October Part 1

I can’t believe another month just slip by. I was sure that we still had 2 weeks left in the month when I realized that Halloween was actually in 2 days…crazy! Here is my recap of our month

October 13th

Joshua had his first field trip to Black Island Farms with his joy school. He was so excited to go do something with his friends. Here is the little bunch that I get to tech every 12 weeks.

Julia got to come along. This is one of those treats she gets for helping me when I have to teach.

Our fun started at 9:00. A.M  We invited keldrie to come along with us since we were getting really good prices and they could actually make it to my house that early The kids loved having her cousin around

We went on the hay rides tried all the slides about a million times and we even saw a pig race, not to mention the photo session that I took of the kids.

There were cargo nets to climb onto the slides, well if you look at this picture no net was stopping Andrew from a slide. He loves slides.



At the end I ventured to take pictures of all 4 kids together. I got 1 out of 3 to look at my camera, pathetic, oh well.

Like I said the kids also endure a photo shoot session with their mom, here are the results.

October 22 nd

Julia had her very last game of the season. She scored 1 goal and played so hard for 1 hour straight. It helped that grandma and grandpa were there to cheer her up.

October 27th

Josh had his Halloween party. Here he is starring as Luke Sky Walker. And here he is with his mean face, he really wanted to be part of the bad guys so he said to me: “take a picture of me with my mean face mommy”. After 2 pictures he broke up on laughter, giving up his bad guy aspirations
 

Here is the rest of his class on that day. Cute bunch!

We played some games, read stories and made some crafts

That night we made it to the Syracuse pumpkin walk with some friends. I like this tradition; we have done it every year since we moved into Syracuse. The best part about it is that it is free.

I got a hundred pictures of the kids next to their favorite carved pumpkins but for sanity reasons (mine) I am just going to post a couple of them. Julia’s favorite were Cinderella, snow white, sleeping beauty, Tiana, Jessy and some witches she found along the way. Josh’s favorites were: lightning McQueen, Meter, scary face pumpkins. The ultimate favorite of the boys was a train track display. The trains had a pumpkin on top of their engine and just went around on a 6 foot tall mountain. We could of watch those trains all night except our hands were becoming num with cold and our noses were about to freeze.

At the end of our tour we stopped to watch a movie from a screen they had placed in the park and warm ourselves by the fire.

september

 I was glad to find my head still on top of my shoulders by the time September was over. I thought I was really going to lose it.
This is why: I told Spence that we need more space. Josh and Andrew are not the best sleeping partners. This is driving Spencer and I nuts. A.D. is such a light sleeper and Josh wakes up every night to go potty regardless and he has to make a big fuzz out of it.

Obviously we needed to get approved by the bank first to get our loan and for that our house had to appraise at a certain amount.
I started doing a lot of home improvements in the couple of weeks so that the appraisal could come in where we needed it to.
This is what I did: Only managed to improve my kitchen. I put all the hardware and painted the island by myself. I sent Spencer a 1000 bill for my handy work, just kidding!

 Spencer took some vacation time, which he spent by going golfing with his dad and by pulling our floor off. A couple of months ago our fridge broke and liked a lot of water into the floor which got damaged by it. Thank goodness for insurance.
This was a very special floor. Spencer, his dad and even Matt (fresh out of his mission) helped lay our entire floor in 2007. It took my sweetheart about 2 weeks to figure out how to lay it down and get it squared on the floor, not to mention all the demolition we had to do to get rid of the linoleum that we had when we first got our house.
We had to do lots of cutting, lots of measuring, we got lots of headaches and yet it was so beautiful when it was all finish and we felt so proud that we had accomplish something of that magnitude.
It was hard to see all of those hours of labor be gone in 30 minutes. That is all it took us to get rid of the floor. SAD.

Since we were tearing things off, we decided it was time to get rid of our old railing, we took it all apart. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube and learn how to it myself. I asked how much it would of cost to install the new railing with iron balusters and it was 1000 for material and installation.

Is amazing what a tight budget can make you do. Spencer and I took the project to ourselves and we did it. We had to go an entire week without stairs and a big falling hazard but we managed.

Here is a pick of the transformation!

Besides these projects we are getting our basement finished. Did you know how complicated this process is? I have spent hours investigating floor plans, looking at pictures, drawing and sketching every single room on my basement, sleepless night thinking about my ideas not to mention the fact that I had to figure out what the cheapest but best way to finish the basement was. The question to me was: do we do it? Or is It worth it paying a little extra but getting it done right. I am sorry to say that this was one project I was not putting upon myself.

It is hard enough being a full time mom for three little rascals I did not want a contractor side job.

So far I’ve just had to worry about where to put walls and how big the closets are going to be. I am however going to install my laundry room cabinets by myself. I got some used cabinets for 50 and I am hoping they’ll turn out as good as the island on my kitchen, fingers cross. I am afraid I am getting too comfortable at this building thing, Thanks McGyver, you are my inspiration, LOL.

But it hasn’t all being work at the Smith household we have had our fair share of fun. Grandma Smith invited Julia and I to go to a musical called: “Joseph and the Technicolor coat”. This was Julia’s first show ever and she absolutely loved it. The story portrayed is of Joseph in the Old Testament who gets sold into slavery to Egypt and manages to succeed by deciphering the pharaoh’s dream. I was impressed to see her clapping with the music and getting so excited about the story.

Her absolute favorite actor was the Pharaoh. Why, well because he looked and talked like Elvis. Julia of course doesn’t know who Elvis is, but she loved how silly he was.

We also celebrated Labor Day in September by going to Grandma Smith’s house for a bbq. The kids loved playing with their cousins.

Besides, running errands, doing carpool, teaching Josh's Joy school, taking kids to soccer games, tumbling classes and volunteering every week at Julia's school this has been pretty much September.

August recap at last!

An entire month has gone by and this was so far the busiest month I had ever experienced. I was about to pull my hairs out at the end of each day but I guess I survived.

August 1st.

Josh started his swimming lesson; Preschool level 1. So how did he do? Amazing. Josh may seem tough but he is a very reserved boy. That is until he gains confidence on what he is doing and by then of course no one can stop him. Swimming lessons went down just like that.

1st day: “I don’t like the water is too cold” Clearfield’s aquatic center pool has heated water
2nd day: I don’t like my swimming shirt
3rd day: I want my swimming shirt
4th to 8th day: I love swimming mommy
Josh can jump from the side of the pool, can hold his breath under water and can float on his back. He keeps asking for swimming lessons that’s how much he enjoyed them.

I am so proud of this little boy. He conquered his fear of water and worked so hard to do a good job. He was the youngest and smallest in his class. Can’t wait for Preschool aquatic level II!

August 8

We had a girl’s date with grandma. We went to the salt lake Parade oh homes. This year they were featuring the “Up House”. This was such a darling replica of Mr. Frederickson’s house. We were even met by actors dressed like them. The details of the house were incredible. From the painting of Paradise Falls above the mantel and the family pictures on the stairway wall to the hose on the front porch to even the cute mailbox with their name.

This was certainly or best stop through the parade but I was able to gather some really good ideas for my basement.

Julia love the little girl’s room, she insisted I take a picture of her favorites. This is one of them

August 9

Salt Lake City. We needed a way to officially finish our summer and what a better way to do this than by going on a train ride to Salt Lake City to play on the water fountains.

Josh was so excited to ride on the train. Julia and he got to sit all by themselves while I shared a seat with Andrew. They loved sight-seeing until we got to Salt Lake. 

They were so well behaved holding hands and listening to me the entire time that I never had to panic about crossing streets to get to the water fountains.

We shared our last summer day trip with friends and had lots of fun. 

August 15

This was the first day of school for a kindergartener. 

We rose bright and shine to go meet Mrs. Adams at Bluffridge elementary school.  Julia had the best 2 hours of school she’s ever had. She got to be a super reader.  She loved how her teacher dressed up on her super reader costume to call them into the classroom from recess.  She loved the teacher’s made up songs about the alphabet, she loved the way story time went about and discovering that her teacher’s favorite books were some of her favorite’s too. There they were on the shelf: If you give a moose a muffin and llama, llama red pajama.

The class was divided into color groups and Julia loved the fact that out four different colors that she could be she was yellow, just about her favorite color. Her name, folders and cubical were yellow.

You can’t imagine how exciting this day was. To celebrate we decided to have lunch at Arctic Circle. The food is O.K but what the kids really love is their playground, especially Andrew.  He loves the slides. He can climb them and slide them down with his eyes close.  This is pretty amazing considering that he is only 14 months old.

August 15….3:00 pm

You are not going to believe what happened. After an extraordinary first day of school I received a phone call from North Davis Preparatory Academy which a school that teaches kids a second language. We had applied early in the year to their lottery to gain admission into the school but we didn’t get in. As I learned there were about 3000 kids applying to enter kindergarten and only a handful of spots left.

That afternoon we get a call letting us know that there’s been a last minute opening and Julia’s name had been pulled out and she was admitted into the school.

First thing I asked was: When does she start? TOMORROW. Classes actually started today and if you want in you have to come in and register her within an hour.

I was extremely happy. I imagine this will be the kind of feeling I’d have if someone told me that I had just won a million dollars, but I was also concerned. After all Julia was ready to have Mrs. ADAMS. That cool awesome teacher that dresses up like the cartoon from her favorite T.V show.

I had to call Spencer and see what he thought, we started making some phone calls with friends who have kids in this school already and decided that indeed this was an opportunity that we could pass.

Later that night came the most painful thing I had to do this far as a parent. Breaking the news to Julia that she couldn’t go to Mrs. Adams class anymore because she was going to attend a different school.

My poor sweetheart hogged me so tight and broke into tears. It’s amazing the kind of impression that a great teacher can leave in a child after only 2 hours.

After talking to her and making her realize what an opportunity this was for her and explaining all the good things that she could do like sleep in every morning and be the helper in Josh’s Joy school she finally stopped crying and went to bed.

I could tell she was really heartbroken by the news and I am just so glad that I could be there to hug her and comfort her. We had one of the strongest and longest hugs ever that night and I will never forget that experience. She deserved something from making that choice and so mommy and daddy got her a Barbie movie.

Julia I know how much you gave up because we’ve never seen you crying with that much sentiment in the 5 years that you have been around us, but we are so proud that you were so grown up to accept the decision mommy and daddy made for you.

P.S. That night I wanted to transfer Mrs. Adams to the new school.

August 16

First day of kindergarten take two! Julia was off to afternoon kindergarten. She starts class at 12:00 now and gets out at 3:00 pm.

I love the fact that she gets to wear uniforms. It is such a relief not having to figuring out outfits every day.

Her new teacher is Mrs. Hansen and she has a Spanish teacher named Mrs. Jorgez who is from Venezuela.
I stayed in the classroom until she was comfortable. After all is hard to come to a place where you are the new kid.

It is really hard on Julia having this schedule she is not use to it. Afternoons are for relaxing and playing, not for school. She was extremely tired when she came home and if you know Julia that means trouble. She gets really grumpy when she is tired, really grumpy. Hopefully she can get use to the new schedule fast.

August 20

Another first day of school! This time for josh though. Some friends and I decided to do a Joy school for the kids. There are 6 kids his age 3 boys and 3 girls. He is going to have joy school Tuesdays and Thursdays for the rest of the school year.

I can believe the time has come for my little Josh to start preschool already. He just doesn’t seem age appropriate to me. I keep thinking that he is only two.

That morning he was super excited to go to his friend’s house with his Buzz Lightyear backpack on.

His favorite thing about that day was playing with puzzles. He is really good at putting puzzles together and has mastered all the puzzles at home, so needless to say how excited he was about playing with new puzzles.

I am extremely anxious, in two weeks it will be my turn to teach.

August 18

Andrew took his first steps today. we took a video of it. He was really close. He was walking by holding onto things and all of the sudden while practicing his steps with daddy he figures it out. He is 13 months and three weeks. By far our fastest walker.

August 27

AYSO girl’s soccer season started. Julia was so excited about this season………..no more boys!!!!

Only 5 little, delicate, sweet and very polite girls who wait turn and don’t steal the ball from each other. She had a great start. She has been able to score a couple of goals already. By unanimous decision the team’s name is: team Tinker bells.
She has games every Saturday until the end of October and then it starts again in the spring.

That evening we had a block party. We had such a great time with our neighbors. We had great hamburgers, the best white chocolate cup cakes I’ve ever eaten before and for entertainment we had a bouncy house with a slide. The night was awesome. We live in the nest street ever!

August 30

I regret to inform you all that on Tuesday august 19th at 9:16 in the morning tooth #1 fell off Julia’s mouth. It wasn’t that bad I actually had to take her to the dentist so that he can pull the bad boy out. The tooth was hurting her every time she ate and she wouldn’t let anyone close to it to pull it out. 

At the dentist office the dentist asked her if she would let him take a look at it and in two seconds he had pulled the tooth out of her mouth. He didn’t give her a chance to prepare for the pain or anything.

The dentist gave her a cute little treasure chest to put her tooth into and off we were.

That night she was so excited for the tooth fairy to come over. The tooth fairy husband wanted to be really cheap and live 25 cents under her pillow but after he had a discussion with his wife who nicely explained inflation to him Julia woke up to find this under her pillow