Our weekend

Let's see...I can't believe the weekend is already over. We had a really fun morning on Saturday. We met up with two of our friends from last year's preschool class and let the kids play at the park. They had fun and I loved visiting with the other moms. Win-win situation.

Andrew was gone to Basic Training for Scout Leaders. He left early Saturday morning and got home Sunday evening.

Does he look cute in his uniform or what? :)

It seems like whenever he's gone, I try to keep us really busy so I don't start feeling lonely. So, we went out to Wendy's for lunch. And then stopped by Borders to return their expensive board books. (+$24 on the budget--woo hoo!) We came home to put Whitney down for her nap and Brandon and I read and played a couple of games.

Saturday evening was the annual broadcast from Salt Lake City for the women at church. Our stake had a dinner and activity beforehand which started at 6 and the broadcast ended at 9:30. They provided child care for those who needed it, but I didn't think Whitney would make it until 9:30 pm without being a big grump. Thank goodness for good friends. I didn't really want to pay a babysitter for 5 hours, so I asked our friend, Greg, if he would come hang out with the kids for a couple of hours and then put them to bed. He agreed. What a great guy! The kids love him and had fun. The activity and broadcast were really good. I always walk away from them holding my head a little higher because I'm a woman. (I've heard this is very different than the way the men feel after leaving their broadcasts every six month--but it's true!) The speakers make us feel so loved and capable. It's great.

Sunday mornings are always a rush around here, but Brandon was my super big helper this week. I was blow-drying my hair and asked him to pack snacks for himself and Whitney for church. He came back in a few minutes with this in his hands:

"Mom, can you close this baggie for me?"

He had gotten out a cutting board and used a butter knife to slice up a cucumber to pack as a snack. Is that the cutest thing ever??? I was SO impressed. I quickly peeled the skin off of them and put them in the bag and sealed them up and we were on our way.

Church was kind of rough. The last few weeks have been really good, so I was convinced we had reached a turning point as far as reverence, but this week we took a couple of steps backwards. Whitney was really difficult. She kept crying and whining over little things. I had to take her out twice. Brandon wasn't on his best behavior, either.

I got released from my responsibility in the presidency of the Primary (our children's organization). I have loved working in that calling, but it was getting to be a little overwhelming with Andrew's calling. There were some weeks where we would have church meetings 5 of the 7 days of the week! I don't get any rest, though, because I got called to be the chorister for the Primary kids now. I am really excited about it. I think it will be a fun calling. But it might be stressful for the next few weeks as we prepare for our annual Sacrament meeting program put on by the children. We have quite a ways to go in perfecting our songs before then. Hopefully it will all come together.

Here's the latest in my patch gallery:

Winnie the Pooh

When I found out we weren't quite done patching yet, I took some time on Saturday morning while the kids were watching cartoons and drew pictures on all of them that we have left. Brandon and Whitney wanted to help, so they each colored a patch, too.

And, in other exciting news, Brandon finished his Chuck E. Cheese calendar. It only took a month of being in school to get it filled in. :) It's supposed to be a homework calendar, but since his teacher hasn't started assigning homework yet, I told him that I had homework for him: to not be grumpy, whiney, or complain while he's getting ready for school in the mornings. Each morning that he got ready without a fight, I put an X on his calendar (I told him I'd give him the Sat's and Sun's as freebies.) Today he got his last X. Mornings around our house and have been SO much nicer than those first few days where I had to ask him 3 times to do everything. And, no, the 3rd time I ask it usually isn't pretty.

So, we're off to Chuck E. Cheese tonight after Family Home Evening. Yeah!

Bargain shopping

I just had to share some of the great bargains I've found this week. I'm so proud of myself. :)

I was at Borders, looking for a gift for a baby shower
and I found these in the bargain section.

Retail Price: $138.98
(I don't see how ANYONE would pay this
much for these books, but the Celine Dion one
retails for $60 and Liberty and Freedom for$50!)

Price I paid all together: $17.96
Saved: $121.02

For the baby shower, I wanted to get my friend
a few good board books. She's a big reader and
I thought she would appreciate them.
Here's what I found at Borders:

None of them were on sale.
Price: $22.85
I thought this was outrageous and knew
I could find a bargain somewhere!

I went to Ross and found these FIVE board books:

Total price: $19.45
That's more like it!


The Disney Store has some fun things on sale right now, too.

Retail price for all of this: $50.00
(Again, who pays that much for this???)
Price I paid: $19.96 total
I've stashed them away in my closet,
most likely to be used as Christmas presents.
Too fun!

Where do you usually find the best bargains? Found any good ones lately?

Friday--yippee!

Whitney and I had a fun playgroup today at the Environmental Center. Miss Christine, a naturalist, takes us on hikes and finds bugs and other cool stuff to show the kids. She does this once a month and we love it! Last year when we participated there were a few very active boys (Brandon included) who kept it very interesting. It was lots of fun, but not a relaxing morning. This year it is almost all little girls, most of them right around Whitney's age. It was so different. I wasn't constantly looking around to see who Brandon was poking with a stick or making sure he didn't get too far ahead of the pack.

Here the girls are checking out a camel cricket.

Is North Carolina beautiful or what?
I can't believe Utah is already getting
snow. The leaves haven't started turning here, yet,
but there is a little nip in the air the last couple
of days. Andrew always says, "There's football in the air!"

Here is Whitney giving me her "princess smile."
*sidenote* I've already told this to some of you, but it's a cute story, so I thought I'd post it. Whitney is really into "happily ever after" right now. She has apparently seen a few too many kisses at the end of princess books because she was trying to kiss us and Brandon with long, drawn out kisses and she would say, "Happily Ever After..." We told her she can only give "happily ever after kisses" after she gets married... in the temple...when she's much older. So now she talks about that all the time! Every time she gives us a kiss she says, "Not a happily ever after kiss? When I'm married in the temple, I'll give my husband a
happily ever after kiss."

Back to our day, at the end of the hike, Miss Christine takes us back
to the building and often brings out a snake for the kids
to touch. I'm so glad Whitney is having these experiences
now and will possibly not have fear of snakes or bugs when
she gets older. Do you think that's theory will work?

As for Brandon...

He is doing great. He had a smiley face from school every day this week.
In his own words:
I had a really good day. But, guess what? We did that thing that we did yesterday where we changed it around and first we did rest time and then we did outside. But sometimes we do it outside and then rest time.
Me: What's your favorite part about school?
B: Going on the computers for center.
Me: What do you do on the computers?
B: Do fun things. And paint and stuff. The end. Goodbye.

He is never this concise. He must be building something really cool out of legos in the playroom, because he was in a rush to get back there.

Good (but not perfect) news

What a day! We started off the morning with storytime at the library. We read all about fall, as in autumn. I don't think Whitney knows what that word means yet because she told Andrew that we read books about falling down. Huh. They always do an artsy project after the stories are done.

Here's Whitney with one of her little friends
decorating leaves to hang around the art room.

After storytime, we did a little shopping for a baby shower I'm attending this weekend. Then we rushed home because today was a big day. A visit to see Dr. Buckley!!!

Whitney wanted to look good for the occasion!

Brandon got out of school a little early and Andrew took the afternoon off work so we could drive up to Duke and find out if we are FINALLY done patching or not. Andrew and I were hopeful because it just seems like she can see better lately. She points out a lot more things than she used to.

Whitney rocked on the vision test. It was so awesome. She usually has to be inspired to look at the computer monitor and verbalize what she sees, but she was on a roll today. One right after another--teddy bear, birthday cake, telephone, Christmas tree....I could tell she was doing good. It turns out her vision is 20/25 in both eyes right now. Yippee! Now the real news--what do we do from here?

Whitney was excited to see her crush, Dr. Buckley.
Can you tell from the HUGE smile on her face???

Well, he says that even though her vision is equal right now, her eyes still aren't quite aligned. They both point out a little bit. So, when she's look around, she chooses one eye or the other. She's not using them together. He thought the patching would correct that problem, but so far it hasn't. He wants us to patch for another 6 weeks. We had been doing 3 days on and 1 day off. He says we can change to 1 day on and 1 day off. That'll be nice. If at that point her alignment isn't fixed, I'm afraid we might have to do another surgery. BUMMER. I'm not going to worry about it too much right now. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

On our way home we stopped at a Taco Bell/KFC/Pizza Hut for dinner. I think places like that are the best. What a great idea! Why don't they have more of them? Anyway, as part of the decor, you'll never guess what they had hanging on the wall...

A WHOLE CHICKEN!

Whitney, of course, was the one who pointed this out. :)

Fun Saturday, Lame Date, Good Sunday

We had the funnest afternoon yesterday. We went to a local park where they had a little festival-type event. They hold it annually and this was our second year going. The kids have a blast, and we like it, too. Ok, Brandon and I had a blast. Whitney and Andrew were both tired. He had a temple trip with the youth from Church in the morning. I think he left the house around 6:30. And he got home around noon, so Whitney missed her nap. But they still had a good time.

We did a little tag-team parenting because the kids wanted to do very different activities:

Brandon thought this big inflatable slide was pretty cool.

It turned out to be about the slowest slide ever.

He was also very BRAVE and tried the rock climbing wall.

He made it over half way up--even though he was in bare feet.

Pretty impressive, huh?

Whitney enjoyed the craft table--making this "bug" hat

and gluing sequins and googley eyes on a paper gecko.

And she also loved riding the little train and the carousel

with her daddy.

And they had some tribal drummers there with

empty chairs where you could join the circle. The kids

got really into it--very cute.

Last night was date night and we went on our favorite date--tennis and Sonic. It was terrible. I don't know what was wrong with us, but we looked like we had never played tennis before in our lives. I was embarassed! I kept thinking, I hope no one is secretly filming this because they would have some pretty good blackmailing material. I felt completely uncoordinated. It was crazy. One of the bad things about it was you can't really get a good workout from tennis if you can't rally back and forth more than 2 hits! I told Andrew we're going to have to take a break from tennis next date and try again in a couple of weeks.

Today church went really well. My friend, Nicolle, is still travelling the world, so I was on my own in Sacrament meeting. Luckily the kids were good. And Primary was very non-stressful, too. So I am having a very happy day.

To top it all of, Whitney is starting to potty train herself! Knowing the long road that potty training is, and how much I DON'T like it, I have not put any effort into training her yet. She's showing some of the signs of being ready, but I just don't want to face it. Well, yesterday, she told Andrew she needed to go potty and she peed! Wow! That's awesome. Then today after church she told me she needed to poop and, sure enough, she did it! Yippee! That was a first. I guess I'll have to start putting some effort into this and maybe we can have her potty trained by Christmas. Then again, don't keep your fingers crossed. :)

Artwork on Patches

Every morning when Whitney wakes up, I ask her what she wants on her patch. (Except every fourth day when she gets to be patch free--yeah!)

Normally she chooses something normal like

A Butterfly

A fish

She chooses lots of classic girly things like:

Princess Dora

Just plain Dora

This was supposed to be Belle
from Beauty and the Beast
(not my best work)

Ariel

Gus gus from Cinderella

Tigger

This morning, she made the most
RANDOM choice ever:

A volcano!

So, trying to look on the bright side of this patching ordeal, it has brought out some artistic abilities I had never tapped into. :)

Playgroup and TV

Ever since I've moved here, I've been active with a group of moms doing a playgroup. The group has changed COMPLETELY over the years, but we always manage to get together with someone to let the kids play and the moms visit. The summers are usually too busy, so we just started again a couple of weeks ago. We take turns hosting and I took the first turn. It was the Friday before Labor Day weekend, I believe. It was a total flop. No one else showed up. OK, I shouldn't say no one because my friend, Jayne, did come, but she just comes to visit with the moms because all of her kids are in school. Most of the other moms had e-mailed me to let me know they couldn't be coming for whatever reason, so I wasn't expecting a big turn out, but it was really funny that Whitney and I were just playing on our own. We called it our imaginary playgroup. :)

Well, today we got to have a REAL playgroup with real friends. It was a lot of fun. We met at the park. It was a beautiful day. The kids played well together. There was just one little incident with hair pulling between Whitney and one of her friends. Ouch!

Snack time!

We were watching one of our friends
and since I didn't have a double stroller,
Whitney got to share.

In other excitement around here, Andrew took a QUICK business trip up to Boston yesterday. He had quite an adventure trying to get home. Traffic was nuts and he would've missed his flight because he was so late getting to the airport, but his flight had been delayed like 2 hours, which would've made him miss his connection in Philadelphia. He lucked out because an earlier flight was delayed and was just boarding and had a few empty seats and he snagged one. His connecting flight was also delayed, so I don't think he got home until around 2:00 this morning. I was very much out of it, so I don't know what time it was. Thankfully, he got to sleep in this morning before heading back to work.

And, finally, Survivor premiered last night. Did anyone else watch it? What did you think? They have 20 contestants this year and they divided them into four tribes based on ethnicity. I wonder if people of mixed race were excluded from the application process... Anyway, when I heard about that, it just rubbed me the wrong way. Doesn't it seem like taking a step backwards? I decided to give it a try anyway and it was pretty good so far. It was interesting to see how shocked the contestants were about the division. And I also thought it was interesting that now they feel extra pressure to do well so they don't represent their race poorly. Personally, I hope they merge quickly and look forward to seeing how closely the original tribemates stick together.

More adventures with Grandma and Grandpa

We have had such a great visit with Andrew's parents. It's going to be hard to let them go home. It's too much fun with them here!

Yesterday, we went on a little hike at the Piedmont Environmental Center. It's the same place that Cindy and I got lost with the kids, but this time I was a better navigator, and we managed to avoid another disaster. :)

During Whitney's nap, Barb and I went shopping for some new clothes for the kids. We were very successful and found some CUTE outfits for both Brandon and Whitney. Brandon didn't pose for me, but here is Whitney modeling a couple of her outfits.

I love her in turtlenecks!
Actually, I love her in everything.
But she really looks cute in turtlenecks.

Barb couldn't resist when we found these
adorable cowgirl boots and outfit at Old Navy.
Whitney turned lots of heads when she wore
them around town today.

After Brandon got home from another good day at school, we went mini golfing. He's gone a handful of times before and normally does really well. He was a little impatient today and kept going one or two holes ahead of us and we'd have to tell him to wait for us. Then he'd get as close to the water hazards as he could without falling in while waiting.

We had to keep reminding Brandon to PUTT
the ball. Don't hit it as hard as you can!

Say Cheese!

After we finished golf, we thought it would be fun to try out the go-karts. I had done them before at a birthday party, so I sat out and took pics while the others raced. They had a great time, especially Brandon--the future NASCAR driver.

"And Dennis takes the lead...but not for long"

Barb had a definite disadvantage because
Whitney got freaked out if she tried to go fast.

Often when we are spending time with our parents, we are sharing them with all of the other grandkids, so it was nice to have them to ourselves for the past week. They'll be heading back to Utah early in the morning. But I think we had such a great time that they'll come to see us again. Hopefully soon.

Beach trip

Does this photo capture the wonder and joy of going to the beach or what???

We took a trip to the beach with Andrew's parents and it was awesome. We stayed at a condo right on the beach. It was the same place we stayed with our friends, Greg and Nicolle, back in April.

We ate at our favorite seafood restaurant down there, The Deck House.
Brandon and Whitney ate shrimp. I was so impressed.
I don't even eat shrimp!

The kids were really good. And really goofy, as usual.
Brandon cracks me up. He is so full of life.
It can barely be contained within his body.

This was something new we tried. We rented a paddle boat
and paddled around a little lake. Phew--it was a lot of work.
Barb and I ended up in charge of steering. We were pretty bad.
The craziest thing about this lake--there were jumping fish!
They would jump out of the water 1-2 feet high and 3-4 feet long.
It was CRAZY! Sometimes they would do 3 or 4 jumps in row.

Last night around the dinner table, we all talked about our favorite part of the trip.
Here are the highlights:

Whitney: digging. She still loves the sand!
Brandon: Boogie boarding. He caught some great waves and I don't even think he wrecked this time. (But I took a couple of bad spills--ouch!)
Me: Taking a walk on the beach with Andrew at night while Barb and Dennis watched the kids. The water was SO warm. It was unbelievable. It was a good thing it was warm, because we thought we would just get our toes wet, but a few of the waves caught us off guard and we got soaked!
Andrew: Catching great waves on the boogie boards and our walk on the beach
Dennis: Same as Andrew--boogie boards and night time walk on the beach with Barbara

Barb: Collecting shells. She was so cute and searched for shells with holes in them and then came home and made necklaces and bracelets for Whitney and a "headband" for B-train out of shells and dental floss. The kids loved them.

Quick Update

Barb and Dennis(Andrew's parents) got in last night. They're visiting us for the next week and we're all SO excited! Should be a blast.

When we first moved in, I painted Brandon's room red. But just the bottom three feet or so of the walls. Then I got this awesome old school sports border that my mom helped me put up in the middle of the wall, where the paint stopped. BAD IDEA. Brandon slowly started picking at the border and eventually it was all torn to pieces like this:

I realized after the fact that this wasn't the best perspective,
but too late now. Sorry! I think you can still get the point.

I was so annoyed with my cool wallpaper getting ruined that I haven't bothered fixing it for the last two years. :) I finally decided to do something about it this week. I worked really hard scraping off all the leftover wallpaper bits from the wall and then I taped off a little section and painted it navy blue. I think it turned out pretty well, but wish I had taped off a slightly more narrow section. It looks a little disproportionate.

The finished product.
Thanks to Carson for the cool Yoda poster!

They held another Parent's Orientation meeting at Brandon's school last night. It was good to talk to his teacher a little more. Brandon is doing a lot better at school. I think (knock on wood) that he might be over the worst of his behavior problems. He has gotten 3 smiley faces in a row so far on his calendar from his teacher.

I'm still a little worried about him, though. I was talking to him yesterday after school and asking him about playing on the playground. Who did you play with outside today? "Nobody." You played by yourself? "Yes." What were you doing? "Climbing on the fire truck. That's my favorite." What was everyone else doing? "Other stuff." He now knows the names of most of the kids in his class, but he never talks about being friends with anyone specific. In preschool, it was a much smaller class, but he latched on to his best friend within the first week and they are still good friends now. I hope he finds someone there. He also mentioned he had to sit by himself on the bus the other day. His friend down the road didn't even sit with him. That's no fun!

The mornings have still been rough. He doesn't like getting up and ready, but then after school he's always excited. He tells me likes it. I guess he's just more tired in the mornings now that he has such long days. One thing that his teacher mentioned yesterday was that they had originally planned rest time for right after lunch. But the kids in that class are real sleepers! I knew Brandon was, but I thought that was rare for kindergarteners. So for the first week, the kids would fall asleep during rest time and then the teachers couldn't wake them up when the half hour was up. They ended up moving rest time to the end of the day, so they could wake them up and tell them it was time for them to go home. How funny.

Wow--this ended up being a not-so-quick update.

Girl's Night Out

I had the funnest evening last night! I am good friends with a few of the moms of children who went to preschool with Brandon last year. Although none of their children are attending Brandon's elementary school, we all wanted to stay in touch. So last night we all met for dinner at a great restaraunt. It was such a blast.

Jennie, Me, Jayne

Shelly, Diane, Bea

It was so fun to hear everyone's stories, especially about how all the kids are doing in kindergarten. Most of the kids are struggling to adjust. This sounds terrible, but I was glad to hear that. It made me feel better that Brandon isn't the only one having a hard time. It was interesting to hear how differently other kids handle the stress, though. Some of them cry and don't want to leave the house in the morning, clinging to their moms. I SO can't picture Brandon doing that. Instead he'll just flat out tell me, "I'm not going to school today. It's boring and stupid." OK. I don't know which scenario is better. :)

I haven't had a good group of girlfriends since we moved here. In Tucson, I was in a book club where we'd meet once a month and stay for hours visiting. (And most of us really did read and talk about the book a little bit, too!) Most of the friends I've made here are my kids' friends' parents. So usually when we hang out, it's with our kids. That's fun, but it was really wonderful to get out as adults and not have the distractions of "Mommy, I need to go to the bathroom, " "Can you help me tie my shoe?" "Brandon called me a baby!" etc.

To add to the good day yesterday, Brandon came home with a good report from school. Yippee! They have started bringing home a behavior calendar that will either have a smiley face, sad face, or so-so face on it for that day. If they get 5 smiley faces in a row, they'll earn a small reward. I was so thrilled to see that B had a smiley face.

Whitney and I went up to the school to have lunch with him today. It was so cute to see him with all his 5 year old friends. He said he doesn't think he'll get a smiley face today when he comes home. Yikes--that's scary. It was good to see his teacher "in action" a little bit in the lunch room. She seems pretty strict. That's probably what Brandon NEEDS, but also probably explains a little about why he doesn't LIKE school right now. Maybe she'll grow on him.

Laid back holiday weekend

I am normally the one in our family who keeps us busy. I love to be on the go and especially like to take advantage of Andrew's days off to have family adventures. Not this weekend. We had a very relaxing, mellow weekend. And I loved it! :)

On Saturday morning we worked on the yard. It was badly needed.

Saturday afternoon we went to the water park for the last time this year. I'll miss it! It wasn't really hot outside, so the kids were kind of wimpy about being in the water. So, we only stayed about 2 hours, but that was fine. Andrew watched the kids for a little while and let me ride two of the scariest rides there. They were so fun! One was a 76 foot drop straight down. And the other was an enclosed tube that wasn't quite as tall, but had twists and turns and went REALLY fast. Both got my adrenaline going. Awesome.

We'll miss the water park!

Look at me!

Brandon loves the Scooter Run--
a slide you go down on this tube.
He can do it all by himself!

When the kids' lips started turning blue, we decided it was time to go. :) We rented some movies on the way home. Whitney picked Snow White. Wow, there were some scary parts in that. "Bring her heart back to me in this box." Oh, gross. That's almost as graphic as the scriptures! (Which I've realized more and more how graphic they are now that we read them with Brandon.)

Sunday was just the usual church routine.

On Monday we were planning to go back to the water park, but the weather didn't cooperate it was overcast and cool and sprinkled in the morning. I could just envision the kids having another miserable outing, so we skipped that. We finished watching Snow White. During Whitney's nap, we took Brandon outside to try to teach him how to ride his bike with no training wheels:

He did so awesome! But he's still scared of riding that way. Andrew helped get him started several times and he could ride for 10-15 seconds on his own. At the end, Brandon said, "Ok, let's put the training wheels back on." Andrew thinks they're off for good. We'll see what happens next time he wants to ride his bike. Andrew made a cool little movie of our attempts and tried to upload it to YouTube, but it isn't working right now. If we can figure it out, I'll post a link.

Brandon again tried to tell me he was sick this morning and didn't want to go to school. I took Jayne's and Angie's advice and sent him since he wasn't running a fever or throwing up. So far, no call from the school, so I'm thinking he was ok. His last couple of days at school have been better, but his teacher said he has a real problem with not listening the first time he's asked to do something. Isn't that normal five year old behavior? He hardly ever listens the first time at home. I guess we need to be more insistent about that. I am used to asking him to do something AT LEAST three times before it actually happens. We'll see what today brings.