I was so looking forward to this weekend. The past few weeks have been really difficult to get through. There’s just been a lot going on and we’ve been busy and stressed out about all kinds of things. The weekends seem like the only chance we have to come up for air…and we take full advantage. Last Sunday we all stayed home just because Sam did (he was sick). It’s not really a good reason…but it was nice to just hang out with no agenda…nothing to get ready for…nowhere to go.
Last night Sam and I went on a much anticipated date. Big Jasmin came over to be with the kids. I think they had a really good time with her. It’s been a few weeks since they’ve seen her. They miss Mimi a lot. So we were driving up to Lansing (we often go there on our dates) and I asked what he was planning to do. And he said he was taking me shopping! What!? I was shocked. This had never happened. Apparently he had some money and wanted to buy me some new clothes. Nice. So we got to the store around 7:30 but found out they were closing at 8. So I tried on as much as I could in that half hour and we walked out with 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of pants for work, a sweater and three shirts. We save 83.00 because of the sales, too! It was the fastest shopping trip I have ever done. But it was fun. After that we went over to Pancheros for some yummy burritos. Then we went to see a movie I am not proud to admit I saw, but it did have a good story line. Anyway, we had a good time.
My plan for today was to get a lot of house work done. It didn’t go as planned. Sam left early this morning to help out at Penny’s Estate Sale. I was expected (mine and Sam’s expectations) to spend the whole day cleaning and really make some progress on it. It’s been a while since I have done some good thorough cleaning and every room needs some attention desperately. So tonight, Sam comes home and he’s disappointed. I am disappointed with myself and feel really horrible about not even coming close to meeting our expectations. It’s just so hard when you have four kids running around, demanding stuff, wanting to eat every 5 minutes, changing diapers, cleaning up messes! (And there were a lot today…let’s see: spilled milk, spilled water, Karson’s playmobile mining rocks, rice, cheerios, paper airplanes and all the remnants of the process of creating them – they had fun with the stapler that I brought home from school this weekend, a broken glass, spilled malt-o-meal, bathtime – need I say more, and then there are all the toys and clothes and dishes!) I seriously felt like I spent the day following the kids around and cleaning up stuff. They were not very cooperative with me today. I noticed that when I try to discipline them, they ALWAYS ask for more chances…which tells me that my discipline is not very effective…which makes it REALLY hard to get them to do anything. Sam has no problem with that…but when I am home alone with them, it is always a struggle. On top of that, Jaz is teething. Well, she has her top two teeth now, but maybe there are more coming in…I haven’t really checked. But she was very fussy today. Didn’t eat well. It seemed like every time I tried to feed her she was overly tired and wouldn’t eat much. She did not take good naps today. Especially her afternoon nap. She woke up like 3 times. She was a little congested…maybe she just didn’t feel all that great, I don’t know. It’s hard to know what to do when it isn’t obvious what the problem is. I felt like I tried everything…but nothing worked and so I was frustrated a lot today, which made it hard on the kids probably, because I felt under pressure to get stuff done, and started to realize I couldn’t and I kind of took out my frustrations on them because they hadn’t done much…but I really didn’t create the opportunity for them to do things to help clean up. They did a little. But I mean, if I would have been more about making it fun and coming up with a goal to work towards or something, it might have been more successful.
Tomorrow is another day. We will all be at church. I am going to enjoy it. We’ll come home and eat our dinner and have our “family nap time”, I’ll do some loads of laundry, put it away, and do my lesson plans probably…hopefully I will not have to stay up till 2 or 3.
I think I am starting to get sick, because my throat is sore or swollen on one side…it’s really painful. It’s probably my body wearing down…I am sure I can’t keep up these late nights too much longer without getting sick. I should be in bed right now, actually. I think I will go put the laundry in the dryer and start another load and then I am going to bed.
Here’s a picture of the kids on their first day of school this year…Savannah in 3rd grade, Max and Karson in Kindergarten.

Yeah…I know I have to go to work in five hours…Tonight Sam brought all the kids over to me at school.  We stayed there till 7.  I was so glad to get some extra time in my classroom. There is so much to do.  The kids were great.  Jasmin slept a little on the pillows in my classroom library and the kids played outside on the playground and with the blocks and stuff in my room.  There are lots of things for them to do in the kindergarten room.  Max spent a lot of time looking at his comic book.  He is so cute trying to find words he knows and stuff. He is really doing great and I am so glad we had him stay in Kindergarten.  Karson is catching on to stuff too.  I overheard him under my easel reciting the alphabet chart.  (A  /a/ apple, B /b/ bird…) He’s been singing all his little songs he learns at school too.  It’s really cute.  Savannah was a big help.  She helped me grade papers.  Actually she just organized them and stuck stickers on them for me and wrote WOW! on the really good ones.  I’ll go back through them later, but it has saved me some time.  When we got home we ate and got ready for bed.  Sam went back to work.  He has been trying to get everything done for Penny’s memorial service tomorrow.  At midnight he came home and gave me the pictures and asked me to make a display for the lobby on a presentation board.  I kind of panicked a little because I was just thinking about going to bed.  Well I found Sherry and Kevin’s old presentation board and cleaned it off, mounted the pictures on some coordinating paper and arranged them on the board.  I wanted a few more pictures so I went digging through boxes and actually found several more I could use.  There’s one of Sam and Sherry and her with wigs on or something…really funny and another one of her carving the Thanksgiving turkey.  Anyway, my house is a mess, the kids lunches aren’t packed (I think I’ll let them get hot lunch) and Sam’s Aunt and Uncle will be at our house around noon…which is about the time I should get home from school. (I am taking the afternoon off)  Then I am going to go pick up some kind of a top to wear with my black pants and pick up the kids and we’ll head up there around 4 or so.  It will be fun to be with family and that I am looking forward to.  It’s kind of hard watching the video Sam has been working on…I miss her so much when I watch it.  Well, I am going to go to bed for my 3 hours of sleep.  (for the 2nd night in a row)

It’s been crazy around here the past two weeks.  Here’s a recap of our life lately.

We pulled Karson out of Young Fives and moved him to Kindergarten at Max and Savannah’s school.  Now we have both the boys in Kindergarten right next door to each other.  Anyway, he’s happy and we are happy and it solved our day care issue with him, since it’s all day K.  Now we only have to pay for Jasmin…it cuts our childcare costs in half.

Kindergarten is going better.  The first day was awful, but each day it gets easier.  I’m figuring stuff out and enjoying it more.  The afternoon goes by so fast, it’s crazy.  One thing about half day kindergarten…I don’t know how you are supposed to fit everything in!  I really like my class.  They are a good group of kids.  We have fun, and I think maybe most of them love me.  One little boy gives me a hug and tells me he loves me everyday.  So cute!

Here’s a picture of my class and their flags that they made last week.

Our camper is still sitting in our driveway after four weeks!  I have barely touched it except to get things we needed out.  Though tonight, I did clean out the refrigerator because we unplugged it for a while this afternoon.

I totally forgot until Thursday that today is Karson’s birthday.  What kind of mom forgets to plan a party for their kid’s 5th birthday!?  I feel terrible.  It is going to be very hard to have a party now anytime close to his birthday because our family has so much going on this week.  Luckily he doesn’t really care that much.  I was going to plan a party at Fun For all Kids.  We did Max’s party there and it was so easy.  But he just wants it at home.  Last year we had a big party with an army theme, so I guess this year would be his year for just a family party anyway.  I think we are kind of planning for Thursday night.

Tuesday is Penny’s memorial service.  I am kind of looking forward to it, but then kind of anxious to get past it.  It’s been kind of strange having so much time pass between her death and her memorial service.  Sam has been working on putting together a slideshow of her, but we wish we had more pictures of her…we don’t even have enough for a whole song.  That was the thing about Penny.  She was always helping behind the scenes, serving people and ministering to them…it seems that she avoided the camera at most of our family celebrations because of that.

This weekend we took Pirate Island out to flavor fruit farms.  My nephew Josiah wanted it for his birthday and so we had the party out there.  Because we came out there for free, Meckley’s gave us all the perks of a party…free hayride, doughnuts and cider, walk through the corn maze and free tickets for the inflatable.  The kids had a blast and our shows were really fun.  It was a beautiful day and the kids were all great.  We were tired though and Sam is sick this weekend, so it was a lot more work for me tearing down.  We pulled out right as Laura the elephant was pulling in to our spot.  Perfect timing.

I’m writing this at 2 in the morning.  When we got home I took the kids upstairs and gave them all baths/showers…but trying to get them in bed was challenging. You know how kids love to stall…and I just had no patience…so I came down and asked Sam to finish putting them to bed and Jaz and I layed on the couch with a bottle and fell asleep for a few hours.  So now I am wide awake.  I put the roast in the crockpot and got it cooking for lunch and did some laundry, wrote some emails and updated my school’s website.  Now I think I am ready to go back to sleep.  I don’t know if we’ll go to church tomorrow…it’s always weird going without Sam.  He’s staying home and hoping to get some extra rest.

I decided to delete that post about my first day of school under the advisement of my husband.  sometimes I just start writing and I don’t think about what the ramifications of what I am writing could be.  Not that anything happened…but I was venting, and I think some of those things are probably best not shared with the world.  So I deleted the post.  First time I ever did that.  Sorry if you didn’t get a chance to read it.  I’ll write more about this week later.