Halloween

Halloween was 2 days ago. I dislike that it was on a Sunday and Aidan had school the next day but it still went well. Aidan was Iron Man. Skylar also wanted to be Iron Man. Skylar at the last minute became very sick and with it being a little chilly here at night this past week, we decided no costume for her but warm pajamas and shoes & socks. She had a wet cough in her chest with a lot of head congestion :( (this is after I was also sick 3 days before for about 48 hours as well)

We were getting in the car, packing up the kids and the stroller to drive a few blocks away in our neighborhood to my sister in laws house to trick or treat with her kids when me and Joe felt really badly for Skylar. It wasn't as chilly as we thought it would be so we grabbed her pumpkin for candy, threw on a cute pink punk skirt, (over her ducky pajama bottoms) a skull necklace and a "play and destroy" T-shirt. she looked adorable. In the end it all worked out. It didn't get as chilly and she of course wanted to walk and trick or treat the entire time. We pushed the stroller the whole night for nothing :) I take that back, JOE pushed the stroller the whole night while I ran up to every door with her and listened to this cute sick voice saying trick or treat. At one house she asked the lady for a snickers bar for her daddy :) that was the best!

It's been awhile...

I work from home and the past few weeks have been crazy... I have lots to update and pictures to upload :) with coffee in hand, here I go.



First Aidan's field trip to the Green Meadows Farm, that is where we left off. There was confusion in the morning with my sister's truck not starting and she was chaperoning and they were an hour late getting to the school but they made the buses just in time! (charter buses too!) A neighbor drove them to the school so they could make it there in time. Lots of drama.

Aidan got to ride a pony, feed a goat, pet chickens and hold a baby ducky. Milk a cow, ride on a train/hay ride, & pick a pumpkin. All in all he said he had a great time. My sister says she will NEVER chaperone again :) success! She was only in charge of Aidan and one other little girl but because EVERY child was wearing the same tie-dye shirts :) she couldn't keep track of the kids. She said all of the other chaperones had to be on Valium because no one seemed to mind anything. She was frantic to keep a hold of her 2 kids and other parents would hand her more kids to do potty breaks and the kids would just run away and it was very funny listening to her tell me how crazy it was for her who will never ever do it again. :)

Tie Dye 101

Well I thought Aidan had missed his Tie Dying T-shirts for his field trip to Green Meadows Farm last Monday when he was out sick but turns out they did them on Wednesday right before their field trip. I still went out and purchased stuff to dye our own shirts and at least this way Skylar was able to join in to.



Skylar made a pink & purple shirt for her and Rachel's little sis Mackenzie who is also about Skylar's age. I think they turned out the best. ( I still have to upload those finished pics later for you)

Aidan did dark colors, red, blue, green & some purple. He went a little crazy and they were really saturated, but still cute. We didn't make no where near the mess I thought we would -for doing it in our play room in the house. I didn't even wear gloves. We used the Rit-dye liquid & powders. I'm glad I bought squirt bottles, I think that is the best and most fun method for dyeing.

And the sickies just keep coming...

Last Thursday Aidan came home from school and barely had touched his lunch, plus he didn't throw it away, he left it spilling into his lunchbox which is very strange for him not to just throw it away at school. He also had no given his blue folder to his teacher or his 2 library books. I emailed his teacher and asked her what went on at school and why didn't he turn in his stuff. She responded with she asked him twice at two separate times of the day to get his folder & put it in her mailbox and Aidan walked over to his backpack each time and then just walked away. Ok something is wrong. Well 2 hours after he got home from school I figured out what it was. He immediately spiked a fever of 102 and kept it for 48 hours. He was just out of it. He laid down on the couch and wouldn't eat or drink anything. I finally had to force cold sprite and Tea down his throat since he refused to take any medicine that might bring down the fever, needless to say he received 3 cool baths on Thursday to help. He slept in our bed all weekend and by Monday morning his fever had returned and was still throwing up. So now we have missed Friday and Monday of school again -which I HATE because he was doing so well and I hate to know what he missed at school. I'm sure tonight will be homework catch up night for sure!

His field trip is this Thursday so I hope he feels a lot better by then. I thought he missed out on Tie Dyeing shirts that they will be wearing on his field trip but his teacher emailed me yesterday and said they are doing them today. So I sent him to school today, phone is near me in case I have to go pick him up.

However I spent $20.00 is tie dying stuff yesterday at Walmart because I thought he did miss out on doing it at school. Now when he gets home today we are all going to do it together. We even got pink & purple so Skylar can do her own T-shirt! I spent over an hour Google-ing techniques :) I have never tie dyed anything before! So I will add pictures tomorrow of our mess

Also I have decided that for his Birthday (December 2nd) since all he wants is a party with a bounce house that he is getting one present from us. I've been looking into different things he wants but I've decided on this new Leap Frog Leapster Explorer. It seems to have a lot of learning features that he would really like. Plus I really would like him to have a hand held device that he can take in the car or in his own room and get off my computer. It has lots of learning games and tracing letters and a lOT more features including E-books, videos, even a camera attachment. What do you think? It is $69.00 which makes me gulp very hard on top of an already $80.00 Bounce house with party & food. However, if he gets it for his birthday, he can break it in and then get more games & accessories for Christmas which isn't much later.

(Maybe I'll just start a birthday fund :)

Bad Weather & Lockdowns

Here in the great state of daily thunderstorms and hurricanes we get some really good downpours in the afternoon. Do I own at least one umbrella for walking Aidan to the bus stop? I do...somewhere...in a closet...or was it in the car? Needless to say, I can't find a single umbrella! Bus stops are not fun in the rain. Mud puddles with clean white socks are not fun in the rain. (Maybe to Aidan)

Yesterday (Tuesday) It was time for Aidan's bus to be dropping off the kids when I receive a phone call from Aidan's teacher...The children are still at the school on lock down because of all of the lightning and flash flooding. I'm really glad she called. I could hear chaos in the background. The teacher put me on hold to calm down a little girl who was scared and her mommy was now coming to get her from the school instead of riding the bus home. I hear the word "Lock down" and I fear the worst... When they are crimes and police chases or anything of the sort, in the area of a public school, the schools are put on "lock downs" until the crisis is taken care of. I feel better knowing it's just the weather. I didn't like it when the teacher informed me that it is their policy for the bus drivers to also stop and if the weather is too bad, to bring the kids back to the school so the parents can pick them up there. Thankfully, the weather let up enough for the buses to continue and needless to say Aidan arrived safely home about an hour later than usual.

p.s. I called Rachel's mom to see if she had heard the news and she had not. (Skylar was still sick so Rachel's mom was going to pick up Aidan & Rachel from the bus stop for me) Luckily Aidan's teacher was calling all of her student's parents but not the other teachers in the higher grades (Rachel is in 2nd).I bet after Aidan's first day of school bus fiasco, I was first on her calling list :), she definitely reassured me on the phone that Aidan was ok and he would be coming home soon. I feel bad for all of the other parents who sat in the rain at bus stops for about an hour waiting for their kids to come home not knowing why they were so late...Don't bother calling the school to find out why, the lines were busy the entire time.

*Note to self: buy a large umbrella*

Yesterday I just so happen to be waiting for Aidan to get home so I could go grocery shopping otherwise the delay really wouldn't have bothered me. Now I was shopping an hour late, which put me into 6 o'clock traffic when we left the grocery store, which put me late into making dinner and now I have 2 children in the backseat of the car starving and chanting "we want french fries" *sigh* Damn Thunderstorms!

I really wish I could remember to not wear my flip flops when I go grocery shopping in the rain. My feet get soak & wet, then freezing cold as you step in the grocery store, plus you Hydro-plane on any flat surface until your flippies dry. Of course my little independent Skylar had to walk in the rain next to me from the store back to the car as opposed to riding in the shopping cart so I could at least run to the car in the pouring rain but Nooooo Miss Independent is all about me letting her walk like a big girl.

**Moral of today's story: Always keep an umbrella by your front door & if you are on a tight grocery shopping schedule and it's raining...don't bother, just order a pizza and shop the next day :)

Progress Reports

We received Aidan's progress report and it reads as I had suspected it would. Unless he is a trouble maker, a bully, socially disruptive or a biter, he is going to get all "S"'s for satisfactory. I really wonder if any other child got a different progress report? match, science, English, writing, and all of those categories, he received a "W" which is for Kindergarten & first grades only which means "working on skills". Wouldn't every single child in the first progress report get one of those? ALL children are "working on skills" that is the point of the first few weeks of Kindergarten. I'm confused. However, in the Art, Music, P.E. categories, he receives an "S" in all of them. So he requires the skills already for those? Maybe he needs to work on his jumping rope skill?

In the notes section the teacher write "Aidan is such a sweet boy. He is doing well in class. With a little extra help from the teacher he completes the work assigned. He can benefit from extra practice in staying on task and following directions, and writing letters appropriately.

I would like to point out that he is a 5 year old boy with the attention spam of a gnat! If I'm talking to him anywhere near a t.v., he will look through/around me to see the t.v. while I'm trying to tell him something. I would LOVE to give him some extra practice in "staying on task and following instructions" :) that one hopefully will work itself out in time, with the teacher's help lol. I don't believe that at this point with Aidan it is something that can be "taught" I can ask him to put something in his room and he will get half way there and start doing something else. I can tell Skylar to do something once and she does it, Aidan not so much. In fact, I can tell Aidan to go do something or get me something and Skylar will race him there to do it instead of him.

Such is the way with girls. Skylar still helps carry in groceries while Aidan walks inside, takes his shoes off and will sit down complaining he's thirsty. Amazing how girls learn instinctively at a young age to work and take care of everyone while boys learn to drop dead of exhaustion and complain until someone brings them a drink.

Sick Again!

Aidan was sick again last week, fortunately his only lasted a weekend and another Monday missed from still having a fever. He is all better now. However the cold was passed along to me, Daddy & Skylar who is still sick as we all got better.

Last Tuesday night was Aidan's first open house. They divided the night into 2 different time slots back to back for 40 minutes a slot. However, I think all parents for Aidan's class showed up in the first 40 minute time slot like I did, and we stayed the whole hour and a half. I was the first one there and the last one to leave :) It was cute. The class was set up all nice and we had a "scavenger hunt" when we walked in so our child could show us around the room and to each station and tell us a little bit about what they do during the day. Needless to say, I just walked around and looked at everything and would ask Aidan what is this for? And he was so excited just to show me all the kids in his class that I couldn't get much out of him. Joe was out of town working unfortunately so he didn't get to go. I had to take Skylar with me and she was QUITE the typical two year old running around touching everything. It was so hard to listen to what Aidan's teacher wanted to say because I was trying to keep an eye on Skylar while she was at a coloring station with other children and Aidan was a hyper talkative little boy who kept trying to tell me things. I was irritated at the "announcement" on video as soon as we "the parents" got into the classroom. We were all made to sit and watch a 10-15 minutes presentation on a video made for us about voting in November and what it means for school funding. I'm not saying it isn't important, but I'm here tonight in a very short amount of time to learn about my child's progression in school and what they have been working on plus any questions I may have, not to spend 15 minutes I'll never get back being kidnapped and FORCED to watch politicians speak.

We were informed that their first field trip in coming up. They are going to a farm/petting zoo place in the first week of October. I can't wait! I will not be able to chaperone this time since I will have Skylar but My sister is going in my place. I should say this now how much better I feel knowing that someone I know & trust will be with him while he is away. Plus she can take lots of pictures for me :)

I can't wait to post those pictures!