Last day of Kindergarten

Today is Isaiah's LAST DAY of kindergarten. The boy is super excited. I am too. We are going to have a blast this summer!  But I am also a little sad. He just isn't so little anymore! My baby is growing up and finishing kindergarten makes it feel so official. He is a big kid. Next year he will be gone ALL DAY LONG...five days a week! I feel like first grade is just the beginning of the end...

Enough drama for one day. I mean it is just first grade for Pete's sake:)

Moving onto the fun stuff - picture comparisons:

Upper Left: confidant almost first grader. Why are you taking my picture MOM?
Upper Right: walking to the first day of school. A little unsure. Nervous but wearing his game face:)
Lower Left: pip squeak
Lower Right: Oh my goodness he grew a foot and learned a TON!

I am so, so proud of my boy and all he has accomplished this year. From learning to read and write to social etiquette (kind of...sort of) to playing chess to responsibility for himself and his belongings (again room for improvement on this one but he has improved!).  It really is amazing all that is accomplished in 9 short months.

I could go on and on. But alas I won't. The kids and I are leaving in the morning. No time to waste. There are bags and bags and bags and bags to be packed. Going on a {solo parent} 3 1/2 week trip with 3 small children is not for the faint of heart...

Friends or enemies?

Today Isaiah made friendship bracelets. Matching friendship bracelets. For Charlotte and himself! Melt my mama heart. So sweet. 

Ok. Ok. Truth be told initially he asked me to help him make the bracelets for a classmate. And I, in classic mom mode, agreed without taking my eyes off my task at hand (preparing lunch for 3 hung-gary kids). Then I looked at his bracelet supplies and realized the charms he wanted to use were Charlotte's. I quickly recanted my agreement explaining to him, while it was very thoughtful of him, he could not give away his sister's stuff without her permission!

He immediately suggested friendship bracelets for him and Charlotte! Perfect solution. 

And they have been wearing them ever since! Stranger yet is the fact that they have been playing together...like friends too! Seriously crazy! Because the last few weeks with these two has been full of pushing each other's buttons ON PURPOSE! It is like they want to see just how upset they can get the other one before mom will intervene or lose it!!! And unfortunately it is usually the latter. 

See that? That is the face of an aggravated little sister. Brought on by her big brother who is pretending he doesn't know what he is doing!

And that is something I have seen very little of since the creation of the friendship bracelets! I might just require them to wear them EVERY day from now...until high school graduation! That isn't too excessive is it?!

Birthday Girl

 

 

I can NOT believe that this sweet, energetic, talkative, headstrong little girl is going to be three tomorrow! How did those years fly by so fast? When I look at her I can still see the 9 pound chubby newborn sleeping in my arms...but in reality she is a running, playing {skinny} almost 3 year old!

 

 

We are having a picnic in the park with friends to celebrate and you better believe that giant beach ball with be joining us for the fun:)

Goodbye 20s!

Today is my last day in my 20s. How did that happen?

Tomorrow I will be 30. Obviously:) However I prefer to think of it as my first anniversary of my 29th birthday. Cheesy I know. But I am having kind of a tough time wrapping my mind around the fact that I am going to be in my 30s.....it just seems.....well.....kind of........old....

I know it isn't a big deal. It just feels like it is. 

To celebrate the girls and I are going garage saling in the morning. YAY! Then a friend is taking me out for lunch - which I am beyond excited about! And then the rest of the day will be spent with these lovely people:

2006

My iPhone is "in the shop" getting fixed. I dropped it a loooooong time ago. Like 9 months ago when it was brand new. Thankfully we had purchased the replacement/repair plan because my husband knows how abusive I am of my electronics. Not on purpose. But when given the option to catch my falling baby/child or falling phone/camera I choose the child EVERYTIME.

One would think that is an obvious choice. But in fact I had to learn that one the hard way. Not with my child thankfully. Way back in 1990 when personal video cameras were a new hot item.  And HUGE.  And expensive. The kind that recorded directly to VHS tapes.  Remember those? I was holding said family video camera and our cat. Both started to fall...I chose the cat. Wrong choice! Lesson definitely learned, albeit a very expensive lesson.  Sorry mom and dad.

Back to the subject at hand. While my phone is away being fixed, I am using my old phone.  This one to be exact:

 

I hate to admit it but for the first couple of hours with my old phone I felt a little lost. I didn't know what to do with a phone that is just a phone. No checking my e-mail. No facebook app. No pinterest app. No browsing the internet. No blog reading!  Just phone calls and text messages. 

 

And then it happened. I set the phone down. I cleaned my house. I made meals and wiped messy faces. I washed dishes. I even did some long overdue organizing and clothes mending. I played with my kids and read a few extra books. We played at the playground and I just watched them play. It was beautiful.

 

The first thing Joe said to me when he saw my phone was, "Hey can you call 2006 and ask what life was like without kids?" Funny guy! One problem buddy. This is a slide phone. Much too advanced for 2006! This one is from 2010 right after Charlotte was born. So if you want to know what life was like with only one mobile talking child....well just check out the background picture on the phone. Life looked pretty good. A lot less hectic. Charlotte was a mere week old and we were hanging out at a McDonald's play area. Clearly life with two kids was a breeze:)

 

The second thing he said, "Wow! A clean house, happy kids, happy mom and a hot meal on the table! And no iPhone. Is there a connection here?!?".  To which I responded, "I don't know but hand over your iPhone. I need to check a few things...."

 

And I did. I went on facebook, checked my e-mail and read a few blogs.  And guess what? I hadn't missed a single thing! Oh sure there were new pictures of adorable kids and babies to "like". Plus the usual funny anecdotes from others' day.  But really I hadn't missed anything!

 

In the end, I liked my day isolated in my house with my three kids. No interruptions. No influence from the outside world. I wasn't bombarded by pictures and status updates. There was no comparisons or wishing to be on the other side of the internet where the grass is always greener and the children are always happy and smiling...

 

 



 

And this morning I made Charlotte some white leggings to wear with her tunic tops this summer.  The kids were playing nicely...ALL THREE OF THEM TOGETHER! Craz-ier things have never happened! So I sat down and turned an old stained {adult sized} tank top into these:

 

 

(To learn how to make these super, super easy and cute leggings go HERE! Two pieces of fabric and only 2 seams. They are easy peasy. I promise. It is by far my favorite sewing site. TONS of free tutorials and cute stuff that anyone can do! My kids' Easter outfits were all inspired by her. And clearly my children were thrilled with the matching outfits I made them.)

 

 

Not sure what I am going to do once I have my phone back. Definitely less phone time. But how? What apps am I going to allow myself and which ones will be deleted?  I need phone rules. The ironic part? When I got my iPhone I was very deliberate about making sure the phone was NOT a toy for my kids.  I have no kid apps on it! Because I wanted my kids to learn how to entertain themselves without technology. Sure it would have come in handy while waiting....especially our frequent doctor's visits of recent. Instead the kids read books, color and play "I spy"...while mommy plays on her phone! Yikes. Something has to change. Because I like my unconnected world. It is happy and well a whole lot cleaner:) And maybe, just maybe, my grass is green enough!

 

 

And don't these kids look happy? This is what they were "playing" while I was sewing. Don't worry Hannah is NOT at the bottom of that pile. And they had almost as much fun taking it all out and putting it away! Win-Win!