got tired of that really fast. I already hate to do laundry, so that just agravated the hate!
Now I do each person's laundry on a certain day of the week- no more sorting or checking tags and the laundry gets put away all in one room instead of 3 different bedrooms and the linen closet. I do my husband's laundry twice a week since his work clothes come home really gross, and he's wearing at least 2 outfits every day.
I'm sure that this will all change in September when I start working my regular hours again, but for now it's working well.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Planning for Fall
We're taking a break from structured learning this week in favor of play centers- specifically "post office". Mail is a big deal around here, so we're playing post office and delivering letters to different places in the house. This week I'm working on getting curriculum together for fall, so I didn't want to have to worry about school papers while I'm busy printing, copying and filing for fall.
I've looked at several resources for us to use this year and I wasn't happy with any of them. I'm so used to designing my own lesson plans (I used to teach in a private school) so the pre-planned things weren't quite right. Ender is young to be starting school (3 in October) but intensely curious and after experimenting with doing papers and montessori type activities the last few months I know he's really serious about this learning thing. He loves to do papers, so I'm adding more of those than I'd originally planned. The prepackaged preschool materials are too simple, but the Kindergarten things go into phonics and addition and I don't think we'll be ready for that until next spring or summer at the earliest.
He knows his uppercase letters by sight and out of order, he knows a handful of lowercase letters and a few sounds. He knows his numbers by rote and by sight through 15 consistently, and sometimes through 20. We do a lot of "life math"- how many forks do we need for dinner? type things. He cooks and bakes with me almost daily, and measures quite well. He is such a studious quiet child; I can already tell that his little brother is going to be far too busy for this early learning stuff!
I've looked at several resources for us to use this year and I wasn't happy with any of them. I'm so used to designing my own lesson plans (I used to teach in a private school) so the pre-planned things weren't quite right. Ender is young to be starting school (3 in October) but intensely curious and after experimenting with doing papers and montessori type activities the last few months I know he's really serious about this learning thing. He loves to do papers, so I'm adding more of those than I'd originally planned. The prepackaged preschool materials are too simple, but the Kindergarten things go into phonics and addition and I don't think we'll be ready for that until next spring or summer at the earliest.
He knows his uppercase letters by sight and out of order, he knows a handful of lowercase letters and a few sounds. He knows his numbers by rote and by sight through 15 consistently, and sometimes through 20. We do a lot of "life math"- how many forks do we need for dinner? type things. He cooks and bakes with me almost daily, and measures quite well. He is such a studious quiet child; I can already tell that his little brother is going to be far too busy for this early learning stuff!
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