10

My baby turned 10 last week.  Where has the time gone?  

Oh Baby!

Isn't she delicious?!?   We had a nice time with my sister and her precious girls this weekend.  Now it's time for a lazy day....

Oh Happy Day!

So this week we went back to school.  (You already saw the first day pic.)  Mack is in fourth grade, same school.  Ethan is in second grade, new school.  Middle school is looming and the school the kids are zoned for makes my skin crawl.  So since private school tuition isn't in the budget, we thought we'd try to get them into a new charter being built.  As Murphy's Law would have it, Ethan got in.  Mack did not.  I'm not worried about it.  What is supposed to happen will happen.  So we'll start off at the new school with Ethan.  The school is an elemiddle (K-8).  It is a very nice building.  Lots of great potential.  He likes his teacher.  (By the way, he is in a class of all boys.  The school believes that single gender classes are where it's at!)  So all is well....until I had to wait in line to get him the first day for 2 HOURS!!!!  This is about how I felt...

(very unhappy-ready to cry)

This is how most of the other 1,000 parents felt...

(very angry and red in the face)

(at least that's what it seemed like.)  Here's a math equation:

If Ethan gets out of school at 2:30 and he doesn't get into his mom's car until 4:30,  estimate the level of frustration in the car.  

Answer:  It was pretty high.

The following became the standard question from my colleagues at school:

So, how long did it take yesterday?  Was it any shorter?

Unfortunately, I couldn't say that it got incredibly better.  In fact it only got about 15 minutes shorter.  It rained 3 out of the 5 days.  Rain=long lines and confusion.  No bueno....

Until today!  Mack and I did a happy dance in the greyhound when we pulled up and we were close to the driveway of the school.  Oh Happy Day!  It only took 1 hour to get the boy today!  And I felt like this...

(girl running and jumping in a field with rainbows in the sky)

It can only get better folks.  It can only get better.

p.s.-I copied and pasted pics I found on google and they didn't post!  hence, the captions. :(

School!

I love this time of year! New school supplies, new school clothes, new backpacks, but these guys...

don't get quite as excited as their nerd mom.  It has been 8 whole months since I blogged last!  And now that a new school year has started, I might not blog again for another 8 months.  I hope to post more as I am trying to keep a blog for my class as well.  So it's a fresh start!  Happy new school year to all my back to school friends!

7

Ethan turned 7 last week.  We enjoyed the evening together at the park and then had a dinner that he wanted (chicken nuggets and chips) and of course, birthday cake in the shape of a baseball cap.  Since I can't quite get my *#@t together I asked him if he wanted to pick a few friends to take to the movies for his birthday and then we'd get ice cream.  Sure!  So 5 days before the event (*#@t still not together), I sent the invites with Ethan to school so that he could deliver them to his friends (who are not in his class).  Well, upon arriving at his friends' classroom, he saw that they were not there so he gave them to another boy to play mailman and give to them instead.  (Apparently Ethan's *#@t isn't together either.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.)  The "mailman" a.k.a. DeMarco completed 50% of his job.  One invite was delivered and one was not because the other boy ended up being absent from school that day.  So, being the managerial type, Ethan promptly directed his friend DeMarco the mailboy to put it in his friend's cubby.  Sure thing boss!

Let me pause here to say that as I was hearing this story, I felt pretty certain that the movie goers in our party would be:
*Matt
*Kim
*Mackenzie
*Ethan
*and DeMarco
since only one invite had been delivered and it was now 4 days until the party.  At this point Ethan was given strict instructions to: a) make sure boy #1 got the invitation and b) boy #2 pulled the invite out of his cubby that was placed there by mailboy.  Both boys were instructed to have their moms call me.

So 3 days to go until the party.  Both boys had their invites (and it was possible that so did mailboy DeMarco).  No phone calls from moms.... Not sure if it would be a party or a family outing.

2 days to go and we get a phone call from one of the moms.  Matt takes the call and informs me that boy #1 cannot come because he has booked a previous engagement.  (Kids today and their booked up schedules...) BUT... Matt then questions his message taking skills and wonders if the mom said that the boy could or couldn't make it.  ???  Apparently Matt also doesn't have his *#@t together either.  We make quite a pair.  At this point we realize that there is another boy we would like to invite, and we quickly send out an invite to him and his mom lets me know that her son would love to be there. YAY!  A positive, quick response!  It's no longer going to be a family outing, but a birthday movie party!

1 day to go until the party...no more phone calls, no more responses.

Day of the party....boy #1 shows up.  Yay!  Then I get a phone call from the mom who spoke to Matt and she is on her way.  (Mental note: review with Matt that it is important to listen to the person you are speaking with on the phone).  Boy #2 shows up.  Yay!  Mom of boy #2 informs me that boy #3's mom followed her to our house and she should be here any minute.  Yay!  Four 7 year old boys playing in my house (because everybody who knows Ethan knows that he ripped open every one of his presents before his guests even entered our house.)  We ate pizza, and then we headed to the movie theatre to see Tron.  Great movie, by the way.  Afterwards we had just enough time to go through the drive through at McDonalds to get sundaes for everyone.  Voila!  Happy 7th birthday buddy!  And a great time was had by all!

(This was one of 3 pictures I took of our whole time together.  Shocker, I know!)

9 years

My baby turned 9 yesterday.  She's spunky.  She's sweet.  She's mine.  

Li'l Slugger

One of the throwing aids my dad has given him to practice with.

E's baseball bag

His cleats

Notice the name?  Compliments of Pops.

His mitt

Another throwing aid-the whiffle ball

Ethan is playing baseball. He has been playing soccer for the last year and a half. Matt was helping to coach the team. He liked it a little bit, and Matt liked it alot. So this summer while watching the Little League World Series, Ethan told Matt that he wanted to play baseball. This got me a little excited/nervous because his pops LOVES baseball, plays, sleeps and eats baseball. Nervous because all of my horrible/embarassing nightmares memories of playing softball came rushing back to me at full speed. But he should try all kinds of things, including baseball. So we signed him up (at the last minute), and he tried out. The organizer of the league told Matt that it was fine that he didn't have any experience. Oh, by the way, he wouldn't be on a tee ball team. He would be on a coach pitch team. Yikes! (More softball memories...) Any who, we found out that he would be on the Bull Dawgs team and that he would be practicing 5 nights a week. Yep. That's 5. F.I.V.E. and sometimes until 8:30. What did we get ourselves into??

Ethan loves it! And so far, he's come a long way. His coach has the patience of a saint. I like her because she wants them to have fun, but she also wants to teach them all the skills they need. If they interrupt her, then they pay for it by running the field. I heart the discipline!

So all of that background leads us to the following story:

Ethan's team had a scrimmage against another, slightly older team yesterday. Matt went with him, and my dad joined him after the game had started. When it was Ethan's turn to go up to bat for the third time he went to the plate donning his batting gloves and giant batting helmet, and he hit the ball! It took him a second, and then he started running to first base with the prompting of the coaches and everyone in the stands. The infielder threw it to the first baseman, and the ball went over his head. So more yelling ensued to run, and he ran to second. More crazy throwing and he ran to third and then home. Everyone was cheering for him, and as he walked into the dugout, he told the coaches and his teammates, "I believe in myself!" True Ethan style.