SPT: Childhood Memories

Believe it or not, this is the one picture I have of my first day of kindergarten. The back of my head. But I'm pretty sure I know what my mom was going for, my crowning glory, the long blond hair. Who knows, maybe my face was dirty? Which is a pity, cause kindergarten was my most attractive year.
School started off great. That first year of kindergarten was the best ever. I remember being popular, I joke that the only time I've ever been popular has been in kindergarten, but it's really true. The kids used to fight over who could sit next to me at lunch. It was great.
Things just got worse from there on.

First Grade.

I think this is where it started to go down hill. Kids are mean, I had no front teeth, and the ones that eventually came in to replace my unsightly gap were insanely large and stuck out to create an unsightly overbite. It was the bane of my existence. And to top it all off I had a horrible speech delay, I couldn't say my 'R's' and people often did not understand what I was saying.
So school was never great for me, except for high school when I got braces and a bit more confidence, then it got better.
But I have a terrible fear of school, and I fear for my children. How do you protect them from being bullied or terrorized? I guess you can't, but I hope to give them enough confidence and self-worth to not let the negative things affect them deeply.
On a more positive note, the one thing I do remember well about grade school is the fashion. I have three sisters, so there were a lot of curled banged and large cans of aerosol hairspray around the house. If your bangs were not stiff and high, they were not looking good. I also remember wearing jeans, but I would roll them over and then roll them up my calf, and take my socks and roll them down like a doughnut around my ankle. I thought this was cool. Maybe it was, I mean it was the eighties.

Another First Day

He was in my room at 6:45 this morning insisting it was time to go to school. I had thought Talin was excited for his first day of kindergarten, well Collin has been insane with impatience for his first day of preschool. Today it finally arrived. He was so thrilled to go. Most of the children in his class had mom and dad's drop them off and fuss over them and I saw a few cry as they walked back to their cars. I could hardly contain myself from skipping, I'm free all morning, with no babies!! I can do whatever I please without someone to drag along or complain at me. It's a nice feeling. And it's even better when both of your kids love going to school and really enjoy the socialization of being out of their own home. I could really get used to this.

Talin needed to get into the photography session I was having with Collin this morning. The best thing is that their classrooms are right next door to each other and I won't be surprised if they catch a glimpse of one another during the morning. It's just comforting to know they are both right there.

On a completely different note, I threw a baby shower on Saturday for my friend Betsy. She had a little girl while I was gone over the summer and two months later I finally got around to the shower. This is a picture of her (on the right) and her sister Katrina who was in town visiting from Arizona.

The shower was fun. I had a lot of stress and anxiety going into it, I don't like being in charge of things and I'm not super great at social events with a lot of people. But it turned out great and I'm glad I was able to do this for her.

Here is her little girl Hannah. I wish I would have gotten a better picture, she is the cutest thing ever.

Not a very good picture of the food, there were constantly people standing in front of it and as you can see, some people even just decided to camp out at the table entirely! But the food was really good, and I got a lot of help making it so I wasn't on my own. Overall a great time.

Randomness

I have a few things to mention right now and they're random, so I'll number them.

1. Collin is doing better, the rash looks the same if not worse, but has been diagnosed as poison oak. We are lotioning every two hours with calamine and hoping the redness and bumps and all around crustiness goes away by Monday for his first day of preschool.

2. Talin asked me loudly in WalMart when dad was going to put a baby in my tummy. I kind of groaned and started wishing that five year olds could talk in a voice that was anything but yelling with each statement. Is that smirks I see from fellow shoppers or my imagination? Tom would say it's my imagination, everything is when I ask him.

3. I had the best compliment in the world today. Someone thought I was eighteen years old. Isn't that fabulous? Eighteen! I'm going to hang onto that for awhile, especially the surprised face when I told her I was really twenty-seven. This is a treasured moment and I can't stop smiling when I think about it. Eighteen... :)

4. My cousin Rachel started a blog and I'm really excited about that. She has made it private, so email her if you want to read it. I hope she doesn't care that I'm announcing this, but I'm really thrilled to read about her everyday.

Any Idea??

Okay, this is how my little boy woke up this morning, looking like this. What??? Is it a rash, is it a fungus, is it some kind of weird skin disease??

I'm at a loss. Tom is at a loss. Help.

Obviously he can't go to the doctor until Tuesday, if it's even like this till then, which I would die if it is. But has anyone had their children come down with mysterious skin problems? Does it look like something obvious that I'm not seeing?

Help!

Check-Up

Why is it that every time you go to the doctor’s office you’re there for an insane amount of time? With two little boys, it’s even crazier. Reading books and drawing pictures can only entertain a child for so long.
And to add to the craziness, picture Talin, who is five years old, receiving just ONE shot. Not a big deal right? Wrong.
The child cowered in the corner and hid under a chair when the nurse came in with the shot. I had to threaten him to get him to sit on the bed so the shot could be administered. He screamed bloody murder. I was amazed at this reaction. Last year he got SIX shots and didn’t make a peep. What happened to my little man?
Then, after being in the office FOREVER, we head down to the pathology department to get blood drawn for Collin. Talin was thrilled when he learned that Collin was getting a shot as well.
Collin on the other hand was fine and dandy with it until me and another nurse had to secure his arms while they put the needle in and drew the blood. The child went ballistic before the needle was even in his arm.
Talin stood in awe, grateful to have just received a shot.
Two, well actually three, candy bars and two happy boys and one exhausted mother later we got to go home. Now I’m nursing a headache and waiting for bedtime to arrive SOON, PLEASE!
Oh, and I almost forgot to add in the little mishap once we arrived home. They go up the stairs to play in their room when I hear the beginning rumble of the two of them falling down the stairs in a heap of little boy arms and legs. It was the most horrifying thing to see.
Is this the major fall that puts one of them in the hospital or a cast??!!
All the panic comes, but thankfully both are fine. Once I realized that Collin is going to have a bruised back and Talin a bruised forehead, I breathe a sigh of relief and start screaming at them about playing on the stairs.

For heaven’s sake, does mothering get any easier!

Some days…..

Talin's First Day

I sent my baby off to full day kindergarten today. It was tough. I almost cried, but sucked it in, I don't know why I'm so nervous for him, I'm sure he's having a great day. He's been so excited. I kept asking him how he felt to be going to school, and he would smile and say how happy he was to finally be going to kindergarten. And then in the background was Collin's voice, "I not happy about it". Oh yes, when the attention is not on him, he's typically not. But his time will come, it's going to be hard for him to lose his best friend all day. I'll have to be gentle with him and the attitude that is sure to come.

Have you seen a happier boy? I have him in an apron because he's a notoriously messy eater and he was having waffles with syrup, so I didn't want him to be all crusty on his first day of school. Is he not adorable!

The Joys of being a Sunday school teacher

Five twelve year-olds and two toddlers later, this is what my kitchen table looked like this morning. And this picture does not do it justice, it was littered with sprinkles of every color.

It sounded like such a GREAT idea to have my little Sunday schoolers over for a weekday class get-together to make treats for our less active class members, but I should have read the signs that the day would not be great. And it wasn't even that bad, it's just that Collin ran a fever all the night before, and I woke up with a headache, which is never a good thing. And once the cookies were made we spent over an hour in the car delivering them. But I guess it was all worth it, because the kids had a really fabulous time together outside of the classroom. They are already begging for another get together to watch movies. Sounds like a personal hell. Don't get me wrong though, I have a fondness for this little Sunday school class of mine.

I'm just not thrilled about the sink full of frosting dishes that is still waiting on me to clean.

Countdown to School

I’m really excited for Talin to start kindergarten on Thursday, and so is he. Collin also starts preschool in September and we are exceptionally excited for that event as well. Here are a few reasons why I can’t wait for school to start this year.

1. Collin wandering around the house singing “somewhere over the rainbow” in a voice that sounds like a cross between Frank Sinatra and satan.

2. Talin and Collin insisting they fix my hair so that I can look more like a princess. I ended up wearing a crown, multiple pony tails in my hair, my hands covered in every ring I owned and a few necklaces to boot. Tom found it very amusing when he arrived home for lunch.

3. Hearing the boys narrate what me, the princess is doing throughout the day. We have thin walls, and the other day I overheard Collin, “the princess is upstairs, going potty!” followed by giggling. Is there no privacy?

4. Lego’s everywhere, they get cleaned up, yet they still litter the house. I don’t understand this. I finally confiscated them, yet I still find Talin with the occasional Lego that has not been put away. They are the tiny ones, and are making my life miserable. How can one little toy destroy your happiness like this?

5. The bucket on my back porch full of about ten dead caterpillars. How am I going to explain to them that their best friend’s who they are expecting to turn into butterflies, have died? And why did they die? They had plenty of foliage in there to eat, and branches to cocoon onto. I don’t understand, and neither will my boys.

Just a few reasons why school is going to be a welcome break from the little things in life that are starting to ware me out. Plus the fall is going to be gorgeous. Love the fall in Iowa.

The Fair

We went to the Iowa State Fair on Friday. I guess this fair is extremely famous, they have a massive amount of animals, activities and fried food. It's common to deep fry candy bars, Twinkies, and I guess anything you can eat. The smell is incredible when you walk in the fair and it's much too large to do in one day.
Well we happened to be there on the hottest day ever! I thought I was going to die. The four of us are blue eyed, blond hair and don't do well in the heat. It was exhausting. And it didn't help that the first thing I ate was a funnel cake, it sounded so good, but it made me so sick. I could only breath through my mouth the rest of the time because every time I got a whiff of something deep fried I thought I was going to vomit! It was awful, but I tried really hard to have a good time. It was just difficult because Collin had several breakdowns and even Talin got upset at some point. But here are the fun fair pictures, the animals were crazy!

This cow was freaking us out. First of all he was huge and second of all his hip bones stuck out like crazy, and they were shaped very unusually. Never seen a cow like this, but there was a whole row of them.
This boar was disgusting. That's all I have to say about that.
Here are my cute little piggies!!



This elk made me sad. I'm so used to seeing them in the forest that it broke my heart to see this one in a cage.

This was the largest sheep. I think he weighed around three hundred or four hundred pounds.

Here is the largest bull. He weighed over three thousand pounds. He was a beast.

Collin petting a normal sized sheep.

This horse was beautiful. I wish I had a picture of his body, but he was in his stall. The boys loved petting the horses.

They had the cutest little farm. The kids got to plant vegetables and then they harvested them. After that they got soy seeds. They took the seeds and turned them into fuel, and drove a tractor around that they fueled with their seeds. Then they got to sell their vegetables and they each got a dollar and they had a real store where they got to pick something out and buy it for their dollar. It was so cute. Of course my children passed over the healthy options and bought a rice krispy treat with their money.

Here is Talin planting and harvesting his veggies.

It turned out to be a fun day, despite the heat. I'm glad we went, because last year we never got around to going, so this was a fun experience to have. Maybe we'll try to go again, just for the food. It was a great disappointment to not try everything!

Guess Who!

Today at church it was a little more exciting than every other week, no I didn't have some kind of shocking enlightenment or spiritual experience. Instead we had a surprising visitor. Mitt Romney came to our ward. How odd and unexpected is that?

There we are singing a hymn and Tom whispers to me,

"That guy behind us looks exactly like Mitt Romney".

I start giggling but manage to discreetly take a peek.

"Yeah, he does look like him, but it's not him".

He was sitting by his wife, exceptionally well groomed (for my ward) and put together.

Then after awhile a group of very well groomed families come in and two little girls run up and give him hugs and then find seats in the congregation. Yup, it's him.

We don't have random people come to our ward very often, people were excited. They went up and shook his hand after sacrament meeting and there was a buzz throughout the next two hours of church about him. Tom told me that he went to Sunday school and then left with his family afterwards. This is about as exciting as our Sundays get.

Second Year

The first week of school is always the best for Tom. His school is really family oriented, so they spend a lot of time taking care of their first and second year students.

So this week we got to attend a getting to know the first years type of outdoor dinner with families invited. They had a band and terrible food, but it was fun. They served a black bean burger, how wrong is that?

Then last night they had a softball game, first years against second years. I spent all of my time over at the playground with my boys, but I guess the second years kicked butt, woo hoo! And then we had a barbecue, with real beef hamburgers this time, yeah!

The boys had a great time, they are exceptionally social, I have no idea where they get this from because Tom and I are not the most social couple around.

The other day we went to Tom’s school for lunch, something we haven’t done since last year. When Talin was in preschool the day was a little hectic, so we didn’t get over there every much, but the boys have missed it. So I’ve decided to try and get the boys to lunch a few times with their dad before school starts for them this year.
Anyway, last year Talin used to have an obsession with dressing up to go to Tom’s school. It was extreme. He would wear knee pads, elbow pads, a tie, a helmet and a cape. The students loved it when they would see him, but it was a little insane to have my toddler insist on dressing like a confused superhero each day. He would try to get Collin to wear some kind of outfit as well, but Collin would look at him with a disgusted and confused look and refuse.
So this year I was hoping to avoid the crazy outfit, and I was lucky, we got away with a Mohawk and a tie only. I know people probably think that I dress them and fix their hair like this on my own, but I really don’t, they insist on it. Wish I would have taken a pic!

Well, Tom started school on Monday, and surprisingly enough it was actually a relief. I think he needed to get back to school and I think I needed to get back to a normal routine in life. Plus now I don't have to feel guilty for spending the entire day reading Stephenie Meyer's new book Eclipse.
I was giddy with excitement when it arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Amazon said they wouldn't deliver it until Friday and I was so bummed, but that made getting it yesterday so much more joyous.

Last Night

Tom goes back to school on Monday, we are all devastated, okay, maybe just me, but the boys will be when they realize dad isn't around to play with anymore. But we've been trying to make the most of our time. So Tom gave the boys a wonderful night last night, for I'm sure there will be less and less of those to come in the future.
First of all I rented some movies for the boys and then I let them help me make cookies for the night. Afterwards Tom helped them to make a fort in the front room. (yes, that is writing on the underside of the table, my little artist Talin did that a few years back.)Tom initially called it the "He-man woman haters club", but that had to be quickly remedied, I'm outnumbered here and I can't be raising little woman haters!

The boys were thrilled. They brought down blankets and pillows to hang out in and decided that they were going to sleep there last night, with their dad of course.

After the fort building Tom took them to a baseball game and they had a great time. I stayed home and had a little down time, besides I think it was a boys thing last night and I was more than happy to let it be that way.

A little claustrophobic for me, don't ask me how Tom managed to sleep in here with them for part of the night, maybe that's why it was only for part of the night.

Not the safest thing either. Collin woke up in the middle of the night extremely confused and disoriented as to where he was and where the bathroom was. Thank goodness Tom woke up with him because I was in a coma from the late night and didn't even hear him.

The boys club. We let the boys stay up until eleven watching a movie after the game. We NEVER let them stay up that late, surprisingly enough they've been really happy today despite the late night.

Of course Collin was up by eight, but this was Talin first thing in the morning, angry that cartoons were turned on, he was angry about being woken up. He's our sleeper.

And I even managed with a little trickery to get the tent down today. Every time I mentioned it Talin almost burst into tears, but Tom sent them on the back porch with a Popsicle while I took the tent down and they never said a thing when they came back inside. Probably the late night.

This is unbelievable. The bridge going over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed yesterday. Absolutely shocking. I hope everyone remembers these people and their families in their prayers today.

Today the boys played outside.

Tom filled a bucket with water and they went to town.
Collin spent most of his time sucking muddy water out of a spray bottle.
Talin is more an inventor and made mud, waterfalls and...not sure what this was.
The observer and the inventor.
Things got a little crazy when Tom soaked them with the hose while doing some yard work.
I don't allow wet, muddy, crusty things in the house, so the clothes had to go!

Best friends.