Back to school!

So, some sense of normalcy has returned to the house now that school is back in session. The kids are all doing really well. Emily is in 5th grade now (and was quite annoyed that I wanted to take her picture on her first day of school). Matthew has started first grade and so far, so good. Molly is also going to school! She is in a full-day pre-k program that is offered through our district. She gets to ride the bus to school and they even give her breakfast and lunch! She's loving it.

Here's a picture of her with her new teacher, Mr. D!

Molly really likes Mr. D. She talks about him and the aide in the class, Mrs. Lezzi, all the time. She actually thinks that Mr. D and Mrs. Lezzi are married. Trent and I tried to tell her several times that if they were married, she would probably be Mrs. D, not Mrs. Lezzi. Molly insisted. She knew that they were married because Mrs. Lezzi calls him "sweetie" and "honey" and even gave him a kiss on the cheek!

Well, back to school night was last week and we finally got to meet Mrs. Lezzi. Let's just say that the familial relationship Molly should have thought of was mother-son. Mrs. Lezzi is a sweet, little ol' Italian lady who is probably old enough to be Mr. D's mom! We got a good laugh out of that one.

Matthew....

Matthew continues to crack us up at regular intervals. Last week, he had a rough day at school and got a red card. A red card is a lot like a red light - it means "stop" and signals that we aren't using our best behavior. So, he had the red card and had to sit in the "thinking chair" and didn't have time left in free play time to get to the dinosaurs. He was not a happy camper and his teacher told us that he was pretty weepy and clingy.

So, the next morning, we talked about it. I asked him why he had such a hard time with his behavior the day before. Straight-faced, my boy told me that someone stole his angel, so he had to listen to the devil instead. the boy still thinks that he has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other! LOL Gotta love kids!

We spent some time landscaping this weekend. We had to replace the floor of the porch last summer and had to take out some of the shrubs when we did that. We weren't quite sure what else we wanted to put in so we waited until this year to figure it out. Here are some before pictures:

We spent all weekend working on it - from cleaning out the extra weeds, to planting, to mulching...and we still aren't done! We got some window boxes and hangers to place extra flowers on the porch that haven't gotten finished yet. But, we're getting there! See...

Here's the new holly bush on the right hand side of the house:

And here is the front view, before the mulch went in...

More to come later!

The joys of children...

My friends' daughter turned 1 last week. Trent had to work a prom so I took the kids by myself. All was going well (if you don't count Matthew trying to get a Smirnoff drink from the cooler because it looked like water! Thank goodness for other moms!) until after the gifts were open. My children decided to play with the baby's new ball and proceeded to fight over it. What you see below is the result of Molly tackling Matthew to get the ball and my intervention! Gotta love kids!

My favorite Mother's Day card...

Last year, Emily gave me a hand made card with this poem written on the inside. It is my favorite. All of the misspellings are hers. It was hard not to correct them but I resisted the urge since they add to the adorableness of the whole thing.

Mom the best one
Outgoing with your conversation on the phone
Thoughtful you get us stuff
Helpful with my homework
Entelegant you are very smart
Reperdouce you help make people
Super you rock!

Delightful you'r almost never grumpy
Almost always nice
Young your only 31

That is your special mother's day poem. Love, Emily
age 9, 3rd Grade

Birthday palooza!

The six days between May 7 and May 13 are some of the longest, craziest, hectic, bad days of the year. They are the worst 6 days every year since about 2004, when Matthew started realizing what his birthday was and what it meant. You see, Emily's birthday is May 7, Trent's birthday is May 8, Mother's day almost always falls right after their birthdays, and Matthew's birthday is May 13. Plus, it is prom season which means that most Friday and Saturday nights in May Trent is out until real late, photographing couples for local high school proms. And he also usually schedules himself to be out at one of the local high schools during this week to start photographing the rising seniors to get a jump on next year. Now, keep in mind that this is all good stuff but having it come all at once can be a little taxing!!

So, rather than trying to get the house looking presentable enough to have family over for birthday dinners during the week, Trent and I decided that we would celebrate Emily and Matthew's birthday on the Saturday in between. Matthew had a t-ball game this morning and Trent has a prom tonight so we decided to do a lunch barbecue. Matthew requested a "Mike Wazowski" (the little green monster from Monster's, Inc. I am sure that I spelled that wrong!) cake and Emily wanted a cake with the number 10 on it. Pictures follow:

Emily and Grandpa...

Matthew and Uncle Eric with the new Boston Red Sox hat Aunt Stacey and Uncle Eric gave him. Matthew always wears his Yankees hat to their house to annoy Uncle Eric, who is a big Red Sox fan! Now we can annoy Grandpa Jim with the Red Sox hat (he's the Yankee fan!)

The "Mike" cake...

Emily turned 10 this year. Trent is old enough to have a 10-year-old daughter; I am most definitely NOT! She wanted a cake that marked her transition into double-digits! :-)

And who could forget Molly Moose! She is the only one who doesn't have a special event during this period in May and she handles it like a little trooper! I think she was just excited to get cake!

Play ball!

We signed Matthew up for T Ball. He just had his first practice. He was so excited that I thought he was going to burst! Here he is getting ready to take his instructions:

The cutest part was every time his coach called the kids together, Matthew would reply, "You got it, coach!" And his friends Jade and Kyle are on his team. He was one happy kid at the end of practice!

Here he is fielding:

and running the bases...

and, last but not least, batting!

Is it over yet?

Today was the first day of spring break for Emily and Matthew and I have just one thing to say - is it over yet?????????

In my infinite wisdom, I decided to take this week off and keep Molly home from day care so we could spend some quality time together. Tell me, what was I thinking? Is it really a good idea to put three excited kids who lost all of their ability to get along and control their impulses together under one roof and let them loose on their poor mother? I don't think so. I now know why I work. I don't need the money as much as I need the sanity!

Of course, tomorrow won't be much better. Not only do they all know that they are going to Stacey's house on Wednesday (and they can hardly wait!) but they also know that we will be watching my nephew tomorrow night (and they can hardly wait!) and we are hoping to get to the museum and the library this week (and they can hardly wait - do you sense a theme here?!?) Keep your fingers crossed for me - I need it!!

Who do you listen to?

Tonight Trent and I were talking about the current news of the day when he mentioned the cigarette tax passed here in New York. In response, Matthew announced that he hoped that he wouldn't be a smoker when he grew up. Trent told him that he was in control of that and Mommy told him that I would kick his butt if I ever caught him smoking!

Matthew then told us that he would listen to his angel and not smoke. When we asked what he meant, he told us that he has an angel on his right shoulder that tells him to do good stuff and a devil on his left shoulder that tells him to do bad stuff! It was too cute! Of course, it made me think that they are watching too many old Looney Toons cartoons on Cartoon Network!!

My boy...

Are we there yet?

Trent and Molly have this little game. Every time we are in the car, he calls back to her, "Molly, are we there yet?" She always responds "no" only to have him ask again two seconds later. It is pretty funny. Of course, it makes Matthew feel left out. Trent made the mistake of asking him if we were there yet with Molly in the car and she got quite angry: "That's my joke, daddy!" So, now we have "are we there yet?" for Molly and "where are we going?" for Matthew. Luckily Emily doesn't have a complex about it all so we can limit it to just two questions!

My first blog...

I thought I would get with the times and start a blog. We'll see how long it lasts. :-)

We had one of those weekends that you need a weekend to recover from. My mother-in-law had surgery on Thursday (she's doing fine now) so Trent has been hanging out at the hospital. This means I have essentially been a single mom since Thursday. A single mom with a cranky four year old with a head cold, a hyper 5 year old with a stomach bug Saturday, and an attitudy nine year old with an attitude because she can't go to the hospital to see grandma! Fun times in our house!!!